Donners, He's a WUM. It's his job on here to get reactions. What he suggests above is an obviously preposterous idea isn't it?

Well the Mods on here require respect, so I took the opportunity to politely reply that Jean's idea was IMO preposterous, but the Gentleman is not alone, you can find people across the game including a number of RL journalists who should know better, talking about the explosion of Rugby League. What are us mere fans to think when we are fed a published diet of Trans-atlantic and Pan-European expansion stories?

I can accept we maybe need to talk the game up as big as we can to outsiders (or do we?) but on places like this these fantasies do warrant a challenge because people start to believe it.

The game is expanding rapidly.
20 years ago it was played in 5 countries.
It is now played in 45 countries.
You can't make it a major sport overnight in new markets, but we have our foot in the door.
I don't know what you would call successful expansion, but I've followed the international game pretty closely since the 2000 WC, and it's expanded beyond my wildest dreams.
The difference between Union fans and League fans is that Union fans have turned their game into a big deal by outrageously talking up the success of their code, and people brought into it and the code has thrived. League fans talk down the code as much as they can for some perverse reason.

Toronto is a wildly successful expansion story. It's bizarre that people are slitting their wrists over all the negatives they can dream up. In all honesty, if Toronto never win a game again and disappear completely in 2021, the worst case scenario, they will still have been a brilliant success story for the game, just for the column inches they have generated for the game.

Jean, I fear that you really haven't thought this through at all.
Unless you are advocating SL 1 & 2, whereby SL 2 is actually the Championship by another name, this is too daft to actually register.
Where on earth are the players going to come from to fulfil your dream of a Transatlantic League ?? and on what basis are you picking the clubs ?
This is more fantasy than your usual "vivid" dreams, I'm actually a little bit worried for you.

No he is not. You have no answer to the proposal so you just abuse the messenger.

This is exactly what Donald Trump and his supporters do.

That should read "No i'm not" Have you forgot who you signed in as? proposal is nothing but fantasy old bean.

And leave politics and Trump out of it, you are going off topic, and derailing the thread.

Thank you very much for replying.

The only measures of expansion I have used is Mr. Perez's on record avowed intention at TWP to expand the player base of the game and expand the take from TV rights. Recently after TWP gained promotion to Superleague, Mr. Mcdermott talked candidly about how the club isn't going to be developing any pro-players in the near future, and how despite SL entry there is no North American TV deal to put into the pot here. Mr. Perez's attempt at expansion failed on his own criteria and cost Mr. Argylle £5M. I however take your point entirely we can look at it on other criteria and of course you are right, the publicity thing has to be good for the game.

For Rugby League historically we were the big deal going professional in 1896 whilst Rugby Union stayed amateur. All our money went on wages and all the Union money went into the infrastructure of clubhouses and grounds. Only the northern clubs went pro- elsewhere Union grew the schools, amateur grass roots and facilities geographically, so when they went professional in 1996 we nearly died. We must remember that the TV deal saved us and to sustain that deal we need such as Les Catalans, Toulouse and Toronto to also get TV deals and produce quality players to play in front of the cameras to keep that life saving deal going.

A world cup needs to be a special event and in RL we really need to give some more though on how to get the best out of the international program.
The 4 nations was a great idea but, even that was being played too frequently.

The emergence of Tonga as a "top tier" international side should give some additional options and it's important that we try and make the most of their new lofty status.
Could more be done to help France improve as a national side - the inclusion of Toulouse in SL would have been a sensible step forward but, it was another chance missed.
The real difficulty is having any kind of local competition for England.

Australia can always have games with NZ (and Tonga) and of course their top players are already battle hardened in the SOO, which leaves England having to arrange annual fixtures with NZ, Aus or Tonga, just to keep them "ready".

