Is that so?

Bit closer.

out of interest how being stronger in teh heartlands amke any difference to the success or failure of an expansion area club? Unless you are suggesting heartland clubs get less money and teh expansion club gets more of the TV grant?

At the end of the day it comes down to the criteria and more emphasis being put on the financial plan and the long term sustainability model. At times the RFL look desperate to expand and so take promises on face value.

Toulouse fair enough but Lyon and Mille?

Mille may have been a treiziste stronghold at one time but right now it is anything but. From memory, they tried to run a Elite club a year or two ago but folded.

Lyon, to my knowledge, doesn't even have a distant treiziste pedegree or even much pretence of an Elite club.

Plonking a club in SL doesn't work, as we have seen with PSG, Gateshead and now Crusaders. I think the way to go in expansion areas is to start teams in Championship1 etc, and let them get to SL the same way teams from the heartlands have to and score them on the same criteria. Don't make clubs walk before they can run.

We also need to continue with the grassroots work. Get development officers into new locations, get it playing in schools and junior clubs set up. Have the RFL produce a cheap magazine/free dvd for school kids and get the great game known to them! There doesn't have to be a professional club in the area for kids to play the game. North Yorkshire don't have a decent football club to speak of, but there are still 1000's of people playing football every week.

In these areas, get SL to link up with amateur clubs. For instance, Hull FC with junior/open age sides clubs in the North East, Hull KR some clubs in Lincolnshire etc etc. The SL could provide the odd training session and equipment, and in return they could get the pick of any emerging talent.

carcassone, veillenevue etc

What have either club got to do with Mille or Lyon?

It's like justifying a team in Birmingham by bringing up Fev.

You've gone up to a whole new level of irrelevance there

i just like talking about the heartlands.

Of course they are. They know the game needs a much bigger geographic footprint if it's going to have the national resonance it needs. It would be much easier if potential investors were knocking on their door, but that's not how it is for small-time sports.

But is that necessarily the case? The Premier League copes ok with only one Yorkshire outpost side, one in the North East, a whole bunch within 30 miles of each other in the North West, three Midlands clubs and the rest in London?

The RFL are currently running at a profit, and I don't think that profit can be credited to the current expansion policy in any way, shape or form.

Travel 20 minutes of the 'heartlands' and it's like RL doesn't exist, so it's no point plonking a club four hours away in what is supposed to be our elite league when there is nowt in between.

You've got to be joking about the last 2. They're not rugby league heartland areas in the slightest. 2 huge cities 2nd and 3rd biggest in France and can't support an elite 1 club between them. There are heartland areas in France but most are small places like Lezignan aside from the obvious of Perpignan and the borderline case of Toulouse

I feel sorry for Crusaders - they seemed to have a decent setup going prior to coming into Super League. It was always going to be tough for them attracting sufficient sponsorship and support, but the fact that their promotion to Super League coincided with general financial meltdown has really done for them, I think.

I can't see any logic behind the move to Wrexham and can only imagine it's a last grasp for survival rather than any kind of strategy.

Clearly your knowledge doesn't add up to much.

Your comments re- Lyon are plain wrong.

Your comments re- Mille reflect your ignorance.