[url=http://www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=rleague/11/05/01/RUGBYL_Ireland.html&BID=480Rugby League Ireland want a SL club in 5 years[/url

Interesting. They could start this weekend and draw bigger crowds than Hardlyquins are doing at present. This statement of intent has got me thinking. Quins are BOUND to go when the franchise decision is made. The RFL/SL CANNOT justify any other club departing bar them. 1,900 fans isn't enough and they will no doubt be posting huge losses again. They must know they are going when they announce the decision over the next few months.

So I was thinking, give the assets of Hardlyquins to RLI and put them in the National League system somewhere. Let the RFL fund London Skolars instead so that league in London doesn't disappear entirely.

They should go in the championship first. The main problem with Ireland is that its already packed full of sports already, therefore gaining market share would be difficult.

I'd start them in Championship 1. Let one team pool all the best Irish players from their amateur leagues.

What are the assets that Harlequins have that could be transferred to Dublin?

17 Season Ticket Holders.
Gutterfax/Wirequin.
Luke Dorn?

Yes of course you would. Complete waste of time. Trying to market 3rd rate rugby to a new market is never going to get anywhere.

can Widnes have Luke Dorn please?

on the upside, this would provide a justification for weekends back with the dads side of the family getting blitzed

especially when the vikings play them.

SL in Ireland in 10 years would be better. Have we learnt nothing from the rushed shambles that were Celtic Crusaders?

true, but can we still have Luke Dorn?

Give them a good team, and stick em in Super League. Get them doing well, and keep them in one place, moving the odd game to Limerick, to Portlaoise, to Drogheda even. But build a base in the area, give it the 30 years Harlequins have got, and the Irish will take to RL like a second summer sport. Soccer and Football and Union dominate, but there is space for one good side in SL. I would suggest getting a side of good Irish (in the RL sense) players and take 1 player from each team to construct something a bit like this:

Dorn
Richards (c)
O'Callaghan
S Gleeson
Blanch
Scott Grix (vc)
Simon Grix (First I just put Grix/Grix, then S Grix/S Grix, I hate their mother

)
R Boyle
McIllorum
Eamon O'Carroll
McCarthy
Ambler

Fill the rest of the side with Aussies and reasonable standard SL players. Give away tickets, build a base, and introduce it to the Irish public with a bang, if it doesn't work in the short term, give it the time and effort Quins has had, and see if it gets any better. Also, get Brian Noble to coach them (H)

Look I realise you are keen to see SL in Ireland but you exaggerating the number of Quins season ticket holders won't wash ok?

right heres the plan...

first stick the ireland & scotland 'A' teams (players from the irish & scots leagues) into the northern rail cup

then those group of domestic players/squads would evolve into dublin & Edinburgh teams to be placed in the championship 1.....and then let them develop...

crusaders went from nothing to SL in 5 years....maybe that was a tad quick...maybe work to a 10 year plan? cos maybe having a full team of irish/scotsmen playing in the championship would do more for the development of the game there than have a couple of irish and aussies/kiwis in super league....

So we're gonna introduce third level rugby into Ireland?

I'm all in favour. The only way for RL to grow and compete with other sports is to grow the international game. We NEED a 6 nations style international tournement every year. I would like to see a scottish team in there as well, but not to replace existing teams.

So is trying to market a losing team-which is what will happen, they'll get hammered every week, the fans won't watch an the club will struggle financially because they have started with absolutely no foundations whatsoever and overheads that will cripple them.

Lets hope they don't follow the Crusaders model of expansion!

If RLI want a Super League team, they need one thing over everything else-money.

Feels like it should be a longer term plan.

Why are you talking about Widnes getting back into SL?

How did they manage that, oh yes, they were granted a place, not the same as earning it.

They were within 30 seconds of winning the Championship Grand Final so would have gone up regardless.

Because that worked so well with Cardiff in 95. Work to get an established amateur setup, not a semi-professional one that enters the fray with a wimper rather than a bang.

Melbourne Rebels seem to be doing okay in a sports congested city, where union had only played as an international game.

What non-league people want is to go and see a big game, take a fixture like St Helens vs Wigan fixture to Dublin, promote the hell out of it and test if there is an audience in Dublin. Take a Challenge Cup semi-final there and see if anyone is interested beyond the English fans traveling. I am a fan of the league on the road concept as it is in Australia, we seem to have gone away from it here, and perhaps times of austerity is not the best, but people want to do things that seem big; union is good at this, so we should up the ante and tell them how big the Challenge Cup is, or how seriously a Wigan vs Warrington game is.

Surely worth investigating, but Sky would only want to lose their big TV games if there was a good chance of a full house elsewhere in and around the British Isles.

No...........

We are hardly smashing records with Quins or Crusaders and despite the fact I support both these expansion clubs, I feel any further made up teams will work against the whole sport. The French have every chance of succeedng over a number of years, indeed perhaps a further club there may help there game overall. There is no way fans will support being asked to cough up vast sums, travelling to a country that is bankrupt and with no RL foothold in the Eire makes it an impossible dream.

We are not producing enough quality players now and the lower league clubs are not bringing as many into the game as they have done in the past due to lack of return on investment. We have to look at our game as it is and remember that the country in the middle of an economic downturn, now is not the time. Expanding the game can only be achieved at some cost to the heartland clubs or one or both of the developement clubs that are under some economic pressure are cut from the lifeboat. I am sorry, but I feel the Welsh experiment will end in expensive failure and we can not afford to lose the money we are pumping into it. The Quins have to be helped as they have put down roots, developing players and with some further marketing to find the correct ground they could still come up as a real asset to the whole sport.

Eire forget it, its a none starter and it would take more out of the game then it would ever put in.

Still waiting to find out what this 'Welsh experiment' is.