St Gaudens (which is near Toulouse I'll give you, though the French Elite was better then than it is now)


Combined between them they were, roughly, which is what I said


Well they need to have one that when combined with some good imports will be good enough, for Toulouse to move up now they'd need a whole new team from top to bottom, Catalans only needed some new signings. Yes there was a reason Catalans had the best players signed, but Toulouse need to be prepared to do that to go up too, and they show no signs of it. They expected to go from a season of 7th in the Elite straight into SL which is impossible. If they's put effort into their 2007-08 season they'd probably be in SL by now. As it is they refuse to make any effort in on field terms and that makes their bid unacceptable in the same way Leigh's would be.


Totally irrelevent to how successful they are and doesn't stop the bills having to be paid so who cares?


If they don't last 3 years that is a pointless statement, if they survive then yes judge them on the 3 years. I think one more season at tops they'll survive, unless someone very rich with a plan buys them up.


They both have the same costs (more or less, slight different tax and employment laws) and they both have to pay bills and both want to go from the Championship to SL, and they both have to play to the same standard at the same sport, so the small differences you try to exaggerate are just poor quality excuses for Toulouse's disappointing performances


True but having to replace a whole squad is not the way to go. Unless they can get RU converts they'll need 90% Australians at the current rate. They need a lot of their French players good enough before it is worth considering. Catalans put a good team out the year before they joined SL and a better quality one beforehand. Refusing to make any effort on the grounds of getting a new team in SL is no excuse, you need to built a basis


They will be welcomed in good time, but I would rather see them successfully enter in 2015 or even 2018, whereas you would rather see them disastrously enter in 2012 just to rush things as you have no interest in all but the most superficial expansion. You only care about the on paper situation, I care about true grassroots expansion, which actually sets the basis for true expansion rather than your universally failed method that has killed off more expansion clubs than anything else

When has it worked?

I'm not arguing that it does or doesn't work. I agree, in the right sort of set-up it could work. But I also feel the same could be said for a club working its way through the leagues. There are different ways that have different benefits to different areas in different situations. There is no right and wrong way.

But I will say that for your point about no clubs in SL having gone from amateur to semi-pro to full time pro: every SL club that was part of the Northern Union has gone from amateur to semi-pro to full-time.

You're lying yet again. Pyrenees-Orientales has an area of 4,116 sq km and Yorkshire has one of 15718 sq km. Also Pia, Catalan XIII, St Esteve and St Cyprien were all in a small part of that 4,116 sq km around Perpignan so that is heartlands by anyone but your standards.


Anywhere the game is popular. There is no dividing line (Doncaster and Sheffield being a grey area for a start) but the game can gradually become more popular somewhere. Toulouse doesn't have to meet some arbitrary level so much as have to be able to sustain a SL team. Since you support Crusaders in SL I take it you'd rather see Toulouse having serious problems like that rather than having success in the Championship? I wouldn't, I'd rather see them do well in the Championship or even in the French Elite than collapse in SL so we have something on paper. Once Toulouse have as much a claim to join SL as Catalans had, or say Widnes have now, or even a little less due to it being a good location, then I want to see them in. Until then I'd rather have a Toulouse club than not. I care about the game at all levels, you see it as SL or nothing and thus thing a club that folds in SL is better than one that wins the Championship.


Every club made up from thin air and put in SL has folded within a season or two, every single one without fail. Clubs have slowly come through and settled at semi-pro level or come from semi-pro level to full time level and I would rather things happen sustainably than your boom bust anti-expansion policy. A little help to push teams along is a good thing, but not totally artificially doing it as that will 100% guaranteed fail every time, always has done always will do

Leigh folded as a direct result of the war and had to be reformed from scratch, most RL clubs suspended operations here and RL in France had its highpoint in the 1950s and France were a top side into the 1970s. When are people going to stop using something that happened 65 years ago as an excuse for things today? The decline of French RL from the 1970s is big and far more of an issue than ancient history. Catalans joining SL has improved the situation a lot and one day this will probably allow a 2nd French team into SL, but ancient history doesn't justify a charity to French RL, anymore than it would be ludicrous for the Guinness Premiership to put a Moscow team in based on Stalin's banning of RU.

In fact RU is much smaller than it would have been in Russia due to Stalin banning RU and RL had a very good chance to take advantage of that and failed miserably. RU work at improving the real situation and so should RL rather than making pathetic excuses for everything

nope, it was Toulouse,

UTC lost to St Gaudens the year before,

you would have thought someone like you who knows everything about french RL would have been aware of that

so individually, they had an average of a little over a thousand, and out of 7million people this makes a heartland and guaranteed success in SL?


