It seems to suggest that you consider it a bad thing, it's not my understanding of English at fault, it's your ability to make a clear point.

What exactly are you saying?



Well congratulations! That's exactly what I've been arguing.

Lets not p[iiss[/i about for another 100 years Dally - in order to give Rugby League an immediate shot in the arm, please list the heartland clubs in SL who should pack in and fold now. Which non-heartland clubs (feel free to make them up if they don't exist) should immediately replace them?

I didn't start off on the wrong foot, YOU took issue with a quote I posted by Gallop.

What you've put there is pretty much what I've been saying, so what on earth is:

Gloating over the difficulties of the Crusaders
Salivating over the prospect of Quins following
Demanding a retreat to the M62
Dancing on the coffin of Crusaders
Jubilant that members of their own sporting family are dying

all about?

The RU coach if he's following the same pattern that the RFU have been using for nearly 10 years will have your players down to the kids section of the local RU club. That is the sole reason he is there.

That club will have had a grant from Sport England for junior development to fund the guy going into schools and run some sort of festival which will include them and other local schools. At which they'll be encouraged to join the local RU club.

Why can't you get coaches from the local RL kids section down?

no clubs should pack it in.

heartland clubs have to try harder

fans of failed heartland clubs should blame their own clubs more for the problems RL faces rather than expansion clubs.

like ive said before, every expansion thread is dotted with fans from these failed clubs blaming expansion clubs. my reply is look in your own backyard

taking out cas and wakey, every other heartland club in SL is making massive strides to becoming "good SL clubs". cas arent too far away either.

i consider salford an expansion club.

as an example take either Huddersfield or Hull KR as heartland clubs thatve made a lot of progress.

as for failures, look at any heartland club in NL1 or 2 except widnes

The "local" RL Kids' section is about 2 hours away on a weekend, and longer on a weekday. I know some people think that because Quins exist in Twickenham, they must cover the whole of London, but nobody who lives in London believes Twickenham is local to Bromley.

Yes indeed a festival has been organised to take place at our school early in the new year, after which there will be an assessment of the potential, apparently. I will be trying to arrange an away fixture for the RL girls on the same day, naturally.

People may (and are entitled) to have the opinion that "RL has been tried in Wales/London and has failed and should never be tried again" It's shortsighted and absurd, but still an opinion they are entitled to hold. Some may say "we told you so" in this case it is not so much gloating as more and more a statement of fact, notwithstanding that the future of the Crusaders is still to be determined.

What I claim not to have seen is evidence of:

Gloating over the difficulties of the Crusaders
Salivating over the prospect of Quins following
Demanding a retreat to the M62
Dancing on the coffin of Crusaders
Jubilant that members of their own sporting family are dying

How could any of what you say you have experienced be described as constructive criticism, it is clearly not, nor would I claim it to be, so please don't put words into my mouth.

If you care to read any posts I have made on expansion you will find that I support expansion of the game, in terms of participation, spectators and geographically. You will also observe that I think the Crusaders have been let down badly by the RFL and should have had an awfull lot more support, do you disagree with this?

My approach to expanding the game would be very different to the creation of satellite SL clubs, which on the evidence so far seems not to work very well or is it a raging success, you tell me. Would you rather have new SL clubs given the best possible chance to succeed or have the next one cut loose in the same way the Crusaders have been? Because that doesn't help anyone, does it?

My friend, without a local kids section to sign these players up to, whatever work you have done or what anyone else may do in the future is so much p!ssing into the wind.

I can see now why you are so frustrated but without local RL clubs and games on a weekend it doesn't matter how many kids play the game in school anywhere, the ones that continue on to play open age will amount to the square root of f*ck all.

I know this. I've been trying to set up a local schools league, a la the RU set-ups, with trophies, merit tables and the like, but it's heavy going. And watching the talent and potential go to waste, or go to RU (which is the same thing) is a very frustrating position. Which is why I get a little shirty when some people (not all) take opportunities like the current one to demand that the drawbridge be pulled up completely. I get equally frustrated when incompetent administrators take potentially good opportunities to provide the sort of lasting structure which is needed, like in South Wales, and piddle it away, thereby giving ammunition to the aforementioned.

The point is that it is invariably put forward as constructive criticism by the poster/writer. May be it is meant to be, but I think we both know that most reasonably intelligent people can manage to imply something without saying it outright. People will rarely put in writing what they might say in the pub to their mates.

Having for over 25 years listened to this "criticism" of the club I support and expansion generally I find it difficult not to question some or even many of the writers' motives now (and to make it clear I am not suggesting that you are one of them - your position is clear)

I have read a considerable number of your posts albeit I must admit to skipping large chunks of the semantic borefests with Smokey TA.

I answered your post simply because it is one of a number I have seen claiming that no one is happy about the situation. You think that. I'm afraid I don't agree.

As to expansion I'm afraid I have no answers and I'm not sure what your different solution is. There is no evidence that creeping expansion from the heartlands works (in 115 years it has been pretty negligable and in fact ground has probably been lost in places like Liverpool and Manchester).

I have seen people praise bottom up expansion in the likes of Hemel and Skolars, but the position of Hemel has hardly changed in 20 years of my watching them and I somehow doubt it will. Skolars are a bit of a shoestring operation and again I can't see this changing much. Both clubs are admirable in many ways but I don't think they prove the bottom up thesis.

On the face of it top down doesn't work desperately well either, but it has shown how expansion clubs are far more at risk through bad planning, bad management and sheer bad luck than heartlands clubs.

Of course participation at an amateur level outside the heartlands is another entirely different matter and that clearly has been a success when one compares it to 15 years ago. Hopefully that will continue to grow, but, like you, I am worried about the continued growth in South Wales with the Crusaders disaster at a time when it appears for the first time good quality Welsh born RL players are coming through.