There is zero presence in Manchester and to most of the country Hull is the epitome of an irrelevant, obscure place. There was an Eastenders episode recently where one of the characters was faced with the prospect of having to move to Hull and it was presented as a fate worse than death. Yet in RL it's considered an upmarket, cosmopolitan location. Is it any wonder the sport gets no meaningful coverage or respect?

Well there's your problem then because the RFL have literally, absolutely nothing to do with this apart from agreeing to allow Toronto to enter League 1. If this was RFL trying to transplant a team in some far-flung location (which is what you appear to think is happening) then I would agree with you, if it was some type of strange 'expansion' initiative then I would agree with you but it isn't, it's a bunch of millionaires in Toronto who want a professional rugby league team and are willing to stump up to make it happen. I believe they have already paid a substantial retainer just to enter League 1. 'Common sense' doesn't really apply when you don't actually know anything about what you're talking about, with due respect.

My "common sense" point was that I believe attempting to have an international league of a sport that has about 100,000 regular supporters, where one of the teams is 3,400 miles from it's peers is doomed to failure. But let's see where they are in 5 years time.

You mentioned "irrelevant little towns". I was simply correcting you that Hull is actually a city, along with Leeds and Manchester. Indeed Hull is the UK City of Culture for 2017 and has been a city for 120 years. Perhaps you don't actually know anything about UK urban geography, with due respect.

Based on what? We aren't "attempting to have an international league", we are accepting a proposal from a bunch of millionaires in a major world city who like our sport and want to be part of it. What do you think the RFL should have done, told them to bugger off? Once again, this isn't internally-driven expansion, not sure why you can't seem to grasp that. If you want to tell the people behind Toronto Wolfpack that you think their business plan is flawed then that's fine (although I would think they probably know a lot more about it than you do), but that doesn't seem to be what you're doing, you seem to be going on about the RFL which is just a completely redundant argument here.

oh dear, have you been to hull recently? visitors are nothing but positive about our city, granted it isnt a concrete urban jungle like london, manchester and leeds and there is work going on in the city centre, but the city and surrounding areas have actually been given rave reviews by the national media!


maybe you should retract your head from your anus and visit and actually take time to look around instead of assuming its a dump!

I was in Hull last year, it's not a bad place, in RL terms it's a sprawling metropolis but that doesn't mean it's somewhere that people from outside the region care about or consider to be an attractive or upmarket location. It's just an average city. Yet on Sky Sports we have Eddie calling FC vs KR the "big city derby", it's the 58th biggest city in the country FFS, that shows the scale of RL in the UK and why we get the treatment we do. Even Leeds is not taken all that seriously from people outside the region, which you would think was New York City listening to most RL fans. It's the most parochial of sports.

The RFL are clearly involved and supporting this venture, by allowing the team to compete in the league. So desperate are they for any growth, and devoid of any ideas themselves, they have sanctioned this. A ""bunch of millionaires" and a Powerpoint presentation and you are in the league. I am a bit sceptical, as you know, as I would have thought the "bunch of millionaires" could have started a pro-RL Canadian league if there is such demand for it. I mean I cannot imagine people in a major world city could get excited about a home game with a UK non-entity northern town such as Wigan or Saint Helens?

I suspect I know more about failed RL expansionism than the people behind Toronto Wolfpack, having seen it for 30 years, and watched RL played in Kent, London, Edinburgh, Newcastle, North Wales, South Wales, Spain and France. I am also old enough to remember the Milwaukee game in the mid 80's and how this was going to ignite the fires of North America's desire for a new contact sport.

As I said I think the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. If in 5 years , if Toronto are in SL with massive home crowds you can resurrect this post and show how wise you were at the time.

* "fail to grasp", "going on about" - are you able to debate a subject without attempting to insult the opposing view?

