Not really. The only reason for anyone to be against expansion is because of a mistaken belief that it will negatively affect their club. Not all SL or pro-expansion fans claim to be just fans of the sport, but all anti-expansion fans are definitely short-sighted fans of their club.

So you would be happy for the RFL to invest their hard-earned cash with a team from Edinburgh or Dublin say ? But they wouldn't have any exemption from relegation of course ?

It's not "mistaken" if there are a limited number of places in SL and expansion sides are guaranteed some of them regardless of merit.

But regardless of that, the reason why most people are against sticking a pin as per the usual plan is that such ventures have a failure rate that is only marginally below 100%. And the few "successes" are lame ducks.



No, it just suits a particular point of view to characterise "anti-expansionists" in this way. A more accurate summary would be that very many people believe that only a gradual grassroots build up in "expansion" areas has any chance of success.

So you are a Doncaster fan [ because they were the nearest to you when you got interested in RL ] then no problem , still not the ' I was born there , watched all my pro RL there and still live there ' situation many of us find ourselves in

Having being on the board of a Championship/SL club for 4/5 years I dont need to work things out in the pub , as you put it , 250K [ 300 would be better ] per season is enough to establish a Championship 1 club 50 miles from the heartands until they either succeed or decide to fold

As I said , the further away from the heartlands you go , the harder it gets

I am not against expansion , I am just against unfair treatment of clubs by location , you are an idiot

You are 90 % correct , a gradual properly financed build up is what is importantant for success to championship level , after that you need to let things find their own level , if that is SL then fine , if not then also fine , clubs will be what clubs will be , it still however is expansion

i dont want to get directly involved in this increasingly heated debate, but again ive noticed the opinion floated that rugby union has some amazing world beating european competition in the heiniken cup. i fail to see how this competition (and that is the operative word here) is really all that? you have what? 3 or 4 teams who have a real chance of winning it each year? and half the teams are frankly poor and just make up the numbers. its about as competative as a competition of similair structure involving the top 8 SL teams and most of championship one would be.

Translation: Expansion is great as long as it's at a low level and doesn't affect my club.

Although I agree that the HC can be overhyped somewhat I think you are being a bit harsh. Across the six pools half of them have the top three teams within a few points of each other. The other half have the top two teams who are in a few points of each other.

Its not like one team has dominated the competition over a number of years and its great to see teams from a number of countries competing. Your right though in that a few sides (especially the Italian ones) just make up the numbers. 6 pools of four is too many but I guess Sky TV money is running things there too.

Lets be honest we would love to have a european club competition like that.