Then what's the fuss about joining the leagues here about?

They need to start a junior development system in their own countries where they have development officers and coaches going round the towns organising the game in schools and taking that on to junior and amateur level locally.

Perez was told to develop players at TWP so he had a bit of a go with grid iron lads, quickly packed that in and conveniently forgot about development and bought Leigh's players on their relegation. The evidence is these clubs talk about development to try to blag their way in. They get blocked because SL know they aren't serious or capable of it and will end up chasing English players.

Truth is only the M62 has a sizeable established player development system in the Northern Hemisphere, that hardly supplies our own game. To have 12 professional clubs we have to import going on for 100 Antipodeans. It's not that I detest people south of Doncaster and north of Newcastle, I can just see the realities of the situation.

I don't think a certain "foreign" club had a better chance of developing players when they set up just south of the M62. Led by a great RL administrator and innovator this club attracted a lot of admiration, especially when they went all the way to Superleague and then blew the mighty Wigan away to win the cup.

If that club failed to develop any players in their 36 year history what chance do all these other clubs above have?

The reason that Nrl clubs take their games away is because those towns offer financial incentives. If English clubs were forward thinking they might see that these opportunities could be out there.

Yes, because they are awash with surplus cash.

So, are we happy to try and help France grow their game ?

Absolutely not if any time or effort expended is at the expense of the game here.

For instance Toulouse and Catalans in SL means two English clubs NOT in SL.

For instance you send 2 development offices to France all expenses paid, these lads could have gone to Newcastle instead or Cumbria.

How do you justify sending any resources when Les Catalans have virtually abandoned development?

Even in the heartlands we struggle as badly as the French, so why forget those clubs and those amateur and schools leagues and go help the French game?

Cumbria = tried and failed
Newcastle = tried and failed
Nottingham = tried and failed
Sheffield = tried and failed

the "heartlands" are dead.

The question raised by the op was "how" we help the French game and not "whether" we should help them.
Cumbria is part of the hotbed of RL. However, due to all those hills and lakes, a Cumbrian super club, which has been muted so many times, is never going to happen.
However, Barrow used to be a top flight and Whitehaen possibly should've been given a go in SL but, the ships have now sailed.
You use a decent analogy about sinking ships and looking after ourselves first. However, it IS possible to do both things here and they could be mutually beneficial.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, why on earth were Toulouse not promoted along with Toronto at the last re structure and move to a 14 club top flight - this still remains a huge opportunity missed and it could have given the French game a huge boost - alas, we shall never know what could have been.
Certainly as far as TV is concerned, they could have alternated between the 2 clubs, depending who was at home AND helped broaden the appeal of the game, both in France and to the wider world and THE most disappointing aspect of this would be that, either Super League didn't think the product was strong enough to hold out their hand and ask for "more" or, that they did ask but, were rejected by Sky - neither scenario is a good one.

1.All questions end up with the debate widening things out a bit and I think we should consider "whether" we should help the French, you don't have to reply to that. I think West Cumbria is a pale shadow of it's former self and for me the sad thing is how the junior game there has shrunk so much. Last I looked the age groups had to double up to make up leagues and the content of each league was but a handful of teams. Not sure how many Cumbrians now play pro. a few years back I could count a dozen good 'uns. Donaldson and Lunt seem almost like the last two. For me the game is "West Cumbria" and always has been and it was built on an Industrial base like West Yorkshire. Steel and coal. Not Holiday cottages.

2. The reason "Why" was that Les Catalans were not wanted by Superleague in 2006, but the then RFL CEO Richard Lewis was determined to do two things:-

a. Help the French International side catch up with GB. NZ and Australia ......Now how did that go? The French were slaughtered in the first test, then slaughtered every year to the point the game lost test status, then slaughtered so much the game ended up not been played anymore....

b. Help SL expand to new places like France, Wales and the south of England to get more new players and more TV money into RL. Now how did that go? Wales collapsed, London have simply hung on, and Les Catalans can't get a TV deal and can't develop French SL players any more. When Catalans started the team had nine first choice Frenchmenn now that's down to only two.

In short my good friend it's all been tried and tried since 2006 to expand the game beyond the M62 and never mind not knowing "what could have been" we know now it doesn't work, and it's all failed so we are now left with trying to keep the M62 alive and you don't do that putting Toulouse, Whitehaven or Toronto in Superleague? You don't respond to a drop in quality players by making the game 14 clubs? last time we had 14 London, Bradford and Wakefield collapsed..........

MATE - we are all cracked records on here don't worry about it!!

There is certainly an irony in hoping that new foreign teams will help improve the game here.

It's astonishing how for three years a group of people think that shipping English players abroad to make up a team in Perpignan or Toronto somehow expands the game and brings us riches? What their brains completely miss is that for Catalans to go up Widnes had to go down. For TWP to come up London had to go down. You could not blame either club if they just shut their academies. Why the heck should they continue to try do develop SL players in such circumstances? The answer lies in the longer game. This TV contract unfortunately allows access to Superleague on "merit" and not on any sensible "planning", thus TWP and Les Cats can survive merely on buying in players from here.

The next TV contract will remove the influence of the RFL on Superleague's make up and leave that decision to Superleague. Already we hear that Bradford, Widnes, London Leigh and Newcastle are chomping at the bit for a 2022 SL place. In contrast the reserves league appears to have swallowed up all the spare English and Aussie playing talent such that poor old Toronto and Catalans are struggling to recruit......what a mean but delicious trick to play!!

Meaning Ottawa, New York Toulouse and Timbuktoo have gone very quiet. "Helping the French" is a ridiculous notion. Currently we are helping ourselves to repel predatory overseas clubs who really should concentrate on building their own game not on destroying ours.

Irony is, that under ''planning'' imo Toronto and Catalans would be two of the first teams chosen. In that scenario I would worry about Cas, Wakefield and Salford.

Any plan has to underpin the two things that SL have been very clear about for years, and the RFL cannot disagree with, that clubs need to underpin a TV deal and develop players.

Toronto and Les Catalans do neither. Workington Town and West Wales would meet these criteria better? Please explain?

IF there could ever be a strong French national side, it would help our national side, by giving them some "local" opposition to face - mind you, with the form of Great Britain on tour, it may be us dripping to their standard instead.
The ideal situation would be for there to be sufficient players in France, no doubt topped up with a few Aussies, for them to have an equivalent to SL but, that is possibly more far fetched than some of the expansion dreamers on here - as I said "an ideal".

As things stand, Catalan, much as they give decent value to the comp and allow a summer break to the south of France, are never going to produce enough players to make French international rugby any kind of major force.

Should we abandon ship and accept that RL is just an M62 sport - would this really be good for the sport ?

It could be argued that SL, including say London and Leigh or Fev, may be a decent competition and maybe, we should forget any kind of expansion, other than any "natural" growth but, I really dont think that this would help improve any TV deal, in fact, it could nail the coffin lid down and we could then be left with a semi pro sport, devoid of any national profile.

For me, it's expand or die, although, a transatlantic league just isn't the right move.