NO NO and no they have fell by the wayside because they have been consistantly Poor for years...Halifax and Leigh had their chances and finished stone cold bottom of the league.
jesus in 1996 Leigh were in the 3rd tier of rugby league and at the bottom end of it with Chorley chieftans and South Wales. in 1998 they finished rank last of the second league, thats nothing to do with Quinns Catalan or anything else remotley linked with "expansionism" more likely hillbilly northern jokers trying to run a rugby league club.....


I think The "interest" in Welsh, Scottish, and Irish Rugby League means we dont even have to glance over our shoulders at all...
Welsh rugby is as dead as dodo the others havent even started...!

as long as we, as the only club never to have played out of the top flight continue with our "house in order" we will be as safe as Leeds Saints and Wigan...

but great scaremongering of the highest order pal...

For various reasons not enough people in Wales are interested in our sport to point where they want to jump out of their chair and get to a Crusaders game. Even with big financial support it just isn't enough to move them from a 'novelty' club to a force in the game imo. I would like them to suceed but just can't see it happening. I'm all for expansion but not to point of wasting Sky's contract money to support it and keeping well supported and well run heartland teams out of the top tier because of a few poor seasons on the field. For me Widnes and Halifax have shown they should be in SL and the strive to expand the sport shouldn't be a reason to forcibly keep them out of it.

There not facts though are thay! you just made them up in your head.

Did i say thay didnt deserve a place in super league? no. i said id rather have leigh,halifax..ect

The rugby league want to exspand and in the mean time our heartland clubs are paying the price and slipping away.

Catalans away support is alot less than what would be if leigh,halifax were in super league.


Rafa rant? its you that sounds like the fool mate.

Me too.

so if wigan merged with leigh you'd go and watch them then?
fans support their own teams not the game on the whole,the real problems with rugby league is that the decision makers in charge regularly get it wrong and show themselves to be amateurish at best.

I still remember in 1995 when the merger with Widnes was avoided. Higham said at the time that he could foresee a time in the future when a merger would take place but possibly on an even bigger scale - he named us, Widnes, Wigan and Saints all merging as one to represent the area as a whole - to accommodate expansion teams in a more European game.

I'm not saying he was right but, hypothetically, if the above merger DID take place would anyone on here who supports any one of those four clubs support the new team?

I most definitely would not.

Thats where im located

No.. unless it was named warrington wolves and was based in warrington.

People always bring the anti-Catalan argument back to their lack of away support, which is ridiculous. Catalan are a sucessful, competitive RL team and have every right to be in Super League. Leigh, Halifax et al have all had their chance at the top flight and none of them have been good enough. You can't honestly tell me you'd rather watch Leigh getting tonked week in and week out and finishing bottom of the pile than a competitive Catalan side who actually gives other teams a game?

*Rugbychick

I really don't understand that attitude. I am a Warrington RL supporter but I am also an RL supporter. If everyone had your attitude our game would be nothing but memories.

*Rugbychick

this from Wikipedia read into it what you will

Leigh's Super League season of 2005, however, proved a disaster and the club were relegated back to National League One after winning just two games. That season Leigh fans were criticised for the poor support after only gaining an avearage of 3,199 the lowest in Super League that season, just behind London who gained an average of 3,251.

If the rugby football league put as much effort into leigh, halifax. ect than thay have catalans then im sure thay would come good. if there sutch a big sucess then the french should start there own league. it just seems madness that a team not even in the same country is in the same league. thay have to travel to far and there away support is gash. IMO anyway.

Catalan Dragons was founded in 2001 in Perpignan, France, under the name "Union Treiziste Catalan"; following the merger of the successful XIII Catalan club and close neighbours Saint Estève,

Average home attendance 2009..... 9,159

seems our French Friends put us to shame then