Why?
Genuine question by the way.
SL can't support the 12 it has currently and the NRL has 1 of 16 not making a loss.
You fanning the flames of the misguided fools who think League is anything other than a minor sport and those who think that all it takes is one person to watch a game and they will be hooked for life is just inane trolling.
Tonga are a team if ANZACs and Toronto a rich mans team of mercenaries who play in toronto for 4 months of the year..... They are neither proof of the games growth or potential, but they do paper over the cracks in the administration of the game.
Toronto replacing london will see attendances rise in 2020 and no doubt rimmer et al will pat themselves on the back, but SKY arent as gullible as you and the rest...... Its what they pay for the rights which will dictate the direction the sport takes, not aussie trolls in the shire

Thought the delay to the World Cup draw was to reconsider the format, but except for a commitment to have a Pacific and a European team in each group they don't seem to have changed much.

Think its a mistake to split England, Australia, NZ and Tonga up as they will now have an easy run to the Quarters and we'll have less big group games. Preferred the format where there was two groups of big teams but more teams went through and two groups of smaller teams but only the winners made it.

The RFL has to demand of future SL clubs that one of the criteria for entering Super League must be having a junior structure. If that happens we will soon have lots of new talent from France and north America playing in Super League within 5-10 years. At that point nobody will be asking the questionclubs will have a local player base (augmented by NRL and SL talent) so will the rugby league playing nations of France, Canada and the USA.

We then might have a World Cup lineup ofAustralia
New Zealand
Papua-New Guinea
Fiji
Tonga
Samoa

England
Scotland
Ireland
Wales

France

Canada
USA

Lebanon
Greece
Italy[/i

Oh Jean - where on earth are your dream clubs going to get their juniors from.
The hole that you have started digging with your fantasy sides is starting to get a little deeper or, are you waiting for the pro players to create their own jean pool of talent and then use their off spring to form a junior side in 15 years time.

It doesn't have to be special.
It could be our entire international programme if we held it more often.
Just WC qualifiers, WC games, and some one off "friendlies". We don't need to try to develop some other meaningful comp to fill in the empty years - just bring on the one that works for us more frequently. The 4 year cycle works for other codes, but that doesn't mean it's the only thing that could ever work.

I'll stop you there.
The RFL USED to control SL and when under the licencing era, there were criteria that had to be met, many many clubs did not meet them. These clubs were not ejected from the superleague and a few years later, the chairpeople of these same clubs wrestled control of the top tier away from the RFL.
To be clear. The RFL have very little say (if any) on who can play in Superleague.

As for the rest of your insane ramblings, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga are jam-packed with ANZAC heritage players, because there's little pathway in those island nations, due to their domestic comps being shambolic and terribly run. Ireland have a pub league, Scotland not even that. USA and Canada without their heritage players would be trounced by the Wellington Orcas Rep side, France's own domestic comp is heavily populated with ANZAC players, as is their SL side. Italy, Greece and Lebanon would again all rely on ANZACS and as for the local comp in PNG, it is slightly better run than those in the pacific Islands, but their best players are again heritage ANZACS or playing in the NRL 2nd tier.

What the powers that be have decided to do is give the illusion that Rugby League is a global game, when in reality, at the forthcoming world cup there will be England, NZ, Australia, PNG and France + 11 sides packed with players born in either England, NZ or Australia and all but a handful of squad players will come from one of two full time professional comps on the planet....sorry, that should say from THE ONLY 2 FULL TIME PRO COMPS.

Outside of the NRL & SL, League is basically run as an amateur/Semi-Pro sport with boot payments and the occasional overseas star on a full time contract.
The USA (RANKED #1icon_cool.gif has 11 sides along the eastern seaboard, all of whom are of a pub standard. Canada(#27) fairs slightly better with 20 pub sides across 3 comps. Ireland (#12) has 12 sides again of a pub standard but still one for each ranking place, whilst Scotland has 4 pub teams and are considered the 9th best RL nation.....


...so, back to your imaginary 20 team SL. If the USA sides in the cities you have named are to be in any way able to compete against the likes of St Helens or Wigan, will they (a) Pick players from the Jacksonville Axemen or the Brooklyn Kings, or, will the pillage the M62 corridor and the 2 eastern states of Australia for their players?
I ask this as a genuine question and would prefer a genuine answer, based on reality, not "what if's" or "if only's".....and remember, Perez the Genius as you refer to him has already trawled the USA looking for RL players and found NOT 1!

I see what you did there.....very clever (if you meant it)