If the 9's circuit is to work, then it needs to be say, Manchester, Sydney, Auckland and Toronto to start. choose 10k stadiums and fill them, then add cities as it gathers momentum. Maybe add Port Morseby or a Queensland leg, maybe a NZ south Island leg, London...once you have 5 or 6 sell outs then you can look at the USA, Dubai etc....but there needs to be money behind it and a long term plan. 10k stadiums is key. Make it a must book early event.

Comparing the 9's with the Union 7' is pointless. Hong Kong is on most Union fans bucket list, in Dubai it's held in "the sevens" stadium and attracts massive gates, in the USA they run a festival of Rugby at the same time, with schools and college competitions as well as manatuer open age grade and they get 60k in the crowds over the weekend...London get 100k over the weekend.

This is veering away a bit from the OP but it reminded me of a conceptual international calendar that I came up with a year or so ago. Some of the teams and suggestions included aren't necessarily conceivable at this moment in time, but it just serves as a framework as to what I think would work well in terms of setting up a regular structure that follows a cycle of competitions. Most fans of this sport have their own ideas as to what they would do to if they were in charge, but this was just a bit of a way for me to put something together that I think would be a bit refreshing if it was at all possible. Make of it what you will!

The format is essentially a three-year recurring cycle. One of the problems for me with the international setup is the fact that a lot of the time, games are more or less thrown together with little notice or time for any real anticipation or marketing. I think with a set structure it would be easier for teams themselves to be more prepared and settled leading up to each block of internationals, and would probably help with promotion and ticket sales a bit more.

YEAR ONE

The first year is split into four competitions across two regions - Atlantic (ANC) and Pacific (PNC). This serves as a means to qualify for next year's World Six Nations. Essentially there are two spots up for grabs in the Atlantic, and four in the Pacific. There's also a chance for the emerging nations to qualify for the tournament with their own concurrent competition. Not saying there are enough teams/players at the moment for each of these emerging nations to enter a team, but hey it's conceptual!

YEAR TWO

The second year is the main event - the World Six Nations with the teams that qualified from last year's tournament. Quite straightforward really. Also no reason why the teams who didn't qualify can't hold their own tests to make sure that players/teams are holding international games every year.

YEAR THREE

The third year serves as a Test Season. It's a chance to set up a rolling cycle of tours, origin games and 9s tournaments, or even the World Cup for that matter.



FWIW I know there's a pile of other things about our international game that need to be looked at, but for me I'd love to see something along these lines. A solid, structured calendar which makes sure every team is playing regularly and helps smaller nations have a shot at improving their own standards, whilst also keeping fresh with a rolling cycle.

If there's any question about the idea of those smaller nations making a name for themselves, take a look at rlthisrl I wrote a couple of years ago when Hong Kong played Japan in their first ever sanctioned international RL game. There's also a mention of last year's Emerging Nations World Championship in Australia which featured the likes of Canada, Greece, Malta, Thailand and other so-called second and third tier nations. Baby steps for the most part, yes, but still good to see some concerted effort in other parts of the world.

I think we need to hold a WC every second year.
The 4 year cycle works for other sports who have other comps in place, but we basically have nothing going on except a few ad hoc things for the years between WCs.
We should have qualifying games in even numbered years, and World Cups in odd numbered years, and have a permanent organising group doing nothing but organising World Cups.

The one thing that Richardson is absolutely right about is that, we need a plan, with specific goals and the international program has to be laid out well in advance and again, with some thought about when, where and why we are playing the games.
As with all things RL, there is currently no sensible forward planning.

As for the 9's, I'm still not sure, they can be great to watch (just as 7's can be) but, they never seem serious.
('s is what you play when you dont have enough numbers for a full game.

Here is a plan:

admit Toulouse and London into Super League in 2021;

admit New York and Ottawa into Super League in 2023.

admit Avignon, Bradford and Newcastle into Super League in 2024.

admit Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago into Super League in 2027.

Following this last set of admissions, simultaneously create a north American conference with these three plus Toronto, Ottawa and New York, and thereby enable a serious north American television deal.

All of a sudden Super League has a more national profile within Great Britain, and a genuine international footprint.

With those club developments in France and six north American cities, expect rugby league to take off in France and north America.

Ottawa, according to the genius Canadian entrepreneur Eric Perez, is planning to put systems in place to produce a significant number of quality players. Hopefully New York and eventually even Toronto, as well as the north American teams that follow, will see the wisdom of doing the same thing. In the meanwhile Toronto needs to pursue a strategy of recruiting rugby union stars (which they are doing) and more good NRL players.

