and just suppose the RFL sacrificed the teams from within the WMDC in favour of Toulouse, what happens to the youth production line that these three clubs and the amateur game generates?

The latest figures suggest that Wakefield and Wigan are neck and neck in terms of player production from their respective Districts, do you suppose that losing that production line would be "small potatoes"?

Please don't suggest that Leeds Rhinos, Huddersfield Giants etc would move in and fill the gap as that's naive thinking at best and moronic at worst. Without the pro clubs the young kids are not inspired to play and player numbers would drop, entering a downward spiral that in years to come would dwindle to almost nothing.

Whatever you think of Wakefield Trinity, Castleford Tigers or Featherstone Rovers as clubs between them they generate interest in playing Rugby League in schools, community clubs and eventually Scholarships.

Your pathetic attempts at diminishing the importance of the WMDC area is poorly thought out and ignorant in the extreme.

What would be moronic and naïve would be thinking that we need a club every couple of miles in Wakefield or else the youth of wakefield are going to collectively thcweam and thcweam and refuse to play anymore.

You do have to wonder why, if the youth production line in Wakefield is so important, that Wakefield aren't filled with players from that production line and they are relying on the likes of Scruton, McShane, and Michel Simon, and Fev have just taken 4 leeds youngsters on loan.

Oh dear!

Really?

I actually thought you were more intelligent than that!

Over time, without a hometown club to watch, without games to attend with their dads or their mates, without being inspired by someone wearing the colours of their Town or City, without being visited in school by players and yes by club mascots these young kids will turn to something else. It might be cricket, Football, XBox, a street corner or whatever but it will not be a Community RL club because they won't have been inspired to emulate a hero or aspire to play for Cas, Wakey or Fev.

The end result is the RL has even fewer young kids playing the game, I don't know what it is that makes the area so Rugby League dominated but it is, it dwarfs all other sports and even football takes second place. What I do know is if you knock the legs from under that production then it'll eventually cease to produce.

Even if we accept your premise, it would apply to everywhere else in the world. There is an entire nation out there of kids who, according to your logic, would play RL if they had a team and a hero to inspire them. Sticking 3 clubs within 10 miles of each other would by any measure be idiotic. There are about 55million people in England without a home town club and a home town hero to inspire them. There would be 1.5m just in Toulouse. The 300k people of WMDC do not need 3 (or 5) clubs to do that.

Considering there are only 12k people in fev and only 40k people in Cas, there isn't that many who can be inspired by them.

And if WMDC is such an RL dominated area, where are they? where are the fans? where are the players?

Except that the Wakefield region isn't like any other region in that Rugby League is currently and historically first second then third before all other sports, which is there in my previous post if you care to read it with an open mind and without an agenda

The fans are there but like any region they're there in greater numbers when things are going well. Two seasons ago Wakefield and Cas were averaging around 8,000 each while Fev were getting about 2,500. That's 18,500 turning out to support the teams at a time when none of them were threatening to win the league or CC.

The players are there, in the U16s alone Wigan have 6 from the Wakefield area, Warrington have a couple, Leeds have quite a few, there's some at Huddersfield etc and that's not counting those at Wakefield, Castleford and Featherstone.

The area feeds a lot of players into the Youth system, if you're trying to say that's not the case then you're wrong.

WMDC only needs one club. The smartest way to have the whole area represented is by having a Calder United club, with its constituent components -- Wakefield, Castleford and Featherstone -- still in existence as feeders, in the Championship. That way we rationalise the competition, and avoid fans getting splinters in their bums by having to sit on the benches at The Jungle or Rapid Solicitors or Post Office Road. United Calder could afford a brand new stadium to replace the use of the constituent clubs' eyesores and bumsores.

Toulouse by cointrast will have a totally renovated new stadium, with perfect viewing areas, comfortable seats, lots of good food and drinks, and a metro station across the street to whisk you back to the city centre or to your hotel in time to prepare for your sumptuous French dinner.

If you're serious and not simply trying to wind up the locals then such a team would have to have Yorkshire somewhere in the title to even be remotely plausible.

Here's a challenge.

Given the current state of RL in this country, why should any child want to take up the game?

it will be easy to give reasons why not, but looking at the whole set up as it currently is, how do you sell the game and keep it at the forefront of people's thoughts when considering life choices.

That will not be easy but the game has to develop.

Why would you need that ?

Everyone in Yorkshire knows that Calder Valley and river is in Yorkshire. The others in the UK or overseas who don't know can look up Calder on Google.

Meanwhile it rationalises several small adjacent areas into one club, and opens a spot for a more worthy club like Toulouse, Bradford or London.

There is also something to be said for uniting the two Hull clubs, but for now it is working OK. I would think that Widnes is really not adding much value to Super League. They should be dropped down if possible.

Anything we can do to make space for Toulouse, London and Bradford in Super League is in the greater interest of the game of rugby league, and its public profile, and its chance of getting national and international sponsors.

You do realise that there's no such area as Calder?

You do realise that The Calder Valley is nowhere near Wakefield, Castleford or Featherstone?

Calder Valley is at the other side of Halifax, it's probably closer to Salford than it is Castleford.

So it is a wind up then.

I'd go out and meet someone nice if I were you. It'll calm you down.

That's convenient isn't it. Is the WMDC area unique in that the youngsters will only play if there are at least 2 clubs from the area in SL but they will also only play for other sides? Seems odd that you say kids in the area wouldn't be inspired to play by Leeds and Huddersfield then brag about how many of them play for Leeds and Huddersfield.

Also there isn't 18.5k in your figures. You have forgotten you have 3 sets of away supporters. It's also not a huge number. It's relatively small compared to other areas.

Btw, it's not an opened mind which would just accept your statements as fact. Just a dumb one. Just because you say WMDC is unique doesn't make it so. It just means you said it.

Aye, alright then !

I can't see many lads from Wakey in their squad for 2015.