They can have average Westerman, Jamie Acton has re-signed for us.....

I used to follow the ice hockey early 90s and if I remember right it was 3 imports rule? It then went to 5 and it was a better spectacle as these mostly Canadian imports were superior to the local lads for obvious reasons.its increased over the years to I think 11 imports and the wealthier franchises had 12/13 imports and stood down 2 each week.Became sterile and the imports blocked off British lads pathways.Rules were changed so the roster had to have so many UK players in it but the teams then signed up youngsters on pittances and put them on the bench and used them to sit out penalties. It's a little similar to our game and I'd like to see Canadian players playing alongside real quality imports same with Catalans .Westerman is a quality player in his prime but there are a lot of UK plodders over there and bearing in mind grid iron and ice hockey are massive over there I'd suggest there will be far better Canadian atheletes who could do the job?

That great "dispensation salary cap" that you've just made up.

he means total, bit weird to think in this day and age, 3 moves, 3 big transfer fees paid.

I doubt anyone else has moved clubs for a fee three times

Here's a conversation for you - "paul, I want to get Toronto in the Superleague in 5 years" "ok, in Championship 1 I need Championship players to win it. In the championship, I need super league players to win it. If thats the case, I'll get you into Super league in 3"

Not sure why people have an issue. If I had a business and had the chance to be multinational in 3 years, I wouldn't P**s around in the markets of Barrow selling socks for a pound, thinking of what could have been. Toronto have 23 players in their squad this year. If you compare their squad to Wigan's then the salary cap seems very very insignificant.

To put into perspective what North America thinks of sport - the Blue Jays signed Bautista on a 5 year deal for 65 million dollars, circa 11 million dollars a year. £7 million pounds. our cap is £1.825 million FOR A TEAM. They laugh at our cap but believe our sport is brilliant. Another Canadian team, then New York, then Chicago etc etc. In 5 years the North American league will be asking Wigan, Leeds, Saints to join their league. At this time, the fact that Swinton, Halifax and Bradford founded the league will mean very little.

£135k for Westerman? Don't get that.

Take Melbourne as an example of an expansion side - in 20 years how many genuine Victorians have come through & played for them?

I'm sure TWP would love to see genuine Canadians playing for them, in fact they did this year in Quinn Ngawati (plus a handful of other North Americans are in the squad). But it does take time for those grassroots structures to develop & yougsters to come through. You only have to look around at some heartland SL/Championship clubs who've been around for 100+ years and note the lack of talent they bring through.

I believe Perez said he wanted an academy within 3 years, so that's something. They also had "The Last Tackle" this year, which enabled them to trial a number of North Americans.

I admire your optimism!

In relation to the salary cap and overseas players, as I've seen this brought up a lot now, particularly amongst Leigh fans:

They adhere by the same Salary Cap as the other sides in the structure (as requested by Derek Beaumont a couple of years ago), and have the same Non-Fed player restrictions as the other clubs. Canada, France & England are all part of the same Federation, the RLEF.

They need to throw some money at Canadian Rugby Union players.
Canada have a very strong rugby union side - in 2011 they were ranked 12th in the world.
I doubt many of them would be on huge bucks, and from memory they had some very fast backs when they were doing well.

You honestly believe that? If it takes off in NA they won't need any UK clubs, although I suppose they may have token sides from the UK ie 'London' and Australia, ie 'Sydney').

Forgot about him.

Seems strange that Westerman has now managed to attract three 6 figure transfer fees, clubs must see something that I don't.

As we know it's been done once so it could be done again. The Cas fans are probably still fuming about it.

Would be great to see some Canadians come through but for me its not the most important thing. Like you said it isn't easy. I have no doubt the Storm and the NRL run all the coaching programmes and do their best to get kids playing the game in Victoria but Rugby League is so much smaller than the AFL in Victoria so the best athletes will tend to gravitate towards that sport.

Fascinating isn't it.

Joe Westerman is a gifted player and Athlete. He's also lacking a bit of ambition IMHO and has a poor attitude I'm told. Very typical of far to many British players. That said 250 SL games shows he is as you say a decent solid player.

What has made Westerman so apparently valuable especially to the gullible was his time at Cas, combined with one of Eddie and Stevo's ridiculous love ins.

Can fans made him out to be the best British player of his era whilst they were still kicking around in the Championship!. Very Cas typical but in this case it went into overdrive.

Then Eddie Hemmings (especially) did his kings new cloth act and if I recall in his first season in SL (literally only weeks into) was touting him as the future GB captain and our very own SBW!! The former was never likely with his attitude, the latter wasn't even remotely true.

Most SL teams would still take Western warts and all, can't however think of any who are still daft enough to pay for the dubious privilege.

Your' right he had two great agents, Cas fans and Sky.

You can understand the Cas fans - almost admire it but the SKY team and assorted media, shows where much of the trouble in SL lays.