Barcelona would be a great venue for "Magic"

Catalans success has been inspirational to Red Star Belgrade, as well as all expansion clubs who play the game outside the m62. What a great news story for our sport. A Rugby League Revolution has started. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/45322452

Catalans success has been inspirational to Red Star Belgrade, as well as all expansion clubs who play the game outside the m62. What a great news story for our sport. A Rugby League Revolution has started. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/45322452

Yet the likes of Wakefield, Huddersfield and Leigh have been around for over a hundred years and still bring nothing to the table

Regards

King James

Yet without these type of teams there would not be a table. These areas have sustained the sport for over 100 years is another way of looking at it.

Why should the RFL help fund it? Why can’t Catalans do it themselves?

The greatest form of expansion of RL would be to see RU clubs switch over to real rugby. Wouldn't you all agree??

The only thing about expansion is the player pool is the player pool. An expansion side just takes players from the same player pool who would be playing for the team the expansion side would replace in front of a few more fans and either a token homegrown player who gets no minutes or absolutely no homegrown players at all.

It’s not more exotic sounding place names we need, it’s a bigger player pool. Expansion will only work if there is already a player pool in the area there is a new team being established.

Catalans and Toulouse have French lads, Toronto are just Leigh in Canada. They could be anyone, anywhere. It doesn’t matter, they just have players from the same player pool as everyone else.

Expansion needs to be more investment put into grassroots so we have a bigger player pool, not necessarily the Azores Albertrosses being given a place in the Championship just because it sounds good.

We could add Boston and New York as well as Toronto to SL but all that does is add flight prices and travel times, it doesn’t actually add anything else that Salford have already brought to SL. It’d just be the same players playing for them as play for Salford now.

Not necessarily just about increasing the player pool. Melbourne Storm have produced barely any local players but the increased media profile from having a successfull, well supported Melbourne team in the comp will have been worth it financially for the NRL.

Craven Park on a Sunny Sunday afternoon.

Rugby league has been played in Melbourne and the wider state of Victoria since 1914.

The Great Britain Northern Union toured Australia and NZ in 1914 and played NSW in Melbourne in front of 13000.

There was a Victoria RL Premiership running from the 1920s onwards and became an official league in 1952. There has always been a player pool there.

Over the decades the NSW comp played games over in Melbourne due to the popularity of the sport over there even with it being an AFL hotbed.

SOO played its first game in Melbourne in 1990 in front of 25000, four years later the same game attracted 87000.

Melbourne Storm came about because of huge interest in the sport in the city going back a century.

Catalans deserved the win on the day but it has nothing to do with the fact that they are based in France. They were the better of the 2 teams that played.

For all the big talk on here and if Toulouse also get into SL for next year, if, in 10 years time, if there are zero extra fully pro teams in France, will people finally accept that RL in France is as regional and as 'failing' as it is in the UK?

For those expansionists another simple question - if SL went up to 14 and only 2 non-SL clubs could be added with one being Toronto - should the other be Red Star Belgrade or Toulouse?