thats fine.

But oddly it was more fans of the Fax's, Leigh's and Dewsbury's who were vehemently against a structure where those smaller clubs played each other and other clubs elsewhere were the place the newer clubs from bigger cities would join.

It was far more the fans of the Leigh's, Fax's and Dewsburys who demanded that a club like Toronto go through their leagues.

Fully agreed Wildthing, it's very brave of Halifax1989 to do so !

I did brace myself!

.

Adapt or die.

Yep. And what many people appear to forget is that we almost did die thanks to our backward, short-termist attitudes.
We're still recovering from that period in our sports history.
Sadly I still regularly see those same attitudes at all levels of RL.

or



?

Tough choice.

The pictures say it all.

If you want to start something good, don't waste time with old ideas. Go to new places, with different thinking/perspectives, start winning and attracting winners and then bring it home. Moving at the pace of the old Clubs / towns which have lost their meaning is a sure way to die.

What better for our boys to aspire to. Overseas games - new culture. Stuck in the mud - no way, Jose.

As a small positive, how great for opposing players to get to travel to Canada? If I were a part time player I'd jump at the chance.

But but but how will they get the time off work?!?! They have families dammit!!

Which is the reason we need to grow. We can no longer depend on part-time players but obtain the financial backing for 20+ full-time teams. Which is why I ask about the bigger settlements. Getting into Manchester or Birmingham is a catch-22 issue: we need the interest/support for a local team and the local successful team at the same time!
Some experiments I'd walk away from (e.g. mid-Lancashire/Chorley/etc.). Oxford and Coventry (and Gloucester as well) need nurturing.

Agree with this. I think Birmingham would be a struggle especially as we have little to no presence there. I think we should target Manchester and Newcastle using Salford and Newcastle(Gateshead) Thunder as the basis to start from. I'd like to see internationals held in both those cities with lots of RFL promotion tied in to try and get people to both give RL a try at amateur level and to go down to either Salford or Newcastle. And then do that consistently along with other things like Magic Weekend obviously, the RFL to promote big games for these teams in the cities a couple of times a year etc. But crucially we can't just do it once or twice and then just hope. It has to be consistent investment of time and effort into the areas.

Not wishing to be too pedantic but, there is already 1 major event in Manchester every year and magic weekend is on it's second year in Newcastle (both should be helpful in generating some local interest.
A lot of this is down to the quality of marketing and exposure that are given to the events and perhaps this is the area that needs to improve to give the sport a helping hand.