That's assuming their announced attendances can be believed and judging by the Bulls game they're stretching credulity to it's absolute limit.

People developing the game in Ireland have ambition and a target (even if it's unrealistic) – outrageous! don't they understand it's a local game for local people?

Look ffs "Things change and people change
And my mind just gets hazy
I truly thought I knew you
How wrong can you be"

As the mint miss James wrote

Get used to the fact that RL needs to adapt to modern ways, this includes expansion and yes at the cost of small clubs. Yes we are a small club and unless we adapt and expand our customer base we will fall.

No dont point the finger saying there poo because. Only if we raise our game will we still be in SL,

I am in full agreement with expansion but this has to be done realistically to make it work. Expansion should take place in your own country to enable all fans the chance to see our great game. Having teams from Wales, Scotland, France, Ireland or such as Russia in Super League is totally inept. Can you ever see teams from these countries playing in the Premier Division of the football league, thus having Manchester United going to Paris for a league match one week followed by Inverness the following week and Dublin the month after that, there is more chance of hell freezing over so why do we have to be the only ones stupid enough to think that this will ever work. We have tried previously at Kent, Mansfield and Nottingham without any successs so why should it be any different in further afield.

Are you taking the ?

Man U, and the other teams that finished in the top 4 (?) of the PL, play league games against teams from other European countries throughout the season. Might not be Inverness and Dublin, but does include Barcelona, Madrid, Glasgow, etc.

Pff that Champions league thing will never take off

He has a point. The Champions league is for the elite clubs and does not run week in, week out like a domestic league. I don't think you can draw a sensible parallel between European Premier League Soccer where a single player is paid more in a week than the most highly paid SL player gets in a year and where crowds of 50k+ and global TV audiences of multiple millions are the norm, and RL where there are teams getting crowds of 2k and the salary cap for the entire squad is less than Wayne Rooney gets.

Add in the UEFA (or whatever they call that now) and it's the top 10 or so teams in English soccer, compared to the top 12 in English RL, so not much difference.
We then ask our RL teams to make one trip to North Wales, and one to South Wales, and one to France. Hardly compares to what the soccer teams hit in terms of travel.

The big difference is the UEFA is a separate competition and less than 50% of the teams are eligible for it whereas 100% of the RL teamshave to make the trips that to me indicates a vast difference. Also taking into account how much money has been thrown at Harlequins and the Crusaders can you say that this justifies them being in the Super League when they cannot survive on their own attendances and before you say give them a chance the Harlequins have had 30 years to make it work and as we all know it never will.

It's not exactly a lot of trips.

How much money has been thrown at Harlequins and Crusaders? Who by? When?

The game has always been about a competitive game of rugby league played in front of both home and away supporters. This is not a flexible statement that will change with time!

If the geography of teams restricts an away following.....well the geography ain't right for the game. The RFL must be bonkers if they expect that even the loyalist of fans can afford or justify the expense of traveling in their hundred's if not thousands week in week out. Either that or they don't care about the reality of the game as long as it fits with their ideal model.

We are not football, in any way or form. Hence comparrisons to the Champions League are about as far fetched as the tooth fairy. The money involved in RL is not even that which it was in football 40 years ago, and we don't and never will, have the World wide following which football commands.

Spreading the game might look good on a map, but empty seats don't look good on the TV or at the game. Yet the RFL's action confirm that they continue to negate the importance of having visiting fans, it will be the downfall of the game. Banter, singing, chanting is part of what gives a game it's atmosphere. Without this atmosphere....well you might as well save your increasingly hard to earn money and stay at home and cheer and shout at the TV with friends .....or use your £20 on beer and to go to the pub and enjoy the game in a pub atmosphere.

We all know as loyal home and away supporters, both supporters and teams feed off the buz and atmosphere at the game. It's the very same buz that makes us addicted to the game!! It's the very same buz that keeps us coming back, and enthuses our friends socially and at work to come to a game to see what it's all about. It certainly isn't seeing empty stadiums on tv that makes newcomers want to be a part of the game.

Simply put home and away supporters = buz = growing numbers,

NO visiting supporters = a game that your not bothered about missing = falling numbers!

This reminds me of Woolworths "we have always done it this way so why change"

Oh dear !!

Keep it as a local game for local people because that's worked so well so far, none of these jumped up taffs, frogs and cockneys etc. etc. [i(repeat 'til fade)[/i

And your counter constructive point of view is............Woolworths!!!

Just tell me who and how it is going to be paid for and if Joe Public enjoys playing 'spot the visiting supporter'.

My point is! if we just stood still like we have over the last decade Union will ( and other sports) get further ahead, or with sustainable growth develop the game take it further and increase our customer base while adapting to the changing world we live in.

We really need to get out of the "its our sport int pit village's"

Point 2 , please dont be under the impression we fund the sport because that belongs to Sky Yes they pay for it, do you really think Probiz would sponsor us without the Sky Deal??

I really hope thats sarcasm, if not im embarrassed for you !!

Believe me I know that we live in Sky's pocket. It's just the use of the words 'sustainable' for growth development that I don't agree with. I think it is more a case of 'subsidised'!

I just think that the more we continue to climb deeper into SKY's pocket by spreading the game, as only they want....the harder it will be to climb back of their pocket if they ditch us. It's a matter of risk and reward. Each year we see the RFL bend more rules to suit SKY's game plan and our clubs climb deeper into financial debt/risk to try and chase the reward of SKY money (in what ever form).

My point earlier being that the game needs both sets of fans at the game, for the game to be at it's best. Without this I can't see the game being sufficiently attractive to entice new fans to the game, to fill these new stadiums.

