Do you mean a team based in France or a team with 80%+ French born players?

I'd say he'd made a case for the opposite

On second thoughts you're right. Maybe Leigh should replace Catalans next year.

Same imaginary scenario for Warrington

Squad is
1. Brett Hodgson Overseas
2. Chris Riley
3. Chris Bridge
4. Ryan Atkins
5. Joel Monaghan Overseas
6. Lee Briers
7. Richie Myler
8. Adrian Morley
9. Michael Monaghan Overseas
10. Gareth Carvell
11. Trent Waterhouse Overseas
12. Ben Westwood
13. Ben Harrison
14. Micky Higham
15. Simon Grix
16. Paul Wood
17. Mike Cooper
18. Matty Blythe
19. Stefan Ratchford
20. Chris Hill
21. Tyrone McCarthy
22. Rhys Williams Wales
23. Rhys Evans Wales
24. Gareth O'Brien
26. David Solomona Overseas

Which I make to be 5 overseas players and 2 welsh juniors.

Which is not the same as the "Wire: 10 Non English, 6 Non British"

Don't lie just to improve your argument

TBH, this whole "Team X has more overseas players that Team Y" is a boring issue.

The fact is, for SL clubs to be competitive, they NEED imports. This is because there is simply NOT the depth of quality players available to SL clubs that the NRL has.

It's an undeniable fact that RL in the UK is a minority sport. Even more so for Catalan. They have to compete with French RU which throws money around like it's water and we have to compete with football.

It comes down to an aspirational question for kids getting into sport when you look at the wages for a pro-RL player compared to a pro-footballer. A top premiership football player will likely make in a week what a top RL star makes in a year.

Cutting quota's is an oft repeated mantra on these boards, however all that will do is put a greater divide into the league as it will put top English players at a premium in terms of wages commanded and mean that clubs have to rely on lower ability players (who as they're British will still be able to command better wages than more talented "journeymen" players from abroad). So clubs will have less squad depth available as more money from the salary caps will be used in order to fill restrictive quota rules. Which means that clubs who don't have the magic salary cap that some clubs do will struggle as they're having to employ lower quality players and will have their best youngsters poached by the bigger pocketed clubs.

It's the RFL who should be the ones under the microscope here. They need to be making the job of professional RL player an attractive choice in order to increase homegrown talent and thus reduce SL's reliance of overseas players.

Same reason that dogs lick their balls - because they can.

Reduce the quota and get rid of all the stupid loopholes that exist, and compel teams to rotate their squads; that would get rid of both the import problem and the fabled 'player burnout' problem in one fell swoop.

There may be a drop in quality of some SL matches for a season or two whilst youth pathways are properly established but for me, that's a price worth paying.

Why is it that it only seems to be RL that worries about having local players in the local teams?

As far as I'm concerned, the catalans and their team will do so much more for the game in France by winning than having 17 locals each week getting pumped by 50.

Bring on the second French side.

Too many teams, not enough European players to fill them

I only make it 9 non-British Widnes players?
Isa
Ah Van
Hanbury
Cross
Winterstein
Cahill
Watts
Kite
Phelps

Even including Finigan, who was born in Warrington, that's only 10.

Who are the 12?

Why would they, or we want that?

If the Catalans are struggling to find 20 odd SL quality players in the whole of France, then I dont see how having another team chasing those players will help, surely the time for another French club in SL is when the Catalans are full of French players?

Well they tried to bring in a home grown quota in football. All that did was cause the richer clubs to go poaching u18 players from abroad.

