| FORUMS > The Virtual Terrace > Toulouse: the future of rugby league in France. |
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| Quote: JEAN CAPDOUZE "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.'"
On what planet do you live!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Don't you think that WMDC would have funded new stadiums if they had the finance. Eric the Hippo Pickles/ Call Me Dave/ The tory Nasty party have screwed WMDC and other northern councils with cuts, cuts, cuts and a Richard Cranium like you resurrects the old chestnut of Calder.
Have you any concept of the history, rivalry, passion and commitment of the supporters of the Five Towns RL clubs.
IF YOU HAVE ANY SENSE YOU WILL SEE THAT A CALDER ................ IN WHAT EVER GUISE WILL NEVER SURVIVE.
Don't want to start the old story again but from my perception it seems like you 'champion' worthwhile causes if so, and with a Gallic theme, instead of pushing the cause of Toulouse, Avignon and perhaps in 2020 Aix-En- Provence you pursue the reimbursement of funds sequestrated from the financially secure French RL by the French RU in conjunction with the Vichy government in the 1940's then perhaps we would have successful, secure, viable and plausible French rugby league
p.s Merry Xmas |
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| Quote: Tigerade "I can't see many lads from Wakey in their squad for 2015.'"
No sadly there aren't. Only five. |
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I really think that France has a big future as a player in Super League and far from looking to split them as people have suggested, I think its SL's best option to build an English/French European league as a long-term aim. People are more and more for international competition and the success of Catalans Dragons is hard-nosed evidence that involving the French benefits the competition as a whole.
They do things on another level to a lot of our clubs commercially and professionally and also get a lot of backing from local and regional government unlike our clubs. In short, they can make our competition bigger and better. See the following videos and imagine some of our clubs efforts...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou-KdaJcPRI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwhel2p1wv8
I agree with a lot of your sentiment Jean but you must remember, these clubs and communities you berate are Rugby League. They formed our game and are part of our identity and to see you belittle them is sad. I'm fully for expansion but I go and watch Leigh now and again and love the fact that i'm watching a club that's been around for 100+ years and represents all the good things our game has to offer.
Rather than have the expansionist vs flat-cappers debate, I firmly believe the two ideologies can co-exist. I do think however that the massive potential of French city clubs would leave some of our establishment clubs for dead if it was realised. It needs to be made reality through the right means and not by replacing established and solid RL clubs. |
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I really think that France has a big future as a player in Super League and far from looking to split them as people have suggested, I think its SL's best option to build an English/French European league as a long-term aim. People are more and more for international competition and the success of Catalans Dragons is hard-nosed evidence that involving the French benefits the competition as a whole.
They do things on another level to a lot of our clubs commercially and professionally and also get a lot of backing from local and regional government unlike our clubs. In short, they can make our competition bigger and better. See the following videos and imagine some of our clubs efforts...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou-KdaJcPRI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwhel2p1wv8
I agree with a lot of your sentiment Jean but you must remember, these clubs and communities you berate are Rugby League. They formed our game and are part of our identity and to see you belittle them is sad. I'm fully for expansion but I go and watch Leigh now and again and love the fact that i'm watching a club that's been around for 100+ years and represents all the good things our game has to offer.
Rather than have the expansionist vs flat-cappers debate, I firmly believe the two ideologies can co-exist. I do think however that the massive potential of French city clubs would leave some of our establishment clubs for dead if it was realised. It needs to be made reality through the right means and not by replacing established and solid RL clubs. | |
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| Quote: tenerifeRhino "I for one am dreading the new structure and how anyone at the RFL thought it would be a good idea.
The every moment matters tag line is a total fallacy. We will have plenty of "meaningless" games. And all the new structure is doing is degrading the SL brand by including a farcical middle 8 which pits 4 FT super league clubs against 4 PT championship club and in doing so destroying that competition.
Games in the top 8 will be pointless if your club don't have the points to get close to the top 4.
It all just beggars belief.'"
Well most of that post shows your total ignorance at whats going on in the game. Not going to bother explaining what I am pointing at in your gobbldygook. |
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| Quote: "I do realise that the Calder river runs through Wakefield and adjacent to Castleford and Dewsbury, which is the source of my term Calder United.'"
Welcome back Maurice!!!!
Don't forget about combining Warrington and Widnes and call them the Cheshire Cats or whatever it was he wanted to call them. |
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Anyone who thinks British Rugby League can afford to even consider the loss of more top flight teams for another expansion experiment needs their head examining. And then hitting with a brick.
The WMDC area is absolutely key to RL, one of the areas strongest in RL tradition. Don't make the mistake the RFL have too often and disregard that, or take it for granted. Once lost it's never regained. Remove teams from the top flight and interest begins to wane. Dangerous for a largely regional professional sport.
I am absolutely 100% for Toulouse developing into a Rugby League powerhouse. But do it properly, organically. Not by shoving them into British competitions and hoping the fans will come. Develop in the schools, develop local corporate links and partnerships, let a chain of youth teams develop to feed to senior team. Build the next level of fan base, funding and tradition and then think what comes next, including the move to full time.
