Yep let's watch our game stagnante with no development or forward-thinking at all. In fact we should go back to the winter game with one man and his dog watching on the sidelines

Rugbychick

on the plus side i suppose is that it's good publicity for the game

Cullen made no mention of Cumbria . though of course he does not wish Widnes to dip out on account of a side from there being admitted into SL.

When at Wire , he was always banging on about a Cumbrian side being in SL again.

i'm all for expansion, and it seems to be working really well in south of france and the celtic juniors seem to be coming through really well too...

but it seems a bit mad to me, when we struggle to get big attendances at our games even though most teams are a maximum of an hour apart, to start pushing more and more fixtures further afield...surely the rfl should first try and get 20k regularly into each of the superleague games between heartland clubs and then push for expansion?

So are les catalan dragons ruining our game? third in the league last year, an average attendance of 8,488 last season, which for a side with no "heritage" is a fair few. also, a beautiful, cosmopolitan place which again adds to the competition. they got to the cup final, something which numerous clubs with "heritage" haven't done, some for as long as 20 years. progress is a fact of life. without it, the game would stagnate. i agree that the derby games have that special edge, but perpignan for a few days is by and large a better trip than say, widnes....

What we need is a European Super League.

I mean that as an extra league. One league for the UK, one league for Europe. You can expand as much as you want then, aslong as nobody from outside the UK plays in the UK Super League.

Dublin Dynamoes
Catalans Dragons
Toulouse Olymique
Essen Munchers
Moscow Maulers

They'd all play in the European League

Warrington
Wigan
Saints
Leeds
Widnes

They'd all play in the UK league

If you really fancied it, you could have a 8/16 team play off system that involved both leagues and the Grand Final would decide the Champion of Europe. Sort of similar to the Lancashire and Yorkshire leagues back in the day, with the final at the end of the year.

Bit of an unfair comparison as RL heritage in that area of France dates back almost as far as in Warrington (well 1930's anyway). The obvious success of Les Cats does not mean that we will get similar success from Cardiff, Edinburgh or Dublin. We still have not succeeded in London yet after years of trying.

Moving on a good question to ask the fervent expansionist supporter is "Will you support continued expansion for the good of the game even if it means your team will have to drop out of SL to accomodate?". I'm pretty sure TW that you wouldn't want Wire on the fringes just to support the Bulgarian Buchaneers and the blue sky vision of the RFL?

Very true. Many forget about the history of the game in France (Mike Rylance's 'The Forbidden Game' tells the story brilliantly). We still seem to be flogging a dead horse in London though.

Unlike both Catalan Dragons and Celtic Crusaders Workington didn`t have the luxury of having 3 years grace from relegation, its already been proven that new SL clubs need more than 1 year to establish themselves at the top level. Cumbria hasn`t been given a real go at SL by anyone, i agree though that a merged team would be in their best interests to establish a SL team from Cumbria.

Is Cumbria fashionable enough for the RFL though based on them taking the magic weekend to both Cardiff and Edingburgh and also mentioning Dublin etc, i`m not on about a magic weekend up in Cumbria as that would be like having the Champions League final at Bangor City, the point i`m making is everywhere but Cumbria saeems to get mentioned by the RFL in its future plans.

If its going to fail then at least give them the chance to fail like they did with South Wales first time round and PSG, my own opinion is that the RFL don`t see Cumbria as fashionable for its future plans, the RFL remind me of Hyacinth Bucket when it comes to Cumbria as nothing Cumbria will ever do will be good enough to get them into one of Richard Lewis`s tea mornings.

Yeah the Vichy Government outlawed Rugby League in the 40's. They believed it corrupted French youth!

London is flogging a dead horse sadly.

The biggest hurdle to a Cumbrian team being given a Super League franchsie are the Cumbrian Clubs themselves. None of them are big enough to support a team in itself or have the financial backing or infrastructure to do so. Yet the none of them are willing to work with the other clubs to address the problem by whichever means necessary (merger, overarching club with existing clubs as feeders).

As with many people in rugby league they appear good at blaming others for their problems without doing anything to address the issues themselves.

What i find interesting it that the man in question (Woods) said it isn't about money its about what the fans want and that he he will ask the fans before making any decisions.

Now i did fill in a questionnaire about the Cardiff experience but one of those question was not "shall we go to Scotland next year" there was a question about the hotel prices but i would be willing to pay that bit extra due to the location of the stadium in Cardiff.
Im led to believe that the main reason for moving away from Cardiff was because the welsh didn't do enough advertising for the event, is that not about money then

The RFL have signed a contract with Edinburgh so the event will be there next year also but if they were to move to Ireland the year after this would mean either getting a plane or a ferry and i don't believe people will do that, Cardiff and Edinburgh are both accessible by road all the way there and back, Ireland means getting a second form of transport and may even cost more money.

Will the RFL ask the fans there opinions on Ireland or will they just sign a two year contract and see if it takes off like they've done with Scotland, there will be near enough the same amount of fans there at the weekend as there was in Cardiff last year, the Scots have only sold 4,000 tickets which is again the same as the Welsh did last year.
Moving to Edinburgh poses no advantage for the fans and if anything it's a step back because the stadium in Cardiff is in a great location and because of the roof would keep any bad weather away from the stands.

The RFL are trying to expand the game of Rugby League (to much) and at the expense of the Fans, if the RFL were to ask fans for an opinion on expansion, im sure the majority of fans would say that enough is enough.

Aye, but Huyton and Runcorn do.......
That's the way forward

But that's like asking Wakefield and Castleford to merge or Leeds and Bradford or (perish the thought!) Wigan and Saints. Why not work with the teams that are there?

I think the RFL have to give serious consideration to consolidation at some point. There does not seem to be a drive from Red Hall to support Gateshead or Sheffield, for example, which are teams that have survived inspite of maulings by the RFL and yet are in real expansionist areas. I think the likes of Barrow and Whitehaven, Gateshead and Sheffield should be given priority over Scotland even though I believe the agenda is all about 'the international game' at present. However, it's no good trying to force an issue. Surely that was tried in Wales and didn't work (unlike the present effort which seems to be reaping something, though only time will tell just how much).

If it was up to me I would actively promote and support those clubs in place at present and from them grow a GB team, with help given to the French sport also. Only soccer is truly worldwide. Just now we should focus on strengthening what has been achieved rather than risking ruining everything by overstretching ourselves. We're a minority sport with a minority sport's budget.

And I think having Magic in Carlisle would be great!