Kent invicta was hardly a bold expansion move was it? the club was set up by a local business man and was bankrupt within six months. Then followed the relocation and name change that happens with every Newly created Rugby League club. Kent is hardly a sporting hot bed I'm sure its football club is only still in existence thanks to extraordinary SKY money and the potential to sell a player for a handsome sum once in a while.

I dont really remember when london (Fulham) failed I suppose it peaked too soon then got relegated quickly and it couldn't cope with the lost revenues and its dragged along ever since, and missed the boat when everyone jumped on the premier league football bandwagon (despite a Wembley appearance and Richard Branson sponsoring shirts).
Wales again just poorly run by "businessmen", administration, a name change, ground change, and on and on.

the one major problem our sport has is its not trendy you mention non entity towns and that's probably quite true...English fans get excited about watching those NFL teams, the famous brands like Detroit lions and the Oakland raiders ...I imagine there are places in those two cities that would make Parr stocks and Platt Bridge look like paradise.

if this Toronto Side can add some much needed glamour I'm all up for it I hope it goes incredibly well. I hope people support it in anyway they can, if that means being positive for a change that would be great.

will it fail?? logistics suggest it has too....if those NFL games staged in the UK are still all making a loss I cant imagine how long the Wolfpack model can las,t but I'm guessing they don't fly their own toilet paper over with them like the NFL teams do.

It seems well set up and these "businessmen" appear to have been checked out, it deserves a chance, if it grows the English game or the Canadian game then that can only be a bonus.

If it fails nothing lost...it cant harm us. we'll just have to put up with people banging on about getting a Cumbrian team going....!

Lack of live support is not unique to Rugby League though.Rugby Union apart from top games is sply watched as is football below championship level & cricket at most levels. Multitudes of sports channels & opportunities for the traditional supporter to take up other interests are in the way of setting up new clubs in most sports.Till about 30 years ago golf was only played by posh people but now it is also a working man's or woman's leisure pursuit.

Well yeah, if they can provide a business model and the funding then why not? League 1 is full of various expansion teams, with probably more to come. Some of them might go out of business, some of them might continue to plod along as they are, some might eventually make it out of League 1 and become legit contenders. Whether they succeed or not is up to them, it's no skin off our back or the RFL since they don't have any stake in these teams. Again, if you're suggesting that the RFL should just turn away people who want to start pro RL teams and have the means to do it, or that allowing them to play in the league is somehow a sign of being "desperate" then TBH that's just backwards nonsense.Maybe they didn't want to? It's extremely difficult to start up a pro league from scratch in any market especially North America, as RU has found out with PRO Rugby being a total flop. Far easier and more prudent to enter a team into an existing and established structure, and your only objections for them doing this seem to be because a bunch of random teams in the South of England were not successful in the 1980s. If they lose a load of money then that's on them, it's their money, I don't see why it matters to you.

There was an article on the BBC news in the early hours about a young English born lad who has been accepted to become a rookie Aussie rules player....a first apparently. He has joined a club called Essingdon(?) who regularly play in front of very large crowds. It looks at least as if one sport is prospering.

No dog in this fight, but that is .

24th biggest by population i think

I was going off Wikipedia, I checked again and the list is actually districts and includes all 32 London boroughs separately, so yeah a bit off, the point remains though.

Really hope that this venture can be a success, but.... and this has probably been mentioned, but I don't think RL's domestic structure could be less well suited for expansion teams... the middle/super 8s/playoffs are announced with very little notice, so you could have teams having to travel to Canada at a week/fortnight's notice... I think the possibility of teams not fulfilling fixtures may become an issue here... especially for nothing games at the end of the season. If your part-time club with nothing to play for decides it isn't worth the expense to travel over, it could make a mockery of the whole sport.

I suspect they would get kicked out of League 1 if they just decided not to fulfill the fixture like that. To put it another way, I suspect they will be more eager to accommodate Toronto than the majority of the League 1 clubs, given what each party is bringing to the table. Haven't Toronto said they will cover travel expenses anyway?