Hi Jean,

That strategy is one ex-Rugby League star. That still leaves us with 249 players to find for your Transatlantic dream. Please be careful about calling Mr. Perez a genius. He's personable, charming, enthusiastic and above all an RL fanatic, but don't forget he was the one who restarted Canada RL in 2010 after the game had died out in Canada because it had been overwhelmed by soccer and Rugby Union (exactly what we are fighting against in England and the south of France). Eric persevered for several years but didn't get anywhere.

He switched to TWP knowing there were no quality RL players in North America He attempted to convert very talented and athletic Grid Iron players to Rugby League and again didn't get anywhere. I am afraid our Eric isn't a genius at all. He's a great salesman and currently he's sold you on the idea despite nobody being interested in launching a junior & schools Rugby League in Toronto, Ottawa will be different. Why would it?? I suspect junior sport in Ottawa like Toronto already is crowded out by Grid Iron, Ice Hockey, Baseball, Basketball, Soccer and if anyone fancies Rugby then Rugby Union Canada will be there to pick them up (they have 12,000 kids playing RU). Canada may never produce SL players, certainly not in the remaining lifetime of Mr. Argyle so he doesn't bother trying.

true to form bazza, true to form

I want 20 clubs in Super League.

The 18 I would think would be the most important areWigan
St Helens
Warrington

Leeds
Bradford
Hull FC
Hull KR

London
Newcastle

Catalans
Toulouse
Avignon

Toronto
Ottawa
New York
Boston
Philadelphia
Chicago[/i

That leaves space for 2 more clubs. One should beParis[/i

The final one could be another French or non-French European team.
EitherLyon [/i
or
[iMille[/i
or
[iBarcelona [/i

Where will these players come from?

The French clubs' players would come primarily from France.

The north American clubs' players would come mostly from north America -- either rugby union converts or NFL rejects -- supplemented by a mixture of NRL players and Super League players to give the clubs top flight experience.

Pro RL came to France 14 years ago and still Catalans run with a largely English/Aussie first choice X111. Shane Richardson commented this week that the quality of players available here is such we can only really have 10 Superleague quality teams. He was the instigator of Gateshead, he knows the game here.You may dream out loud of what you would like, maybe resurrecting last years idea of 2x10 SL clubs, but that second division was not meant to be professional, the lack of private money & quality players being the twin elephants in the room.

Brian Noble scoured Canada RU for potential SL players watching the CRU international team. He concluded there were none. As for NFL rejects you do not seem to have taken on board that Eric Perez tried this and drew a complete blank. In promoting the idea of a 10 club Superleague Richardson suggested TWP, Les Cats and Toulouse should be in there. That would result in no SKY TV deal as they want 9 English clubs and I dread to think which two English SL clubs have to fall on their swords, resulting in the game here contracting further.

So despite you being castigated on here my friend you are in good company with Mr. Richardson, whose original Gateshead club were very impressive but financially collapsed at the end of their first season. I think what we do in England is best decided on by the English, not the Aussies and with respect to you not the French either!!

Donners, He's a WUM. It's his job on here to get reactions. What he suggests above is an obviously preposterous idea isn't it?

Well the Mods on here require respect, so I took the opportunity to politely reply that Jean's idea was IMO preposterous, but the Gentleman is not alone, you can find people across the game including a number of RL journalists who should know better, talking about the explosion of Rugby League. What are us mere fans to think when we are fed a published diet of Trans-atlantic and Pan-European expansion stories?

I can accept we maybe need to talk the game up as big as we can to outsiders (or do we?) but on places like this these fantasies do warrant a challenge because people start to believe it.

The game is expanding rapidly.
20 years ago it was played in 5 countries.
It is now played in 45 countries.
You can't make it a major sport overnight in new markets, but we have our foot in the door.
I don't know what you would call successful expansion, but I've followed the international game pretty closely since the 2000 WC, and it's expanded beyond my wildest dreams.
The difference between Union fans and League fans is that Union fans have turned their game into a big deal by outrageously talking up the success of their code, and people brought into it and the code has thrived. League fans talk down the code as much as they can for some perverse reason.

Toronto is a wildly successful expansion story. It's bizarre that people are slitting their wrists over all the negatives they can dream up. In all honesty, if Toronto never win a game again and disappear completely in 2021, the worst case scenario, they will still have been a brilliant success story for the game, just for the column inches they have generated for the game.