Catalans were allowed to do that without paying any transfer fees, Toulouse havent been allowed to do this, Les Catalans had three years to prepare when SL was guaranteed at the end of it, Toulouse havent,

Les Catalans were the only pro side, on the verge of becoming fully pro and were clearly the only option for french RL players, Toulouse isnt as clear, you are expecting them to be able to afford, in the championship, to pay more for players just to win the championship, when this in itself wont benefit them at all in SL

i would rather they spend the next two years preparing for SL, using the time to train the next generation of french players, ad preparing them for SL than spending time trying to create an SL sqaud out of part-time players

no one said anything about the bills

its fairly obvious to anyone but an idiot that a heartland club 100 years old is at a different stage of its development to a club which is 5 years old

well why dont you see what happens rather than just guessing at what might happen then pretending it already has happened?

but they are different clubs, in different positions, in different stages of their development, in different countries, with different needs, and different opportunities, they would offer different things to the game, would have different challenges, they would contribute different things, have different income streams, operate in different circumstances and have different potential

these arent small, theyre pretty big


a basis for what? Toulouse entrance to SL isnt for this generation of french players, it is for the next one, there are french players who can fill in in the meantime, but we shouldnt be judging Toulouse youth development in SL until 3/4 years in SL




yes, i really cant wait for that disastrous entrance

indeed, for some it is better to grow naturally, for others they need to be 'kick-started' and if someone else is putting up the money to do that, why on earth would we want to turn it down


im pretty sure thats the reason for the formation of the RFL, because the clubs weren't amatuer,

this whole sport was formed on the basis it wasnt amateur

Toulouse could have done well as the first French team in as there was the player pool at the time for one French team and it would have probably been the same players at either club, more or less. I doubt there'd have been quite as many supporters at Toulouse as at Catalans but it would have been viable. The biggest objection to Toulouse in SL now is that there aren't enough players in France for 2 SL standard clubs (even once you take into account 8-10 overseas players at each). If they drafted the best French players between Catalans and Toulouse you might be able to make things work, but at the moment Toulouse would only have the Catalans rejects who aren't good enough. It might have been better to bring in them both at once (as part of an expansion not a replacement), even if it would have meant them both being at the bottom now. But a SL club based on Catalans rejects is not good enough. If you have a better idea for where they can get SL standard players from can you tell me please?


Don't troll. The population of Perpignan is about 200,000 and there were 4 semi-pro clubs there. That sounds pretty heartland to me even if the crowds were only about 1000 at each.

I honestly don't for the life of me see where you got this 7 million figure for Perpignan from, but it shows you're not open to reason when trying to pretend Perpignan is an expansion area.


Maybe the FFR XIII need to look at that. Even if it is not my preferred method I would have no objection to them saying to Toulouse, 'you can be in SL in three years subject to meeting certain minimum criteria' as at least everyone would know where they stand and they'd have a target to aim for. Just making excuses for their shortfallings won't make them a viable SL club however much you wish it. Catalans didn't have three years, the vote to include them from 2006 was taken in mid-2004.

If we're going to have Toulouse as a credible SL club we need to look at what will prepare them for SL rather than chucking them in sink or swim and potentially killing off the game at a pro level in Toulouse as you're suggesting. Expansion below SL is still expansion regardless of whether you refuse to believe this or not. Them being in a different situation won't keep them out of trouble, so they can only enter when ready

I agree. But at the present moment, the system doesn't allow for it. That is the only objection I have for it. It would ruin any credibility the RFL has if they decide to wipe their rules out before the three years is up. If they want to change them after that is fine, but licenses were granted and denied on the basis that the next license window would follow a certain ruling. It could possibly even face legal scrutiny.



The formation of the NRFU (later the RFL) was mainly so they were allowed to pay their players, yes. But these clubs were amateur clubs before that. They had to be to play rugby under the RFU. When they set up the NRFU, they effectively became semi-pro. But the birth of the NRFU was not the birth of rugby league like many keep saying, it was simply an evolution. They were still playing pretty much the same rules as rugby union in the early days. They were still basically rugby union clubs. Basically, every club that is in the SL now that came from that first meeting were amateur clubs that progressed to be semi-pro clubs that have now progressed to be full time clubs. That would be: Bradford, Huddersfield, Hull FC, Leeds, St Helens, Wakefield, Warrington and Wigan.
Others that have made it amateur-semi-full and back to semi: Halifax, Leigh, Oldham, Widnes.
Others that are in SL now after joining the NRFU before the major changes that seperated the two codes in 1906 were brought in: Hull KR and Salford.

