80.000 at Twickers.

Quote: Ian P "I do so wish that people would realise that RU is a lot bigger then we are or will ever be. RU is a whole culture where people an actually play the game at all levels and its a business link. I have been known to go to games at Leicester and ten minutes half time many seats are still un occupied, because they are still in the bar doing business.

RU has big business, media, royal patronage, and is not regionally based and certainly not bothered by its smaller and poorer rugby rival. They are two differing games serving a differing public we need to stop worrying about them and use the strengths our game has, one of them is our northern base. We should look now towards consolidating our homelands even at the expense of " expansion" it has never worked and that is down to RU dominating everywhere outside our core area. I would love to see RL teams in London, Wales, Scotland et al but its never going to happen and we have history to prove it. We are wasting countless millions propping up clubs that are basicaly bankrupt and for what ?'"

There's so much wrong with all that I don't know where to begin.

Guess I'll start with where you was right. Yeah, RU is a lot bigger than we are. Bigger than we will ever be? Maybe. More likely than not as they've got a considerable head start, money, links, etc. but mainly because RL isn't run by the right people worldwide to make the differences needed to go forward at the rate we need to.

RU is a public school game that benefits from the Old Boys network that have power in places. That won't always be the case and things ARE changing. League is getting into places one step at a time and breaking down barriers. We get more funding and sponsorship now than ever before, not because we're "worrying" about what they're doing, but because we're paying attention to what they and other sports are doing and emulating it where it matters whilst at the same time trying our own innovations.

If we look to "consolidate the homelands" and sod everything else off, we'll be left with a tiny sport played in small pockets of Yorkshire and the North West that gets no funding, little sponsorship and TV revenue and would most likely have to go down to semi-pro level. Our top players would bugger off to play union en masse and we'd be left with Championship standard rugby and no internationals at all. Doesn't sound like a strategy to improving the sport to me.

Expansion "doesn't work" is nonsense as well. Just because there are instances where expansion clubs have failed doesn't mean it doesn't work. It just means it's been done wrong. Catalan Dragons are a huge success and it's a model we need to (but stupidly haven't) emulate. And I'm not sure where you've been recently, but there are loads of RL teams in London and Wales, and a few in Scotland to boot.

And what money are "we (the game)" wasting? Do you think we fund these clubs or do private investors? It's them "wasting" their money, not us. The only thing they get from the game is SL TV revenue, which they are entitled to like every other SL club. Is it wasted any more than it would be on clubs like Wakefield?

Sorry, I can't agree with anyone that would want to keep the game inside their own backyard and thinks it would be "progress".