but you get my point?

gateshead isnt heartland, fax are.

if you argue LC are heartlands then so is perth.

LC arent heartland. it was once, then the game had its heart ripped out and the game was practically dead and union dominant

Yes but it was not entirely dead. They already had local players and juniors when they stepped up to SL. They also had people who watched rugby league on their doorstep.

All of which would exist in Perth but not in Bridgend or Wrexham where things had to start from scratch. There was very little rugby league in the South Wales area back then and there is almost none in North Wales now.

i missed out the term virgin territory

none being virgin territory up to strong heartland club at the other extreme

Peripnan wasnt at the level id consider to be heartland.

to me heartland means the game is strong and vibrant. the game in france was dead or dieing. at least a club out of SL is part of a healthy RL game in england. the whole game in france was really dead. or at least meaningless.

i consider the gold coast titans an expansion club

perth too.

the auckland warriors as well even though RL is played there

edit : i mean at the time these clubs were established. gold coast and the warriors have now become so established as to be considered heartland

At what level? Purely professionally? Or do you mean amateur as well?

are you still here?

anyway since you seem to really care, a healthy professional club at the top level of the game is the best indicator

many strong SL clubs have weakish amateur scences

look at sheffield :

1. previous SL club, won the CC
2. been in NL1/2 for a while
3. juniors

heartland ?

no way

Wow, so all clubs not in SL should be considered as expansion then. Like your forward thinking. Bit strange though.

Absolute nonsense

Why have we again got to the point of doing down the game to try and prove Dally wrong?

Leeds Rhinos were the best supported club in the country in the same year Utd were in the champions league semi-final.

Leeds rhinos attendances would be comfortable in the association football championship and is similar to some premier league clubs (namely portsmouth, in fact Headingly is bigger than fratton park) only one club of any sport outside football has a higher attendance (Leicester Tigers) and it has a massive amateur game providing huge amounts of players.

Why would an RL fan use strange and pointless percentage statistics to prove otherwise.

as for just how ridiculous the population/attendance statistic is Leeds would need an average attendance of about 140000 to match castlefords population/attendance ratio

there were more amateur players and people paying to watch RL in london than perpignan prior to Les Catalans inclusion

Which tells us that RL in London will never grow any bigger than it is now , or that Quins are crap at growing the game

but not that London was an RL heartland a few years ago.

as for never growing, thats nonsense, it is growing, and quins are doing great work along with the RFL in growing the game.

unfortunately they arent translating that to bums on seats, thats what they need to be looking at

but how do you define growing the game - surely its primarily people watching it, unless you are a REAL rugby league purist who simply wants as many games to be played up and down the country even if it is infront of one man and a dog? Which is better - 100 more people playing the game in London or 10000 new fans watching it? Of course it does not have to be one or the other...but the latter certainly ain't happening!