PEREZ SPEAKS......

“The response over here has been pretty big. When we started in Toronto, it’s a huge city, so it took a long time. But now in Toronto, most people know the Wolfpack as the rugby team and you see merchandise there. With Ottawa it was like that from day one, everyone knew the Aces were the rugby team. The fact we did Toronto meant it became more prominent and word travelled faster.”

Mr Perez gave Toronto a name check as above thanking his former club for their trail blazing, opening up Canada to further RL expansion. Ottawa have Frayssinous in place apparently with ten players lined up to sign on to erm.......

A repeat of the successfull TWP journey

Then why do you still post here?

I bet that's a meeting of great minds.

You'll find a meeting of great minds on TRL in the expansion threads where hundreds of posts discuss how the game is to break out of it's homelands and take the sporting world over. Trouble is there's a far much bigger, much richer and very similar game that is sat next door to us wherever we play rugby league and that code has specific policies for making sure they don't contract as a result of our growth.

Toronto suffer from Rugby Union dominating there and it may be no different in Ottawa. How do you manage a grass roots when the grass roots is taken already and there's an established RU infractructure. Argyle simply didn't bother trying and just partied with the Canada Rugby Union people. If you can't beat 'em join em.

As for Ottawa Perez is already planning "Trials" for Canadian players. It was not so long ago Noble was sent out to scour Canada for some home grown talent which must have been what the SL bosses were pushing him for. Now Perez is supposedly going to look into this empty cupboard and seems to be setting himself up to fail just so he can shelve that and deplete the game of players here.

Perez seems to be deliberately ignoring USA players and should tell us why, but no doubt he''ll get his usual free ride. That's not expansion and the one thing the expansionists cannot grasp is if you shift all the players from Leigh to Toronto and relegate Leigh what exactly "expands"??

As for this "Steph Curry" bloke, it's just another thread spoiler in action. They may all be the same person or should I say thing

Then there's the American who nobby said in his own words he keeps on getting better and better and better, so where is he now

I hope Noble got paid enough to retire because he did his CV no good at all in Toronto. It would be typical of him following TWP policy to invent "an example" of how RL player production was on the rise in Canada and just shout that out every time he was challenged.

In year one TWP did have North American players two of these lads as I say were at the World cup. They were sacked for year two. The trials were a sham as reported by people who went to Brighouse. Perez is all hot air as his record shows. Anyway we shall see how this ridiculous episode in the games history (which is where it will eventually be consigned) rolls on.

Wonder if that lad Quin Ngwati who was always rolled out as the proof of "player expansion" (but hardly ever played) is going there? That's not the lad you refer to is it? Lets see if Perez signs him.

out of interest, what has made you so bitter and full of hate for all things expansion?

Perez's record is pretty good. Built one club from scratch and another next year in foreign lands all in 5 years.

Yes but, the one he built looks to have collapsed.

If you have enough money to throw at a project, it will always be sustainable but, if the money runs out, you have a problem - see Toronto.

The million dollar question is, can they (N. America) EVER produce homegrown players - right now, there is zero plan and zero evidence that they actually can, which is a shame but, it doesnt change where we are.

Personally, I believe that for RL to be a success over there, it somehow needs to stand on its own two feet and I really dont see how/when this will be possible.

Ottawa isn't expansion though is it

Geographically speaking it is, but you're right. Behind the launch of Ottawa is the failure of a southern based club, in a town where all the schools played Rugby League. How Hemel withered is quite sad and we lost something important there if you ask me.

I agree it was a double blow to the London expansion to have the Broncos relegated and have Hemel taken over and moved to Canada at a time when there seems to be more clubs on the horizon

That's a brilliant post..........

Replacing a club here in England like Hemel and substituting it with a club in Canada in Ottawa adds how many more clubs to the professional game?

None. But Ottawa will continually be called an "Expansion club"

Taking away the local semi-pro club that managed to make Hemel a Rugby League town with top players coming through (Dan Sargison?) contracts the player development base in the south. Yes contraction

OK Ottawa may have access to a few $Million but to get anywhere and to justify replacing proper clubs like we see with phoney Wolfpack replacing the Broncos (hence Canadian clubs destroy our southern base) they need something more than money and that is the desire to grow the game on top of the game here, not replace it and depress it in the south of England.

People may recall the rumour a year or two back Argyle was to buy into London Skolars? Imagine if he had done that back in 2017 and supported Skolars, then partnered with Broncos and Hemel, how that would have massively boosted the Game here in England. Real expansion

The word just isn't expansion. It's substitution and damaging at that....