Toronto should have been put straight into the Championship. I hope that the one sided scores won't turn off the Canadian fans for life.

What's the salary cap for C1 btw?

1.8 million

Most posters on here are quick to criticise the RFL for chopping and changing and making rules up as they go along. Whatever the results, there would have been an outcry on here if Toronto had been put straight in to the Championship. The rule seems to be that new teams go into Ch1 so live with it. If they hammer every other team and go into the Ch next season, brilliant - let's then see how they do against London, Fev, KR etc.
Catalans have been the exception - they're located in an established RL area - but there have been too many other teams fast tracked in to SL and found wanting. Stick with it.

The new club in Bradford were put straight into the Championship, yet there was no outcry.

That's because of the proprietary interest of the RFL in Bradford.

It was the right decision to put them in Championship 1.
Theyve now got 3 or 4 yrs to prove they are genuine.
There's no point this club getting 7k or more attendances for a season or 2., then they all start drifting away when the novelty wears off. Why should the financial backers continue with their backing if no one is bothering to watch

Also for those who think its pointless them being in Championship 1 I believe scholars got an attendance of over 1500 fans and some great publicity

Amatuers Siddal could have beat them, so yes.

As the french man himself will say "The poor weather is a great leveller" Only poor weather will make Toronto have a close game. Apart from that it could be the easiest season for a RL team ever.

Jean Capdouze in 'talks perfect sense' shocker. Repeated 60-70-80-90 point thrashings are just going to make this competition look like Mickey Mouse.

No it's because there's only 2 promotion places from League 1 and there would be the chance that either Bradford or Toronto could be beaten to both those places by a Whitehaven or Workington etc. And that would be a disaster and possibly spell the end for either Toronto or Bradford.

If Toronto hadn't been in League 1 this season I'm almost certain Bradford would have been put into League 1.


As for the RFL's interest in Odsal, it's a good job they have it, otherwise it's much more likely the new Bradford club would be homeless.

Yes a couple of them will. Barrow have assembled a very good squad and will run Toronto very close. Nobody yet knows how all the travelling and logistics of having players away from their families for 4 or 5 weeks at a time will affect them over the course of a season. I think they'll still win L1 but it won't be the walk in the park that some think.

This.
Reserve judgement on the wisdom or otherwise of this venture until midway or even the end of the season. Of course, then it will all be with the benefit of hindsight - if another team comes in to the game there's no saying that what will be "right" for them would have been what's "right" for Toronto. And we won't know what's right for Toronto until the end of the season.

In the crazy world of money & RL I just hope that they are around long enough to finish their first season, then reassess their future based on their financial ability to continue, in whatever division their league position suggests is right.

With the squad that they have, with plenty of SL experience in there, you would put your mortgage on them finishing top of the pile.
They look way too good for that division and that was before the blowout score yesterday.
I agree that the travelling and training could take it's toll on some of their players though.

Everything still comes back to what the spot is trying to achieve.

Are we aiming for a SL spread across 3 continents, with 2 French clubs and maybe 2 North american clubs or are "we" just waiting to see what happens and prepared to take another hit if things dont work out.

It's difficult for us in the UK to know exactly how serious Perez and his fellow investors are taking this.
The guy comes across really well and seems to have a vision that has been lacking in our sport for years but, long term, should we be aiming for an International Super League of working harder to try and establish full time pro leagues in France and North America.
Obviously this would take significantly longer and RL is not really known for having any patience but, where are we heading.