It seems like the Canadians have put a lot of thought and effort into this, and critically they seem to have the money to give it a go. On that basis- crack on.

Obviously, aiming at lower leagues level is the only sensible thing, what a pointless suggestion to think of plonking them into SL.

It would be great for the profile and publicity for the sport, and surely a fantastic opportunity and experience for our Championship players, which would add value and glamour to playing at that level.

Sure there are several things to consider, but nothing insurmountable. People are harping on about travel distance, players time off work etc as if it hadn't occurred to anyone in Canada, or the RFL, ffs. It's one of those instances where if in principle we think the Canadians plan has a fair chance of working, then we just need to go with a can-do attitude. You could sit here all day whingeing on about all the potential problems and pitfalls, or you could just seize the day and say yeh, we'll give that a go.

Seizing the day would be putting in place a clear strong pathway to SL over the next 5-10 years, spending this training, coaching, scouting and developing 13/14/15/16 year olds, putting a youth team in to the SL academy (which gets crowds not hugely lower than League 1)

The idea that the issues like travel distance, players time off work etc are problems show exactly why it shouldn't be done. Those aren't issues for a professional competition, they aren't issues for competitions which can function across continents.

The idea that semi-pro players either can or should be travelling on 8 hour flights, to a different time zone, and be there and back in 2 or 3 days is not only a recipe for injury, its a recipe for an awful standard of rugby league.

This isn't a can-do attitude, its a f@ck it, its only league 1, no one cares attitude

If the rfl and champ 1 clubs and players are happy with this then like the Aardvark says,crack on.
The problem im having understanding how this can work is,how do semi pro Canadian RL players get 3 or 4 months off work to play half a season over here before going home and entertaining all the other clubs?

Nonsense. The time difference is only around 5 hours. The flight over is actually the equivalent of a bloody good lie in until lunchtime.

"Recipe for injury"? Melodramatic nonsense.


That's a very weird statement. If there is some sense or point in it, it escapes me.

Exactly. Find me a rugby league player, at any level who wouldn't take three days annual leave to play in Canada and I will show you a liar.

Yeah great, marvelous, smashing!

Transatlantic third grade/tier rugby!

C'mon! Get a grip!

If the Canadians are funding it then what's the downside?
What relevance does it being third division rugby have?

This is one I'm not even going to debate, Him. You are actually one of those on here I expect to be talking sense!

I like the idea but can't see it being sustainable if they're in League One. They'll need to get good and fast - competing in the Championship then Super League asap.

The West Australian RL fly their under 18s side 4000 klm to play in the Sydney based SG Ball competition, and half their parents travel just to watch their kids play.

I have my weaker moments

I think it's fantastic, but would be better starting in Champs. League 1 is really pretty poor in terms of standards on and off the pitch. Take away the central funding and the southern clubs are basically amateur set ups, and not particularly strong ones at that.

Are you guys for real I think i've seen it all now lol

You haven't; for one thing, you've never seen a grammar or punctuation class