I think its time for the entire rugby league nation to push for it now. Its as plain as day and staring us right in the face, but no one has the balls to push it through. A draw against England last year, a very good effort today and in the nines shows they are competitive. The talent base is huge and I would be sure they would need a maximum of 5 oversees to help start them rolling. I suppose stadia would be an issue, but coulnt they use Carlisle`s Bruntun Park untill they could plan a new one. Attendances would be in the 5-6k by my reckoning.
Maybe Worky,Haven and Barrow fans would feel against, but in all honestly an app by there own respective clubs would fall short, but they could still operate,acting as feeder (hate that word!) to the S.L team.
What are your thoughts guys.

Barrows not in Cumbria is it? And far too far away from Whitehaven and Workington.

Big enough place to support an enormous RL team if they get their act together.

On the Cumbria thing, part of me agrees that if the county came together there is a chance they could pull in the crowds they get when Cumbria play rep games.

But I actually believe that you could end up with Cumbria playing at Whitehaven with some Whitehaven and very few Workington fans watching and all you end up with is one less club in Cumbria, no bigger than either of the current two.

There's one thing that could make this work-money.

We just need to get behind one Cumbrian team and work from they really. Maybe we could have an 'adopt a second team' kind of thing where rugby fans from all over the world choose to get behind either Whitehaven, Barrow or Workington.

Workington for me than, plus they were rather unfortunate in 95 when they were in S.L

The fact that all three Cumbrian teams are now in Championship 1 doesn't really lend much weight to your argument. Not everywhere needs Super League. Cumbria is fine as it is.

I don't think a merger would work. Between the 3 clubs there is combined total of over 260 years of history, this is not something you can erase and replace overnight with some artificial entity.

I think the best they can hope for is to be strong Championship teams, nothing more. Most players in Aus come from regional areas of the country, doesn't mean they have teams in the NRL though.

There were only 1,200 people there today. For an international game!

You reckon ? Ten years ago the West Cumbria youth leagues were thriving with at least a dozen teams at each age group. This year - U12's had a 5 team league, U14's had a 4 team league, U16's had a 4 team league. Its dying up here. Slowly, but its happening.

Crumbria didn't have Super League ten years ago though either. Crowds seem to be down too which is a worry, but that's not a reason for putting a team into a higher division, in fact it's the opposite. As another poster said, the best Cumbrian clubs can probably hope for is to be strong Championship sides, that's what I was getting at. Obviously they should have help with junior development etc, as should all clubs.

Why , Derwent ?

Quote: Starbug "Why , Derwent ?'" Well no doubt there are other reasons, and the malaise of the local pro clubs doesn't help, but the current RFL policy seems to be to concentrate on 'elite' players rather than to get mass participation. There is very little development going on at U8-U11 level and the mini-mod schools tournaments have stopped. The development officers are not making many friends with the amateur clubs. In fact, the RFL recently announced this new strategy... www.northwestrugbyleague.co.uk/a ... nched.html Not one local amateur club was consulted and I can tell you they're all dead against it, as all of the resources are going to go into an elite few rather than being used to make the game healthier overall. There's a feeling that they're just going to cream off the top talent into this programme and just not bother with the rest.

Quote: Starbug "Why , Derwent ?'" Well no doubt there are other reasons, and the malaise of the local pro clubs doesn't help, but the current RFL policy seems to be to concentrate on 'elite' players rather than to get mass participation. There is very little development going on at U8-U11 level and the mini-mod schools tournaments have stopped. The development officers are not making many friends with the amateur clubs. In fact, the RFL recently announced this new strategy... www.northwestrugbyleague.co.uk/a ... nched.html Not one local amateur club was consulted and I can tell you they're all dead against it, as all of the resources are going to go into an elite few rather than being used to make the game healthier overall. There's a feeling that they're just going to cream off the top talent into this programme and just not bother with the rest.

If a Cumbria team was in Super League would it full of players from Cumbria. me thinks not.

So what?.

I'd like to see it happen but the clubs are not close enough

The clubs would never ' merge ' , so the only way would be if one club managed to achieve all that was needed on it's own , it is unlikely