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to be fair, i do believe there is a market for pro Rugby League in Ireland. my dads side of the family are all nuts about rugby union,but also have often expressed the wish that attending pro rugby league games be a possibility, without crossing the irish sea. in my experience even the rugby union stalwarts of ireland can see the attraction of league, the lack of faffing around with scrums and lineouts, the greater fluency and speed is often talked about with envious tones.
many times have many Irish people expresssed these feelings to me.
not to mention that many of those GAA stalwarts are also attracted to league, precisely because of the qualities i have previously mentioned.
it wouldnt take much tapping into that potential to see halfway decent crowds watching a topflight Rugby League team in Ireland. assuming of course they could actually win a few games.
but i do feel the possibilities for succesful expansion in ireland dwarf those in specifically south wales and certainly wales in general. thats not a dig at expansion in wales btw.
do a half way decent job of promoting it and funding it PROPERLY to get things going and it could very well
be huge.
there is definately room in Ireland for another sport and certainly if there is only one pro team in the country playing that sport. any talk to the contrary is bullcrap. they already have a few sports alongside Rugby Union (which is huge in ireland) that are just as well if not better supported than rugby league in the UK. there is room for one more, and there is certainly the appetite for it.

I think RL in Ireland could work. The thing about Ireland is that RU is not as popular as everyone thinks is a small but passionate minority.

The Gaelic football fan base in Ireland is the one that could be the easiest to break into providing that care is made not to step on toes.

However with Ireland you have a very delicate situation RU terms the team has been united for a while (hence the ulster boys play in green) so location of a team the funding name and sponsors would have to be uber scrutinised to avoid any general nastiness.

worst idea EVER

Shouldnt we do what the NRL do and take a game to an area that has future plans for a pro franchise.

Take Wigan vs another big side to Ireland and see what reaction we get from fans and media. Yeah and be prepared for it to make a loss.

Lets see if the Irish population and media have an interest in Live Rugby league.

They won't.

Another constructive and inormative comment there....

Why won't they? I can't say I'm sold on any argument for it, but just saying "They won't" doesn't really explain much, does it?

RL in Ireland won't work. The RLI Make the RFL look like the executive board of Apple.

Most Irish people don't like RU, it's very much 5th after both codes of GAA, soccer and golf. Fishing is making a play for their 4th spot thoug, but the weather is too crap.

Talk to people about RL in Ireland and they look at you like your stupid and ask if you mean the Magners league.

The last international had about 600 in attendance, I was one of them. They only let VIPs into the bar! I would guess that more than 500 of the 600 were either British ex pats or family of the players.

IT WON'T WORK

Pretty dumb argument. I'm sure if you'd gone to Australia in 1906 and asked about RL they wouldn't have had a clue what you meant either. It's quite bizarre that some fans think it's not worth trying because the sport is not already somehow massively popular in places where it has either never been played or played at a low level for a relatively brief time. I'm not arguing for an Irish SL team within 5 years or anything like that BTW, just posts like this make me laugh. There's no reason RL 'won't work' anywhere. If RLI are ambitious about raising the profile of the game then good on them, hopefully they can go some way to fulfilling their ambitions.

I'd take stories like this more seriously if they explained where they're going to get the £5m+ (as a minimum) that they'd need to establish a club properly over 4-5 years.

When you live somewhere you get an idea for what will and won't work. Irish people don't even give a for their own soccer teams. Walk around Dublin or Cork and the only sporting shirts you will see are premiership soccer or GAA.

The RLI couldnt run a up in the Guiness factory. They are the most incompetent waste of space I have had the misfortune of having dealings with for many a year.

Add to this the fact that Ireland will be in recession for at least the next 5 years, probably 10, is still in denial of this fact and surely you can see this has nothing but failure written all over it.

If you played St Helens V Wigan in Dublin this year I bet it wouldn't get more than 50 Irish people to attend.

Good factual post....except for bits I highlighted in red

Brilliant post GF!

