Spot on with both points.

You of all people

I've said this a few times in the past, but I would scrap Magic Weekend, add in an extra club but make each team play one game on the road in a nearby town with no real RL tradition but potential to get people interested: Warrington going to Stoke, FC or KR to Grimsby, Saints or Wigan to Preston, something like that.

Much like yourself then? Do you actually watch live games? Out of interest do you follow a club?

That's a cracking idea

Actually Toulouse has 6-8 times the population of Hull. It further reinforces your valid point.

With the lure of some additional TV revenues, they are starting to look hard to refuse for 2015.
Its strange how we complain on here about the extra trip to France, bearing in mind that the Catalans fans can only manage the odd away day.
At least they would be able to make the Catalan/Toulouse fixture and there is no doubt that an additional French team in SL would help their national team, which in turn should give England some stronger, local opposition.
Looks like a win/win ?

Toulouse pop 440,209, Hull 256,406. Hardly 6-8 times but see your point Jean or is it John.

Think the metropolis area would make it significantly higher.

Not 6-8 times.

But plenty big enough to support a ' Summer ' Sport

London population circa 8 million can't support summer Rugby, whats the point here, I'm not against expansion, far from it, however back your agenda up by facts or is this just a trolling exercise

Rubbish. Toulouse metropolitan area had 1,202,889 inhabitants as of 1 January 2008.

They averaged about 2300 in their first year in C1 with just a little backing and promo, including 2 sell outs of their stadium that hold about 3800 and 2 poor crowds at the end of the season v Gateshead and Donny of about 1200.
There's huge potential in Toulouse, I think they could becom a huge club.

Its Barry.

If I remember, Toulouse often announced crowds around the 2-3k mark, but the travelling supporters that were there said they were Salford or Halifax-like estimations.

Just a quick question Fully.

Do you think that Catalan have been good for SL, or do you think that they shouldn't be playing in the comp ?

Although there is an argument that we should leave the French to sort themselves out, there are clear benefits for the game to have France as a strong RL playing nation.
Leaving them to play in their own competition wont move the game forward. However, including Catalan and Toulouse (if they are admitted) helps the French, which in the longer term can only be a good thing for the sport.

I cant understand why Toulouse were kicked out of the Championship when they were getting crowds like this.............oh wait.

You cant understand why a CC club couldn't afford to fly to England every fortnight ? Really ?

They voluntarily left, they weren't kicked out .

Hardly a ringing endorsement for a SL bid, well we thought we had enough money to be in a competition but we were wrong, we got e crowds and pulled out because we couldn't afford any more losses.

To be fair sounds like the perfect endorsement for a SL bid.

Why do you choose to deride their proposed entry into SL, is it pure jealousy or, do you have some structured reasoning that you would like to share.

Not really sure what their is to be jealous of really. As a fan I want my team to be competing for trophies, that wont happen in SL for Fax and I doubt it would for Toulouse either. Im also quite miffed that people are basing a crowd for a game they wernt involved in as a basis for entry to SL.

To say they failed to even compete in their days in the championship would be an understatement and their crowds were not exactly anything to write home about. I honestly believe that both Fev and Fax both deserve a shot at SL and have worked hard on and off the field to get structures in place to try and make that happen but everyone knows deep down the goal posts would be moved to suit what ever agenda the RFL have at the time. Licensing was never going to work when too many of the top flight clubs are badly run and are failing but who knows what the answer is, dropping the salary cap hampers the small number of clubs that can sustain it while for others its a noose around their neck slowly choking the life out of their clubs.

God knows how the money will be split when the RFL runs with whatever plan it does but if it means lowering the amount of money each club receives from the tv deal then it wouldnt be a surprise to see more teams struggle to stay afloat. On that note it would be nice to imagine what progress 2 teams that already turn a profit in Fev and Fax could do with the extra £1M or so a year that they would receive if they were in SL. And yes I understand Fax have had that chance and were one of the teams struggling to stay afloat but I think we have a number of people at the club now who actually know how to run a business and would do all in their power to make us a success. I doubt the RFL will give them a chance though.

Why should the RFL give these pathetic little pit villages and wool and cotton mill towns from the 19th century a chance? Their glory days are long gone. Halifax has less than 100,000 residents. Featherstone has less than 20,000.

Toulouse is aerospace and hi-tech, it is the 21st century. Toulouse is a big city with over 1.2 million residents, a lot of money and a lot of rugby fans. It can make money. Toulouse is the future.

You and your Halifax and Featherstone are just Steptoe and Son. Sod off you sad old geezers!

The thing is Jean, those pathetic little villages handed Toulouse their harrises for 3 years, so Hi Tec Aerospace or not , they are not the finished article and have a huge amount of work to do to make the grade, anybody who thinks otherwise is seriously deluded