Peripnan wasnt at the level id consider to be heartland.

to me heartland means the game is strong and vibrant. the game in france was dead or dieing. at least a club out of SL is part of a healthy RL game in england. the whole game in france was really dead. or at least meaningless.

i consider the gold coast titans an expansion club

perth too.

the auckland warriors as well even though RL is played there

edit : i mean at the time these clubs were established. gold coast and the warriors have now become so established as to be considered heartland

At what level? Purely professionally? Or do you mean amateur as well?

are you still here?

anyway since you seem to really care, a healthy professional club at the top level of the game is the best indicator

many strong SL clubs have weakish amateur scences

look at sheffield :

1. previous SL club, won the CC
2. been in NL1/2 for a while
3. juniors

heartland ?

no way

Wow, so all clubs not in SL should be considered as expansion then. Like your forward thinking. Bit strange though.

Absolute nonsense

Why have we again got to the point of doing down the game to try and prove Dally wrong?

Leeds Rhinos were the best supported club in the country in the same year Utd were in the champions league semi-final.

Leeds rhinos attendances would be comfortable in the association football championship and is similar to some premier league clubs (namely portsmouth, in fact Headingly is bigger than fratton park) only one club of any sport outside football has a higher attendance (Leicester Tigers) and it has a massive amateur game providing huge amounts of players.

Why would an RL fan use strange and pointless percentage statistics to prove otherwise.

as for just how ridiculous the population/attendance statistic is Leeds would need an average attendance of about 140000 to match castlefords population/attendance ratio

there were more amateur players and people paying to watch RL in london than perpignan prior to Les Catalans inclusion

Which tells us that RL in London will never grow any bigger than it is now , or that Quins are crap at growing the game

but not that London was an RL heartland a few years ago.

as for never growing, thats nonsense, it is growing, and quins are doing great work along with the RFL in growing the game.

unfortunately they arent translating that to bums on seats, thats what they need to be looking at

but how do you define growing the game - surely its primarily people watching it, unless you are a REAL rugby league purist who simply wants as many games to be played up and down the country even if it is infront of one man and a dog? Which is better - 100 more people playing the game in London or 10000 new fans watching it? Of course it does not have to be one or the other...but the latter certainly ain't happening!

People struggle to see the difference between spectator growth and participation growth. They are two completely different parts of the game.

Participation growth in some areas is excellent. But some clubs and RFL seem to be struggling to translate that into spectators. Not necessarily in the sense of the participants going to watch (because some just want to play), but more in the sense of the people that come down and watch these amateur and junior teams. They're already spectators.

I think the RFL needs to run some sort of campaign to get people watching the game in new areas. Although the RFL's promotion in some areas is shocking. We only need to look at the SL buils up as evidence of this...

Because dally seems to take the view that Leeds are much more succesful than "lackluster" clubs such as Leigh in attracting fans. Whilst Leeds deserve their success, they have massive advantages that most other heartland clubs could only dream about.

Go back a few years though and Bradford got higher attendences than Leeds, by a massive coincidence United were doing rather well at the time. Go and watch a Rhinos game (been twice myself - once this Boxing Day and once for the WCC against Storm) and you'll see that a lot of folk wear United merchandise to games and "Marching Together" is a United song.



Precisely. Leeds is definitely heartlands but it certainly isn't the ultimate English rugby town.

Talking of the Crusaders I've read this week about the positivity of the ticket sales for the game against Weeds Whinos. My question is which genius at the RFL/Super League decided Leeds would be a good opposition for the new franchise? They will be down by 30 at half time and lose by 60+. I don't reckon any more than a handful of those first timers will ever consider going again. A better game would have been one they had a chance of being competitive in.

No, but the annual game in the city between Skolars and Bronquins is definitely on the way up and attracting corporate money. Quins may never be a well supported side but they are making inroads in other ways.

Let's get it on.

They'd do well to change their name to London RL.

growing the game is getting it played in more schools, more amateur teams, more people aware of and involved in the game.

Im not arguing Les Catalans have grown the game in Perpignan less than Quins have in London. Just that at the time Les Catalans entered Super League London was (by almost all measures) more an RL 'heartland' than Perpignan was. More people watched it, more people played it.

Its just to point out the ridiculousness of some now pointing to Perpignan as 'always' a heartland whilst similarly decrying London.

Which shows the limited potential of heartland clubs. Leeds are much more successful because they had the potential, they then got someone able to harness it.

It isnt 'a massive' coincidence, there is barely any correlation.
who cares? Attracting other fans is a good thing. Building on the attachment people have to the city is a good thing. Its what all places should be doing

thats because there is no such thing. It is currently the Hub of rugby league in this country, no doubt that will eventually change but there is no need to bring down just how successful the game is here to excuse whats happening elsewhere.

You seem to have forgetton your long argued point that growing the game also includes getting full time proffesional clubs in more area's to bring in more potential playing talent that we currently cannot attract , you have argued with me and many others many times that we need these clubs to entice these young athletes to the sport

So having well supported proffessional clubs is just if not more important than grass roots work

i havent argued any different, by growing the amateur game London is providing us with more potential playing talent, and actually playing talent.

Quins are bringing in more playing talent, the likes of Clubb and LMS wouldnt be playing the game if it wasnt for the hardwork in youth development done down there.

Thats not to ignore quins attendance issue, Nor is it to say that the attendance issue isnt important or linked to everything else as part of the London RL package just to argue it isnt the defining aspect of the game in London.

That's all right then , wouldn't want you changing ' tack ' so to speak

Limited potential of *some* heartlands clubs but potential is often all "expansion" clubs have. You can't bank potential, you have to be able to deliver.



So you are arguing that it is not true but isn't it great?



"Bring down". I hardly think it is bringing down Leeds to point out that the likes of Cas and Wakey do very well to get attendences and teams that are remotely comparable to a big city club and don't deserve the level of criticism they get in some quarters.

We didn't lose by 60+ points for our first game of the season last year and that was away against Leeds

Under ' orders '

you cant bank what *some* of the heartland teams are doing either, you cant take losing tons of money in a decrepit stadium to the bank either.

Plus standing still will kill the game, it may do it slower but its guaranteed to do it. If we go with what has potential the game me still die, if we dont it definitely will


no im arguing that there is no reason for a person not to be a fan of two sports. Who's to say that the fans who are more recent ones were formerly Utd fans? Who's to say the Utd fans you see at a rhinos game werent already rhinos fans? Marching on together has been sung at rhinos games since i was a kid. Christ its sung at YCC games.

The idea that Rhinos crowds are correlated to Utd is nonsense, the growth started in a VERY strong period for Utd and continued long after that had ended.


If they dont want to be judged by the same standards as leeds, then they shouldnt compete with Leeds. These clubs arent new, they dont have reasons for low crowds they have excuses. If as you say they have done well to get the crowds they get then the top level just isnt for them. If the some total of their years of existence is 1/2 to a 1/3rd of the attendance of other clubs despite being based in the heartlands then they arent 'elite' clubs. Whether you want to put that down to incompetence at their top level or intrinsic limits in their potential it doesnt matter.

And you are bringing down leeds success. For some reason you feel the need to make excuses for it. The game is a success in this city because the club are very well run. For a long time the club wasnt and it wasnt close to successful. We should celebrate what has been achieved by the game here. Not try and excuse it so others don't feel bad.

There is no reason why a Wakefield club cannot unite the district and compete with Leeds as equals other than those running the clubs not having the talent to do it.