Not that any of this matters to what would happen to present date. But it dispels the myth that is what you are saying about no amateur club making it to SL or no semi-pro club making it to amateur. Most clubs that have been in SL were amateur at some point.

your idea of heartland is somewhere that comprises :

1. new club
2. an area where RL was banned for a number of years ie it was illegal to play
3. where the clubs had all their assets stolen
4. game was plundered beyond recognition and never recovered.

wigan and leeds were in such financial difficulties they had to be sold to new owners or wouldve gone broke

why can heartland RL clubs, indeed the very best in english RL have financial problems which can be explained away, yet the same situations in a non heartland club is treated differently.

until you treat both clubs evenly and fairly then ill just keep pointing out the hypocrisy of your position

clubs fail all the time, it doesnt mean we shouldnt try again

And all this happened how long ago ?

well if toulose are a heartland club and also offer potential for massive expansion of RL as well, that puts them ahead of all the traditional heartland clubs in england which offer no expansion

how much bigger can leigh, halifax or barrow get? how much more can they add to the growth of RL as a sport?

toulose can grow much much more, and will strengthen international RL and help revive RL in france

toulose anyday then

without the vichy banning of RL, RU would be dead now, or a very minor sport and RL the dominant rugby code

major union clubs were on the verge of bankruptcy in 1939 before the war started.

the success of the french international side in the 50s was built on the grassroots work established in the glory days of the 30s. once the grassroots were destroyed there was no more juniors coming through to replace them

Who are you actually arguing about Toulouse with ?

Paris on the other hand

im not here to spoon food people who dont follow the argument

go back 3 pages and start again

both.

wakey out, widnes in.

2 new french SL clubs being toulose and paris with paris being fully paid for by external parties.

if the paris thing falls over im not that fussed, toulose is the next french SL club for me.

but if someone else is prepared to pay us to expand the sport, my attitude is, welcome, wheres your cheque

I do know you pillock , but the relevance of something that happened over 60 years ago that we had no control over to expansion of RL teams now I just doont see , I would imagine that people had other things on their mind at the time

i dont care what other people had on their minds, it on my mind

the point was made that Les Cats are a heartland club

my response was no because :

1. they are a new club from a merger
2. RL stopped being played in the area for a long time as it was banned and the impact of that banning stopped its growth thereafter

the rapid success of Les Catalans in RL shows that expansion in SL to france will be much more beneficial than scotland, ireland or even new areas in england like gateshead, the midlands or more london clubs

dont look a gift horse in the mouth

you arent big enough of a sport to ignore these kinds of clubs, nor is the sport itself big enough internationally to try not to make france strong again

within 10 years france could easily be a very strong test nation backed by at least 2 strong pro SL clubs

Quite possibly because they did actually play RL there for the last 60 years since that nasty Mr Hitler invaded France to stop them

they didnt, they had a number of years where it wasnt played and then had all their grassroots destroyed with the game dieing off slowly everywhere, including its so called heartlands.

and following on from your point then toulose will be similar to Les Cats then in SL?

if it were up to me id go toulose next time.

wait 5 years then try and get lyon and mille.

i think club sides in paris are hard for RL. too much effort than they are worth whilst the cities of the south would be much safer

but if stade francaise are funding it, then id be very interested in it

to be fair the flatcappers are now claiming Catalans was always going to be a success yet they werent saying that 3 years ago.
I agree about looking into france further but the recession could tear some gaping holes in existing clubs, both SL and Ch/Ch1, maybe we're looking too far afield before securing our own meal ticket.
tbh one of the first things id do regardless is 2 referees, not to necessarily speed up the ptb but one who can accurately at every instance call complete/surrender or see who has dominated the tackle.
It's very hard for one ref to do this and it's killing us ala NRL 06/07/08 etc Look after the product, then the heartlands then look to expansion.
This weeks news out of wales hardly fills everyone with confidence regarding further expansion.

Presumably he feels a NRL club in PNG will be far more benefical that another NSW club as well?

the NRL should expand to the following, in this order :

2013 - central coast and queensland - 4th club, probably logan city playing at lang park

2017 - 2020 - perth and 2nd nz side being southern orcas
2025 etc - png and another queensland team