IMO the catalans home game is a very dull affair with attacking rugby at a premium. Its normally a hard slog up and down the middle with very few scores. Hardly an attractive proposition to walk up fans. Add that to the poor result at Saints and also the fact that the game is being televised on sky. Oh I forgot, hardly any away fans so no atmosphere either.

I predict the attendance to be just short of the total number of season ticket sales (which were disappointing according to Mr Boomhead). Therefore I will go for 5000-6000.

Catalans and Celtic in SL ??

Tbh i would prefer Widnes and Leigh.

We already have a guesstimate...

I'm not racist, but this is Political Correctness gone mad.


Oh sorry, I've used that already this week.
These threads are as entertaining and thought out as a Jim Davidson gig.

Or a warrington match.

You really are irritating.

Yes let's keep RL in Lancashire and Yorkshire and watch the same 12 teams for the next 100 years. Let's do nothing to expand and improve our game and watch it fall further and further behind other sports and never be given the coverage or recognition it deserves.

Let's not forget that Catalan, Celtic and even Quins have an awfully long way to travel to [iany[/i away game.

Celtic and Quins nearest clubs are each other and even that is a 3-hour journey (according to the AA route planner). For Quins to travel to the North-West for us, Saints, Wigan you're looking at excesses of 3 and a half hours. Same for Celtic. You can add another hour to that for the Yorkshire teams. It's not like nipping 10 mins down the motorway like it is for us to go to Saints or Wigan.

Did you go to Quins away Roger? Or was it too much of a trek? So when you are judging these clubs and their away support just bear in mind that not everybody drives or has a car. I don't. Not everybody can travel those kind of distances, especially on friday nights or with small children and not everyone can afford to. If you don't go to every game, home and away, I think you've got a cheek for criticising other fans for not.

In answer to your question Chick;

No I dont go to Quins or Catalans away nor will I go to Celtic.

I think this 'expansion' is making a mockery of our game especially in respect of the concerns I raised in the original post.

Who wants to go to games lacking in atmosphere, passion and competitiveness? Not me.

Are you seriously telling me you would rather watch a tepid wolves v catalans game over a full blooded wolves v widnes?

Get a grip woman

I do go Catalan, Quins and will be going Celtic but i agree that the expansion should stop.

At the moment Rugby League is getting to be quite expensive if you follow your team home and away and all the talk of a Scottish team, Irish team and even another French team would simply be to much.
The game has never and will never take of in London and i personally don't agree with the Challenge Cup Final being played in London simply because were lining the pockets of the southerners who don't like us despite what people say.
I also read in the League Express that our major attribute of staging the next Rugby League World Cup is that England games can be played at the Olympic Stadium and we can still use it when the athletics is long gone, again taking our game down south were it is not appreciated.

RL is a northern game for northern people.

Thats how its always been and thats how it always will be.

A few years down the line all these 'new' teams will have folded and we will be back to where we belong.

Latch is dead right.

So what gives you the right to criticise other fans who don't go away? Do you go to any away games?



Why, and more importantly how, is expansion making a mockery of our game? Because games against teams that don't bring many fans have less atmosphere? So because there's no opposition fans chanting that makes the game less competitive? I'll let you be the one to tell the team that finished 3rd in the league last year and kicked our backsides all over the pitch that they are not competitive or passionate. And I'll let you break it to the Wire players that you think they don't bother competing with Quins, Celtic and Catalan because they don't bring any fans.

It should speak volumes that Latchford is the poster agreeing with you. Maybe you could ask him to tell his pal Louis that he needs to step it up against these teams as he's letting us all down

i to would prefer leigh and widnes and not have teams fast tracked to a certain division..they should start at the bottom and earn there promotion...

Like how Celtic went from NL2, the bottom division of Professional Rugby League and earned promotion to Super League?

Dont make me laugh pal, if Celtic were based in Yorkshire they wouldn't get a sniff.

So they didn't win promotion from NL2 to NL1?
And, once in NL1,they didn't finish second in the league and make the Grand Final?
Within three years of their conception, too. What did Widnes, Leigh, Fev, Whitehaven et al do during that time?

They dont/cant offer to SL what the likes of Widnes and Leigh can.

If it takes off in Bridgend, which i doubt, it wont be to the same scale that it would take off in Widnes or Leigh.

Anyhow, its catalans and harlequins which I think are the most pointless and both will cease to exist in the coming years.

Which is what?



You do understand they've been playing RL in Wales since circa 1903?



What is 'pointless' about them, and evidence do you have to suggest they will cease to exist?

But surely, Widnes and Leigh can't offer what Celtic can, that being expansion, new fans in new areas and the long-term prospect of a side in Wales.

I'm sorry but there's Saints, Salford, Wigan and Warrington in the North West area, we need the league and sport to grow.

yes,rugby league has only been played in that region of france for about 100 years,they will disappear shortly mr penis won't they.

catalans and toulouse???????????

Catalans got 7000+ for their game with Huddersfield last week, IIRC. I reckon both Widnes and Leigh would do well to match that for an equivalent fixture.

true but cats give teams one of there lowest home att of the season along with quins and probably celtic....

Teams also usually take some of their bigger away attendances to those fixtures, too.
We almost always take more to Catalans than we do to yorkshire.
Quins away is also a very attractive away game for supporters of most clubs, usually in search of a full day on the pop.

Don't be fooled by this. Where do you think Celtic got the money from to get a team of Aussies up and running from scratch with crowds of a couple of hundred at best.

Two years ago when they where in NL2 they where full time, how?? I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions on that one.

If they are getting money pumped in it doesn't neccessarily mean it's from the RFL. How do you know they don't have a Simon Moran type figure?