Seriously when many look through the list of home fixtures for their season tickets. If there are games that they are prepared for whatever to miss, they are the ones where there is minimal visiting supporters. The reason being that there is no atmosphere. So is that feeling about any particular game constructive for 'sustained' growth?

Fact is without the Sky money that is boosted by the less supported clubs and the money that the national exposer generates , we simply would lose more players to OZ/Union and then you would be having a go at the RFL for doing nothing to stem the flow ??

And you overlooked a response to my question about Probiz

People seem to forget that there was life before SKY. There were sell out crowds before SKY, and there many attendance records set that 15 years on with SKY have not come any where near being toppled. The fact is that the RFL have allowed their world to revolve around SKY, and they are now in so deep its hard to know who sets the rules of our game SKY or the RFL. Well we actually do know.....its clearly SKY.

In regards to your Probiz question. It's a bit of an unreal situational question to ask. Just take a look around our ground, they have Probiz written on anything that could catch a camera shot now. Would any sponsor go to such extent without the expectation of their name appearing on TV to the many SKY viewers? But again, Probiz are not the first company to sponsor the club nor will they be the last. Sponsoring a club, as far cheaper than Paying directly for SKY advertising, and gets a lot more air-time and exposure. All credit to CP's marketing skills to capture the interests of Probiz and some sponsorship with it.

If I recall correctly the thread started in regards to a Paddy team getting into SL. My response was in regards to visiting fans, or lack of them and I'm still awaiting your response to the importance of home and away fans to create an atmosphere at a game? You've swerved round the topic so far, are visiting fans important to the game or not? A simple 'yes' or 'no' will do!!

Im rubbish since i turned 40



The Probiz Ref is like this

Yes there would still be sponsors without Sky but the money would not be the same, we would lose players to Union / Oz .

The Money we alledgedly spend on Quins/ Cru is from Sky Not the RFL , if Sky pulled out then yes i would be very worried for those clubs but as there not Sky can spend the money as they wish.

To answer your q. Yes i stand at the railway end near the sc bar, this is because i enjoy the alternative view you get of the game by mingleing with the opposite fans. But that doesnt mean i dont enjoy the other games any less, so no away support is not the be all for me.

You refer of course to the 1950s, a time LONG before television was affordable for many people and to watch sport you HAD to attend in person. There were massively fewer leisure activities available to the working classes as there are now, so you cannot make any direct comparison to that era.
Lets not forget the times directly BEFORE SL for Castleford as an example and this isn't a pop but just to prove my point. A heartland team with bags of history, other teams within close proximity and you were mustering 4-5K per home game the season before SL started, hardly sell out crowds? Do you know how many 10K attendance home matches you've had from 1985-1996? I'll tell you 4, yes 4 games, the last pre SL 10K attendance at Wheldon Road was against Australia in 1992.

So to Quins who have moved around over a relatively short space of time (losing most of the fan base they may have established) to in effect a new town, at a time when there are a million and one things for kids/adults to be doing. They don't have a 'community' of rugby fans stemming back from over a 100 years, haven't been successful and haven't been helped by the RFL (in the earlier days at a time when they needed support) so really Quins are going to struggle and will do for the forseeable future unless they can somehow be consistantly at the upper end of the table.
That's not to say we shouldn't continue to keep expanding but the RFL have formulated expansion as a panic knee jerk reaction to the popularity of RU and have just made a complete an utter mess of it.

A bang on post !

If I were to miss any game by choice, it would be against Harlequins, Crusaders or Catalans. I'm sure there are hundreds of other RL supporters that would think the same. Now I wouldn't choose to miss these because I have anything against them or devalue their teams. I would choose to miss them because I am paying for the atmosphere. This doesn't mean having a few jugglers walk around the pitch, or watch 2 blokes kick for goal at half time.

I'm not sure that the RL are close enough to todays supporter to be able to make valued marketing decisions. They tend to aim the game at 'tomorrows' supporter, they have been trying to find 'tomorrows' supporter for years. Make the most of what we have, there is a market for the game within the clubs we have in all divisons. The capacity is never maximised as efforts are made to invent a club full of Aussies in Leicester, or Mansfield or Dublin or wherever they want to stick a pin on a map.

Couldn't resist adding my view on expansion , so here goes ...

If I were to make the trip to watch my team ( Leeds) away at Catalans it would cost me roughly the same as it costs me to go to around TEN domestic away games . I really would like to make that trip some time , but having a family and two small kids means that amount of money has to be spent wisely(ish) . It is no surprise that they bring only a small following to their away games . As for Cru and Quins . I don't have a problem attending when we play them away . I can get there and back in the day so they are on my list of things to do .
Via public transport , most away games including match ticket , can be done for around £25-$40 .
Spending £400+ on one game is out of reach for me . Expansion needs to be in areas that is easily and cheaply accessible to existing supporters . Start adding flights/ferries , passports , and weekends away hikes the cost and logistics way out of reach of a lot of people .
Just another thing . If the Sky people could stick to the announced fixture dates then they might get a few more people to commit themselves to attending Cats games . I was planning a trip over not long since . I was going to have it as a mini holiday with the family , but cancelled after the hassle that Quins had with their away fixture with them . The compensation of a ticket to watch an international match would be no consolation for losing your job for not turning up at work on Monday morning .

Fair comment KnockersbumpMKII. But how many times have we been 10K+ at the Jungle whilst in SL? I'd be surprised if it was more than about 5 or 6....probably Leeds games.