Ideally this is done while a strong French league is developing. Laying my cards on the table I don't want another French team in SL for reason stated above: British RL simply cannot afford to lose more top flight teams (and by extension, fans). I want France to thrive, but diluting the British pool and chucking in a team of a couple of French players and numerous Antipodean journeymen is not the way to go.
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| Quote: Cronus "Anyone who thinks British Rugby League can afford to even consider the loss of more top flight teams for another expansion experiment needs their head examining. And then hitting with a brick.
The WMDC area is absolutely key to RL, one of the areas strongest in RL tradition. Don't make the mistake the RFL have too often and disregard that, or take it for granted. Once lost it's never regained. Remove teams from the top flight and interest begins to wane. Dangerous for a largely regional professional sport.'"
When Huddersfield, Widnes and Hull KR were removed from the top flight, interest did not wane. They got fewer spectators in the lower division but that was because the lower division was of a lower standard and poorly promoted. The fans remained latent or dormant. When the team finally made its way back into the higher division it actually bounced back into Super League stronger.
Merged clubs can work in retaining support at the top level, as we have seen in the NRL with Wests Tigers, and St George-Illawarra.
Quote: Cronus "I am absolutely 100% for Toulouse developing into a Rugby League powerhouse. But do it properly, organically. Not by shoving them into British competitions and hoping the fans will come. Develop in the schools, develop local corporate links and partnerships, let a chain of youth teams develop to feed to senior team. Build the next level of fan base, funding and tradition and then think what comes next, including the move to full time.
Ideally this is done while a strong French league is developing. Laying my cards on the table I don't want another French team in SL for reason stated above I want France to thrive, but diluting the British pool and chucking in a team of a couple of French players and numerous Antipodean journeymen is not the way to go.'"
When Catalans were "shoved" into Super League the fans came in huge numbers. The Catalans crowds went from 1,000-1,500 in the French Elite, to 7,000 - 9,500 in Super League. No reason to doubt that Toulouse would emulate that success, and perhaps exceed it.
Toulouse would not play Super League with just a couple of French players. It would have to have 13, or preferably 15, with just 8 Antipodeans, most whom would not be journeymen --- as we see at Catalans (Pray tell which Antipodean at Catalans is a journeyman?). |
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| Quote: JEAN CAPDOUZE " (Pray tell which Antipodean at Catalans is a journeyman?).'"
All of them and at all the other clubs as well. |
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I'd love to know where these mythical "13, or preferably 15" French players at SL standard are going to come from.
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strawman argument. They will come from improved jnr programs and more opportunities for French Jnrs to participate in FT training.
Where will they play if they got admitted?
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| Quote: Cronus "Anyone who thinks British Rugby League can afford to even consider the loss of more top flight teams for another expansion experiment needs their head examining. And then hitting with a brick.
The WMDC area is absolutely key to RL, one of the areas strongest in RL tradition. Don't make the mistake the RFL have too often and disregard that, or take it for granted. Once lost it's never regained. Remove teams from the top flight and interest begins to wane. Dangerous for a largely regional professional sport.
I am absolutely 100% for Toulouse developing into a Rugby League powerhouse. But do it properly, organically. Not by shoving them into British competitions and hoping the fans will come. Develop in the schools, develop local corporate links and partnerships, let a chain of youth teams develop to feed to senior team. Build the next level of fan base, funding and tradition and then think what comes next, including the move to full time.
Ideally this is done while a strong French league is developing. Laying my cards on the table I don't want another French team in SL for reason stated above
The question for the clever people that run our sport is, just how do we expand/ grow the game, especially at International level.
France is the best option for having a fourth "competitive" nation and there does need to be some help for them as a nation and without going back 15 years and getting rid of Catalan and telling The French to "get on with it", we have to try and build on where we are.
The inclusion of an additional French team is a good one and if done properly, there is no reason why this should be at the expense of an existing SL club, it could of course be an additional club in the top flight or second tier.
As we have seen in recent years, our top flight works with any number of clubs (we've had 12, 14 and 16 in recent years).
Ok, we've got the all new "every second counts" stuff to look forward to next season but, this could just as easily work with different numbers, if it in fact stays for any length of time.
The French need to keep improving their domestic talent pool but, without going full time, this will be a very long haul indeed. Therefore, adding 1 or maybe 2 more clubs and building slowly would appear to be the most sensible option.
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A second French team is a must in my opinion, a French derby would create interest amongst casual fans in France I would think and maybe get more people through the gates. Somewhere that never seems to get mentioned for a team is Avignon, last 3 France games there got 14,500, 17,000 and 17,500 fans in so even if only half of those went to the local team it would still be a decent average at Super League level.
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| Hey how about a league of 12 French teams based in France, now there's an idea, then we can lose this Europe rubbish, French teams bring nothing to the British game. Only my opinion  |
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| Quote: DemonUK "Hey how about a league of 12 French teams based in France, now there's an idea, then we can lose this Europe rubbish, French teams bring nothing to the British game. Only my opinion ![]()
The same could be argued for British teams in the British game 
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Moderator
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| Quote: DemonUK "Hey how about a league of 12 French teams based in France, now there's an idea, then we can lose this Europe rubbish, French teams bring nothing to the British game. Only my opinion ![]()
Have to agree. Now go put your tin hat on! 
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