Coventry Bears - another example of wasted opportunity. What have they done since winning NL3 a few years back? How did 'doing it right' help them develop? Because they seem to have gone backwards. Had the RFL helped them out with funds or something, you can bet your life there would be a queue a mile long slating them.

How long would the Crusaders staying in the lower leagues satisfy real RL criteria? 5 years, 10 years? 20? Until they won promotion? well how would they achieve that without being accused of 'RFL' favouritism?

Rugby League does not have the luxury of hoping that a bunch of players pop out of nowhere and suddenly are world beaters, it has to use some artificial means, if only initially. Almost all other sports did their developing years ago, RL did not and if it wants to develop, it has to start somewhere. Perhaps it's me that is out of step and almost everyone else is perfectly happy with RL being a regional sport?

Wrong, in the RL world, a car would have been invented and that was that. No need to try and make it better, it had an engine and worked so that is enough.

You are kidding.

If we can have the same format for a world cup twice in succesion, it would be highly unusual. Rugby league is the sport that changes things for no reason at all.

Well I'll give you that one.

No way of knowing that. I don't think I would have slated them.

Bowes would know more about the Bears than I do but I wouldn't judge an RLC team solely on the results of their 1st team particularly as juniors are considered so important these days.



I don't know another 3 might have done for me but there is no way of knowing.



The trouble is that if you keep doing something and it keeps ending in disaster then perhaps you ought to reconsider your methods.

Rather than have this kind of farce every few years, I would prefer that the RFL fund a couple of RLCN sides and bring them into CC1. I think the sport needs 3 divisions below SL really but we don't have enough teams currently to do that.

I think you talk sense but it will never happen. Again we don't have that much time on our side. It could take 15-20 years to develop a SL side from scratch...where will RU be by then? It is growing (much as I hate to admit it) and an unfortunate side affect of that is that RL will become something of an oddity.

15-20 years would about right IMO.

Union is its own thing, I don't see any need to compete with union just as I don't sit around agonising about cricket or ice hockey.

In any case, there are a lot of negative stories about union floating about, I think the union "bubble" is going to burst. It will always be a big competitior but I think it will never grow again at the speed that it has.

Really? Please describe this model and the roles of "heartland" clubs and the RFL in geographical expansion.

Celtics new badge for the 2010 season



Clever really because the '1873' not only represents the mileage on a round trip from South Wales to watch the club, but also the average attendence for a Celtic Home game last season.

It's not about 'competing' with Union, it's an unavoidable consequence. I take absolutely no notice of Union and even I know how big it is becoming. Cricket and Hockey are 100% different games, unfortunately RU is not. If RU continues to grow as it is, any competition/trophy (Challenge Cup???) will be claimed as 'rugby'. It's exactly like VHS and Betamax. It's little use people saying Betamax was technically superior because look where it ended up. RL could end up as a footnote in sports history, well a bit more than that perhaps but of no huge consequence really.

Imagine a guy had made a programme called the 'Star-Factor' but couldn't get a TV deal. Then Simon Cowell comes along with his X-Factor with a big deal and all the attendant media fuss. Do you think anyone will know or care about the guy who made the first show and actually had the idea? It has happened many times in the past and could easily happen to RL.

as a born and bred southerner brought up on the 15 man code i have to disagree with your final sentence.

have you seen RU recently? scrums are not fed properly rucks are not contested (the only difference between the PTB and the union ruck is the pile of bodies on the floor. the line has been pushed back 5m from the back foot at the scrum(how long before the defensive line is too?. i mean the differences between the two codes are disappearing not increasing.

15-20 years to develop an SL side? in my view in 50 years i can see the games merging in a AFL/NFL style way from the 1960's. two similar games gradually blended into 1 and finally having a new rule set drafted out into a game which will in all eventuality look very much like RL rather than RU.

No mate, I haven't seen the Union games but I know they can't score a try to save their lives!! However, that doesn't seem to affect the media coverage, which is absolutely huge. If they get so much when the game (even in their view) is poor, what would happen if it was actually exciting?

And even if the game in 50 years time had 13 men and no lineouts etc, do you think Joe Bloggs would know about it or care that it looked like RL? would they even know? I doubt it.

the point is that in 50 years people will not know it as rl or ru just rugby. i honestly believe the within 2-3 generations the codes will merge.

as for tv coverage that may have something to do with the fact that RU is the posh rich boys game and they have all the board and management positions at the TV companies

Nearly folded due to an overambitious expansion plan (St Albans, Birmingham and Carlisle nearly folded as a result also and Manchester, Teesside and Essex did as a result). The RFL weren't prepared to lift a finger to help the club when the sponsors dropped out last minute even though they'll do everything for expansion clubs that are either non-English or from London. Likewise they not only didn't help Nottingham but openly threw them out. Things are starting to change but the RFL have traditionally been not prepared to do anything for the areas (other than France which they do help) with some potential (like the midlands). Until recently they wouldn't do anything for Gateshead, even denied them Sky money in SL (the only top down expansion that could have worked if done properly, Paris and Crusaders are/were pathetic ideas), although when they started to help them they ended up going too far the other way and trying to rush things and ruined them, another example of your impatience being carried out to disastrous effect

Hence why I think people like you harm the game more than help it. Wanting things to be ready before a team moves up is prudence. People who want to rush everything (talking of 114 years is a pathetic excuse as we are talking about now not then) are scum who have no real care for the state of the game and couldn't care less if the club folds and are usually uninterested in expansion of the game below SL level (Roy Haggerty is different as he views SL and the lower divisions of the RLC as the only leagues worth bothering with, he wants the RLCN and Championship divisions shut down)

Before trolls like Roy Haggerty use London as an example of top down expansion I'd point out the club was 16 years old when they got admitted to SL had previously played in the top flight on more than one occasion and rugby league had had a league in London since 1965. Also to try to call Catalans top down expansion is a lie.

If expansion takes 10 years, 20 years for a club to work up to SL (with rational amounts of help where need be) then so be it, I can wait, why the rush? Anyone that supports rushing things really wants to see expansion clubs fold as it is the No. 1 cause of expansion clubs folding

I think you are making my point for me. People who decry the current methods of attempting expansion always suggest that there's another, better, way forward. Yet there isn't a single example of a top flight club being created through any other method than the current, flawed, risky, top-down method. So to say, this way shouldn't be done, the other way is beter, is just guff. There isn't another way. And opponents of expansion should be honest enough to say that - saying that we shouldn't try to expand through the likes fo Celtic and Catalans is essentially saying we shouldn't try to expand, full stop.