1 Clint Greenshields - FB =#0000FFFrench residency
2 Damien Blanch - WG =#FF0000Blanch sounds a little French
3 Leon Pryce - CE, SO =#FF0000Leon was a film with a French lead actor
4 Setaimata Sa - CE, SR =#FF0000Sa a french word?
5 Cyril Stacul - WG =#0000FFFrench
6 Thomas Bosc (c) - SO =#0000FFFrench
7 Scott Dureau - HB =#FF0000Dureau is a nice French name
8 David Ferriol - PR =#0000FFFrench
9 Ian Henderson - HK Sounds foreign
10 Rémi Casty - PR =#0000FFFrench
11 Steve Menzies - SR, LF =#FF0000Menzies French/Spanish sounding for a French/Spanish border club
12 Louis Anderson - SR =#FF0000Louis is a nice French name, had a few kings with the same name
13 Grégory Mounis - LF, SR =#0000FFFrench
14 Sébastien Raguin - SR =#0000FFFrench
15 Jean-Philippe Baile - CE =#0000FFFrench
16 Eloi Pelissier - HK =#0000FFFrench
17 Cyril Gossard - SR =#0000FFFrench
18 Daryl Millard - CE =#FF0000Anyone called Daryl either Welsh or French
19 Frédéric Vaccari - WG =#0000FFFrench
20 Michael Simon - PR =#0000FFFrench
21 Julian Bousquet - PR =#0000FFFrench
22 Jamal Fakir - PR =#0000FFFrench
23 Lopini Paea - PR, SR =#FF0000Sounds like a Spanish dish, he's in
24 Jason Baitieri - LF =#0000FFFrench
25 Vincent Duport - CE =#0000FFFrench

See, only Henderson doesn't sound like a Catalan, surely that counts

SL quality players arent found, they are created. They are scouted, coached, trained and developed. They dont appear from nowhere.

Very Very Very few sides in the Heartlands create 20 SL quality players, even fewer create them from pathways which didnt exist 6 years ago.

Les Catalans are doing ok, a huge amount better than many SL sides and another french SL side would only be a boost to that.

Yes they are created, but dont pretend that there isn't talent already there, and if a club had a whole country to find that talent, then I'd expect them to do quite well at it, the pathway should have been in place 9/10 years ago, thats when they knew they were coming in, supposedly to ' prepare '

I think they are doing OK as well, but there is always room for improvement, but I'd dusagree about another club just yet

So if we have two clubs creating players, then we create more dont we.

Its silly to pretend Les Catalans can cover youth development for the entire nation of france. Its 130 miles from Toulouse to Perpignan, it is silly to think that Les Catalans could be looking to bring through 14/15/16/17 even 18/19 year old youth projects 130 from 130 miles away with any kind of efficiency. Its 150 to Avignon and 100 to Montpellier, criticising Les Catalans for not being able to bring through players from all over france is as ridiculous as blaming Leigh for not bringing through enough players from Hull.

I havent criticised them

really

As i say, it is silly to expect them to have pathways in place 9/10 years ago to 'find talent in the whole country', as silly as expecting leigh to have pathways in place to bring through players from Hull.

No criticism there, read my other posts if you like, they should be doing better, as should most other clubs, if you want to be silly and pretend I have criticised them unfairly, away you go, last time I looked there were a lot of RL area's within reasonable distance of Perpignon, and a lot of other clubs that they essentially have pick from

Maybe you'd like to check through the rest of the posts on the subject and challenge a few others on it

Well, my gast has been extremely flabbered. I have no idea how to address the obvious contradiction in your first paragraph.

No idea? I'm surprised, you're an expert at making things up as you go along

Go on then, name the 6 new signings we've made this week that i dont know off !!

I thought the main point of bring Les Cats into SL was to support the development of France on the Int stage? Not sure having 3 French players in the starting squad is going to make the French a force in Int RL!

re being responsible, no they aren;t but they do have a responsibility for scouting the very best Jnr's in the country and then giving them a pathway to make 1st grade. The fact they aren't doing that is a failure on their part as much as it is a failure on FRL for not making them and ensuring that the jnr development programmes are in place across the whole of France.

So the Perth NRL side that comes in in 2015 will be chockablock full of locals aye Red?

Clint isn't a 'naturalised' french subject but qualifies to play for france under the three-year rule just like for example, Worth & Bromley at Villeneuve or Nathan Wynn at FCL to name just a few ..

I don't agree with it either but that's what the rule book says

Catalans are not the only offenders with the 'non-english' rule as has been shown in a post by jonny the leyther a few pages back

Did I miss where the corrected version of this and the apology for making up silly numbers was posted?