I agree with the principle of Barrow and the untapped, true potential of the Cumbria area.

BUT one thing which has always irked me about SL and expansion is I can’t see how it’s supposed to work when many of our heartland clubs who make the base/foundation for SL can’t sort their own grounds, academies or finances out?

Don’t get me wrong I can see why SL needs expansion and I also agree with it as well but you wouldn’t build a house on shaky foundations so why would you expand SL on them?

For me, although it may take a little more time, I’d try to stabilise SL before I’d look at moving it to other areas.

Make the product stronger by;

More home produced players,
Better grounds,
A comp which is at a higher standard,
Improved refereeing
More professional coverage with Sky.

If this means looking a little more inward to places were RL is on a more stable grounding like Widnes etc then maybe that’s the way you have to go?

Time to also get tough on the likes of Cas, Wakey, Salford, Hull KR, Bradford and even Leeds on the state of their grounds.

I have said for quite some time, the heartlands must be really strong for us to expand properly.

There are many sleeping giants in super league. Many clubs have not reached their potential!

I agree mate.

I understand the importance with London and the media centre but cities like Leeds, Bradford, Manchester (Salford), Hull can’t be scoffed at or made out to be inconsequential.

I honestly think that the first steps RL need to make are cosmetic ones. Every team needs to be playing in modern stadia. Even if they are small like the ones at Warrington, Leigh’s or Widnes at least it looks good on TV.

It would be great to see the whole league in modern stadia it looks better and crowds go up. The club of warrington has trasnformed since the move, it could be the same for wakey, cas and the rest.

Peacock had a good idea were Wakey and Cas would share a ground which would also double up as the national RL stadium. If Inter Milan and AC Milan can do it then i'm sure Wakey and Cas could do it.

Maybe, seeing as you lot don't have your own ground, you could share Saints new one, having that as the national RL stadium, because Wigan/Saints truly is the heartland of our game??.....

Now, I can imagine I'm going to get some interesting replies to this, but just be aware its only as patronising and as insulting an idea as you suggesting Wakey & Cas share a ground...

I agree that would be a great idea! Problem would be the size and getting them to share we need a bigger stadium than Cas and wakey would need as the national stadium to build on. At least 40,000 IMO. It could be a huge source of income.

It's the main problem with our national game, England RU have a great source of income from twickers and can fill it.

It looked dreadful and from a Quins fan point of view i'd be worried. i only see bits of the game but what was the attendance tonight?

2624.

Widnes V Halifax on thursday got 3686.

On that basis maybe we could include Salford in the thread title too.

That is terrible.

Watching the game tonight was painful. The pundits/comms kept bigging it up saying quins are still in this which was a load of balls! Hudds were hardly trying in last 30 mins, the players when they scored a try just looked at each other as if to say this is boring. Theres no point covering the lower teams on sky when they are playing a top side, its demoralising and wont help the game at all.

We have been trying in salford for 100 years to get a crowd and still they dont get one to be proud off, was last years highest gate against us when we took around 3k there, if northerners stoped going quins in good numbers they would/should go bust