I was mulling this over watching the highlights [Catalan v Cas] and listening to their crowds when the tries were scored.

imagine this

If it was the other way round us (wire) playing in the French league because (for the sake of argument) the French league is a lot stronger.
We had to travel to France every other week against teams we have little to no history with.
We had to find genuine intensity to gee the team up, vastly outnumbered on the away terrace and no home derby matches, hell no home country matches.

Would we enjoy the game even half as much ?
Do the French fans and team deserve a lot more respect than we currently give ?

Another point

Do people see the Catalans' status as a super league club as a temporary measure and by temporary i mean until the French league takes off and has at least 13 maybe 14 teams at NL1 level. This could be 20 years but if it was the case would we lose Le Catalan ?

Is super league the only hope to improve the overall French game ?

I think crowds on the continent tend to be a little different than over here, aye.

As for something minor, I'm surprised there isn't an option to have the Super League website in French!

And I think the French teams should always be in Super League - a Super League of about 12 UK teams and 4 French teams would be trés bien.

A SL of 4 French teams , 2 Spanish , 2 German , 2 Italian , 2 Scottish , 2 Welsh, 2 from London and Leeds and W1gan would be better still

no leigh ?

No , we'd be ' slumming it ' with you lot in the Championship

I'd like to see a French top flight and our top flight where the winner of each countries knock out meets in the gf rotated between old Trafford and say Paris. A propper European cluc champion the winner of this plays the wcc. A total pipe dream but a nice one

Clearly the approach needed is anyone within the game of rugby league should be treated as part of an international brotherhood (and sisterhood for that matter).

As for respect for French fans, how would England RL look if the following had occurred during it's historyOf course the French deserve tremendous respect. Only a true love for the game would have allowed it to survive in such brutal conditions.

In answer to this, I posted this (below) some time back here. It still holds true in my view.
[i
Typically the answer for French rugby league already exists in their glorious past.

The model for the game in about the period 1945-55 should be given detailed and careful consideration by the French rugby league hierarchy.

Basically, this involves a structure along the lines of the following

never thought I'd say this to our cross channel associates but amen brother

Catalans has been a great addition to SL and I hope to see another couple of French teams join in over the next decade or so. It is the only way they can improve to Int standards imo. I can't ever see a time again when there is enough interest to have French TV paying the money needed to run a FT league in France.

Why not?

They didn't cover other sports until recently and rugby league has a lot longer history in France than many other sports.

Frankly, you know nothing about the game in France.

And little more about it in Australia.

because in the "good old days" it didnt cost anything like 3million euros to run a prof team! Only 2 countries in the world can afford to run a FT prof RL comp and that is beacuse they are the only ones where TV is willing to fork out huge sums to cover it.

Show me any inkling at all that a French TV company is willing to spend 30million+ Euros a year to show RL. Live in your pipedream world all you like but France is never getting a SL equivalent league in my lifetime, neither is NZ nor PNG. Only way to develop these countries at an elite level is to bring them into leagues that can generate that sort of media cash.

In case you missed it...

Frankly, you know nothing about the game in France.

And little more about it in Australia.

To be fair he raises a good point about them needing a TV deal to be able to run a professional league. I reckon they'd need at least 4 professional teams before anyone would consider throwing huge money at French RL.

Where did I mention they wouldn't?

Of course they would need a TV deal.

It would be as a result of rebooting the internal game in France via an updated Elite.