I agree about the "3rd world sport" thing and it may be time for "Europe" to try and insist on some more help from our Australian "friends".

Although the Aussies enjoy beating us at any sport, surely it is in their interests to have decent English competition ?

For me, we should be working as hard as possible to help the French become stronger.
Although many people say "why should we help them", France is the best chance we have of "finding" some decent competition for our national
team and IMO, we should be busting a gut to help them, which will help raise the profile of the game.

The governing bodies in all of the RL playing nations and especially in Aus, NZ, England and France need to be sitting down and working on a cohesive
strategy to attract investment into the game.

Couldn't disagree more.

The best way to grow the game domestically, through participation, crowds, sponsorships etc, is through the growth and competition in the international game (& the exposure & interest that gives). Admitting Toulouse into the league structures is another step towards this. A high profile international game is what our game needs, not just in Europe, but all over the world.

The RFL are also growing our game nationally. Look at the make up of Championship 1. New amateur clubs are popping up on twitter each week, all over the country.

Could it have been done better in the past? Definitely. But, are we on the right track regarding expansion of the game? I honestly think we are.

You mention the Sky deal and sponsors and RL sinking to a "3rd world sport"? From where have we sunk...where things that good in 1995?

The admittance of the PNG Hunters into the Aussie leagues seems to have been a great move. The Hunters have been competing at the top end of the table and last week attracted 15,000 fans in Port Moresby. Hopefully the Hunters will act as a springboard for more PNG players to get into the NRL.

There's also a bid by Fiji to enter a team into the NSW Cup, along the lines of the Hunters.

The french need to do a lot more to expand the game in there own back yard, its no good piggy backing onto Super league and calling it Super League Europe it would be a disaster if we had 3 french teams in super league which would probably contain a lot of overseas players from the southern hemisphere.
We would be left with 9 english clubs already loaded up with overseas players which would mean less players to choose for our national side. It would also effect club finances when 25% of the seasons away fans won,t budge out of France.

25% plus of English teams don't Bri g fans to Hull so not sure there's much of a loss there!

French league can't go FT anymore than suggesting the championship or NZ league should be FT. You can't make the TV stations want to pay tens of millions to screen the game sadly. Given most French kids are not Hoi g to want to play for English clubs the only way to get more French players at a top level is going to be to have more French clubs in SL.

How would the French do this on their own ?

If Catalan are the only full time French club, why would another club go full time in a semi pro league ?

Therefore for the French to go it alone, should we jettison Catalan and tell them to try and find their own equivalent of Sky in order to fund a full time
league which would need to be 3/4 filled with Aussies or should we add another 1 or 2 clubs to SL.

Although the clubs at the top of SL would probably like SL to be cut to 10 or maybe 8 clubs, so they can increase their slice of the TV cash, this isn't the only option.

We keep being told that SL is a massive draw for Sky, which should mean increased TV cash





The new structure having been sold with the tag line of "every minute matters" is anything but, with the clubs at the top and bottom already "managing" their squads for when it really matters and we haven't yet got to the stage where the lower ranked clubs are starved of decent players.

We have been sold up the river, instead of any thought whatsoever going into developing the game for the long term, as the new structure brings risk to 4 out of the 12 club SL which can only damage their own long term planning.

Everyone citing reasons why Tolouse shouldn't be or don't deserve to be entered into SL like "they only get 1000 home gates" "they're isn't enough French players" "if they wanted FT rugby they would have they're own SL"

Think back to 2006! We're Catalan any different to Tolouse of today?

For what ever reason the people in the South of France have taken to RL and have a real passion for the game all with little or no marketing or domestic professional clubs or competition's to follow.

If we could place a club in Manchester, Birmingham Bristol etc and get a result like we have seen in Perpignan then I would agree with some on here and say the hell with France but there is just not the appetite for RL in these places.

So we need to expand and support the places that have the appetite for RL so they have every opportunity to succeed.

I think the fact that Toulouse have been forced to start in League One (and are seemingly willing to do so) suggests that they are being anything but 'piggy backed into Super League'. Although I would have no issue at all with them being directly admitted to Super League in 2017 and relegating two teams via the Middle 8's next season. In fact that would be a lot more sensible IMO.

It would much less of a gamble than Catalan was imo.

I don't get the tentative approach.

This would be the better for me, England RL to move the professional standard into areas beyond the M62, we need to sort out our own expansion first, let the French RL sort out raising quality beyond Catalonia. I would sooner model Gloucester All Golds to Superleague instead of Toulouse.

If only League One was full of expansion clubs like Gloucester.

The difference is there is no one in Gloucester that cares one jot about Gloucester bringing the all golds to SL and defiantly nobody willing to stump the cash to fund it.

I would love SL to have clubs all around the country. But we can't force it on areas that don't care.

The one area outside of the heartland that has a relatively large apetite for RL is the south of France so let's focus on expansion clubs in areas that it's worked before.