Headhunter makes a very valid point. It seems that people - and this especially includes the RFL itself - seem to think that RL is a failure unless there is an SL team in every town, city and village across the world.

The opposite is the case. It's a failure unless there is a community club - be that SL, Championship, BARLA, whatever - in every city, town, village etc. We've not got there yet, but we're still expanding. There are more clubs now than there has been in the time I've been a fan of the game, but we're too fixated on the 'success of SL' and not accepting that people are actually happy with lower level rugby.

RLI is a case in point. Let it grow at it's own speed. Give it 10 -20 -50 years. There's no rush, the game isn't going to go away.

strange,
wakefield announced this week they were interested in setting up a gaelic football team and playing in the irish elite league or whatever its called. i expect we wil play in front of packed houses every week.

the desire for a top class gaelic football team in wakey is huge , we have masses of irish people here.

So some blindfolded old fool threw a dart at a map of europe and it hit "somewhere in Ireland" did it? Good luck to the RLI, but aiming for a SL license in 5 years is asking too much. Championship, maybe. But you've got to crawl before you learn to walk, and they aren't crawling yet.

Still, they're spreading the word and it's going to be tough so their ambition may help them somewhat.

Good luck to them, I cant see why anyone would have a problem with this. Setting up and being viable for SL in 5 years is a tough ask, but they have more chance of doing it by trying and aiming for it than by not. And even if they dont manage it, even if they dont make it, in five years the game there will be better off than if they hadnt bothered.

The game there can work, and their addition to SL would be great, If it takes 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, so be it. But good on them for trying.

the only problem would be ... setting up a five year plan.. then (regardless of whether they are ready or not) put the team into superleague...

South Wales were 5 - 10 years too soon... and the business model at Crusaders has failed to keep pace... twice!

Er what, think your massively underestimating the fact that union is very popular and growing in popularity. Certainly where I come from the rugby ball has been replacing the football with a lot of young people.

The idea of a super league team is ridiculous. 5 yeas it would take at least 10. At least they are showing signs of increasing the Irish player base right now. The most important things right now are getting more players, increasing awareness and maybe getting the as many players as possible into professional clubs across the water.

We've done it in Perth in a 5 year period so anything is possible! Of course depends on quality of management and level of support, not to mention value add to SL. I wouldn;t be expanding anywhere unless the RFL can guarantee an expansion grant of 1million quid a year extra for 10 years to the new venture.

That's the problem though. That extra million would have made all the difference at the London Broncos. If it had been given with a minimum of 50% of it earmarked for marketing, then they wouldn't be in the embarrassing position they find themselves now. I defend Quins RL attendances from people like roofs, but even I will admit I am worried about July's decision. sub 2,000 gates, regardless of the opposition or the time of day, is unacceptable.
I lived in Dublin for over 10 years.....I reckon they would take to a team on the North Side of the city...Dalymount holds 8,000...that would be a good start. If they were to push a few BIG games during the season, then the RDS holds 18,500.

As for Saints v Wigan being played in Dublin? I reckon you'd get 15,000 roll up out of curiosity. Didn't the Bulls have a tie in with Ireland a few years back?

This is exactly right. Rugby league in Ireland would be much better off spending 5 years on a massive push at grassroots. Expanding the number of clubs, consoildating the current leagues to make sure as many games as possible are played. As well as increasing the player base and general awareness. Then doing things like getting amateur results in the local paper.

There are some new teams popping up again this year e.g. Dungannon but it's hard to know how many of the new teams will even complete a fixture. At the minute teams come and go at shocking speed. That's one thing that needs sorted out!

Exactly.

1: We'd already exiled Guuterfax to NZ, but he still wouldn't go away.
2: Given the state of the Irish economy, where's the money going to come from?

Fair point, it would definately have to come from a hugely rich private investor with money to put in for at least ten years.

I think they need to concentrate on getting the grassroots up and running properly with a decent, competitive set up. Then after that is going bring in at least 1 Championship 1 teams and let them grow organically, don't force it.

I just hope we don't make the same mistakes we made with London, Wales and Gateshead.