In what way was it not a strong RL area ? , other than to fit your agenda ?

Becoming your standard answer that now when you dont know what to post

North Catalonia is the tip of the RL heartland - in SL terms the atchment area extends to Carcassonne to the west & Montpellier to the east (and probably beyond)
regarding Toulouse,it has it's own catchment area ie from Carcassonne to the east,south to the Saint Gaudens area & north towards the Villeneuve area

Why do you do it do yourself smokey? you must just tap away hopelessly at your keyboard hoping one day you will nail somthing and get it right.

Do you not realise how ridiculous your statement sounds, after all the adversity French rugby league has faced in its time you would have expected them to be strong. Its the kind of place generations of the same family play the game becasue they love it, its woven into the fabric of these small towns and villages.

that just about sums it up,well said that man !

French RL was dying, and had been for a long long time, precisely because of the adversity it faced. It was woven in to the fabric of small towns, unfortunately for it that meant that there were relatively few players, and relatively few fans. They werent in any way comparable, in strength to the heartlands.

in 2002, there were about 8000 french RL players playing regularly, in 2004 there were about 65000 in the heartlands of the uk,

To be fair, and this is about as relevant, they do eat more croissants in France.

Staffordshire. Loads of small RU clubs with no professional or semi-pro team between Sale/Stockport and Moseley. Ripe for a RL team based in (for example) Stoke. Much in the same way that there's a RU amateur setup but no pro RU team in North Wales and then Crusaders came along.

Difficult to achieve, but considering it's not a million miles to Warrington and Manchester, potential for derbies with Wire and Salford too.

Exactly the kind of staged expansion many of us "Flatcappers" or "Flat earthers" have been advocating, far enough away from the heartlands to bring the game to a new audience but close enough to encourage large away support to boost the finances of the new club, encourage existing players to play there and likely bring back people to the game who've moved away (a bit) from the heartland.

It couldn't possibly work!

yes, numbers of players is definitely irrelevant to the relative strength.

Yes, without taking into account such things as geography and population and number of clubs and I imagine plenty of other criteria, it is. We agree again!

Well done Kipperboy.

Haha!

The idea struck me a few months back in my awful previous job, where I kept being sent to the bottom reaches of Staffordshire for weeks on end. I was working with a rugby union player in Tamworth who played it week in week out but had no pro club to support, and was intrigued by League.

Problem would be where to play. Ideally close to Stoke station, but if you pick the Britannia it's a) too big and b) you'll alienate some people.

But RL was much stronger in France than it was in Wales. Catalans had French players of SL standard before joining SL; Crusaders didn't have Welsh players of that standard. Catalans' finances were more secure and they could afford "big name" Australasian players whilst Crusaders could not. Perpignan is a bigger city than Bridgend. Catalans weren't owned by a serial wrecker of sports clubs.

There is no comparison between the two sides



It's not solely on that decision but also on the way that the RFL has been prepared to ignore the salary cap, pension payments and insolvency of Crusaders.

Rules like the salary cap and SL licencing were put in place to prevent sides from spending cash they don't have to try to compete with the big boys and bankrupting themselves in the process. Crusaders were exactly the sort of side that these rules were formulated to benefit and yet the RFL chose to lend them self-destruct.

Which is why the South of France only has 1 SL club at present and the North of England has 11.

But 8,000 was a great deal more than the number of Welshmen playing the game either then or now.

So what criteria would you highlight that would mean France was a comparable heartland of the game, especially considering we know the huge difference in playing strength, and the attendances and financial strength are obvious.

What is it about the population of france, the geography of france, the number of clubs in france, that means 8000 is a similar amount to 65000?

It may have been stronger than Wales, However it isnt anywhere close to being a 'heartland'. It isnt, and wasnt comparable to the Heartlands. To say so is disingenuous at best, an outright lie at worst.

The English heartlands aren't comparable to the Aussie heartlands yet we still call them "heartlands".

to about 300 K per year

Find a SL player coming to the end of his career to apoint as player/coach/manager along with a general manager

Smallish stadium 4/5/6000 capacity around 50 miles from the heartlands allowing for easy travelling for coaching staff and players

Encourage nearest SL clubs to make available up to 6 dual reg players also 4 overseas quota spots with those players working as development officers

Balance of team made up of local RU converts

Put into Championship 1 , but with promotion excemption for 3 years so as not to imbalance existing competition and unduly upset fans and officials of existing clubs

The Championships need more clubs to play

Long term expansion done properly

Sounds like a properly thought-through version of what I am advocating! I'm with you 100% on the above.

I'd argue that the best locations for a stadium could be Lyme Valley (home of Newcastle Town F.C.) or Marston Road (Stafford Rangers). Both have a capacity of 4-6k. They're probably the best bet as they're probably a bus ride from a station but easy to get to by car/coach as well, and small enough for the crowd numbers to make a difference in atmosphere.

I'm with you except that bit. RU pays more so inevitably you'd have to pay over the odds to get players to switch.

If the RFL wish to fund a club CC1, it ought to be one that already has a backbone of players that have RL as their first sport and a youth set-up. Hemel would be my first choice.

Dont forget we are talking part time here at Championship level , although I do agree that if possible where there is existing interest would be the best option , the problem with something as long range as Hemel is that the costs rise quite dramatically , and with that cost then so does the expectation , and then we potentially end up back where we were before with clubs running before they can walk

Hemel were founded in 1981 IIRC; it would seem unlikely that they would do a Crusaders style "dash-for-glory" and ruin it all.

being such a well established club in the amateur game would they want to turn pro ?.

AFAIK they have applied in the past to join the NFP and played in the Alliance League.

It'd be nice if they could make it in the pro/semi-pro leagues. Might need some time, but it'd be a great addition.