The success of the Catalan dragons proves the value of mergers.

It’s time we considered this in the north.

Haliford Bullfax seems a good first step

Come on then, what teams should merge? This will be a laugh

Whilst a great achievement let’s not carried away. They still need to follow it with consistent on field showings. Wasn’t long since they were stone dead last and playing away in a MPG. Catalans, Leeds, Warrington,Salford are all examples how fortunes can fluctuate easily in 12 months. Sheffield Eagles won the last big ‘romanticised’ underdog final and what happened there.

A trophy win is great but it’s only one step that can easily go backwards if they don’t follow it up next season.

Halifax & Huddersfield is viable for a Super League spot. Play out of the Shay. Both teams need more fans

Halifax & Huddersfield is viable for a Super League spot. Play out of the Shay. Both teams need more fans

The direct comparison is more Wests Tigers and St George-Illiwara in the NRL.

Not sure they’d ever really work in this country? For a start, you need two equal sized clubs, not one taking over another as in the past, and let’s be honest, we’re a little bit insular in the UK. Salford can’t get fans two miles further up the road, never mind to another city to watch home games.

I suppose it depends on what you want the league structure to be.

A Super League centric model where everything outside is irrelevant, or a well financed model where clubs can move between divisions based on how well they’re run instead of the dropping off a cliff edge we have now.

RL (and a healthy Super League) needs a well financed grassroots system. Not artificial creations and more short term experiments that are ended before they’ve even been given a chance to run.

Oh, and probably the direct comparison to Catalans would be Workington, Whitehaven and maybe Barrow creating a Cumbrian franchise.

They’d need to rotate home games between the three towns. It’d be useless having one home stadium that the other two have to travel to (or all three if it was in Carlisle)

Are you being KevJean for a day?

Absolutely, can I suggest Huddersfield and Sheffield and of course Hull FC and Newcastle.

Leigh have been merged with Toronto for 3 years already !

Huddersfield don’t merge. They take over to avoid relegation

Regards

King James

If two clubs merge, and play at the ground of one of the clubs, then the other club dies. That's reality.

For instance, if all the clubs in West Yorkshire merged and played at Headingley, it wouldn't be long before they became known as the Yorkshire Rhino's, shortly followed by being called the Leeds Rhino's (I'm not picking on Leeds here, just an example). A quick way of killing off a lot of traditional clubs, and decimating the (already small) numbers that do turn out week in week out to support their team.

FFS, just invest in what we've got and spend some of the millions in Sky money we have in attracting and developing our own home grown players. Properly run academy and reserve leagues would be a great start.

Is anyone actually pro teams been merged?

Well there is Jean and Kevin and Joff... so that’s one for a start.