How about the collective organisation that is HM Prisons?

England & Wales: Current male population: 79,633 (84,545 total)
Scotland: Current total population: 7,835
Northern Ireland: Current total population: 1,465

Gotta be summat in this?

Quote ="Hedgehog King"They do but Dublin and Edinburgh don't.'" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Eagles en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_League_Ireland

Quote ="Hedgehog King"They do but Dublin and Edinburgh don't.'" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Eagles en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_League_Ireland

I think it might take 5 years in Edinburgh to have a sustainable fan base and have a substantial number of home grown players in the first team. As for Wakefield, Salford ect we could give them another 50 years and they would still be proping up the league getting 4k watching them and holding the game back

We have a similar problem to the NRL. They have too many Sydney clubs, we have too many Yorkshire/Lancashire clubs. The weakest of those need to drop down to championship level.

I agree that expansion clubs should build from the bottom and be brought in at championship/championship1 level as has happend with Toulouse and South Wales.

2012 Toulouse in Super League, South Wales in Championship, Edinburgh in Championship1
2015 South Wales in Super League, Edinburgh in Championship, Dublin in Championship 1
2018 Edinburgh in super league, Dublin in Championship
2021 Dublin in super league

Quote ="Toulouse for super L"en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Eagles en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_League_Ireland'" You do realise that I wrote much of those articles.

Quote ="Toulouse for super L"en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Eagles en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_League_Ireland'" You do realise that I wrote much of those articles.

Edinburgh Eagles don't even play in the Rugby League Conference National Division and IIRC don't turn up for play-offs in North East England and yet by 2012 you think they'll be able to join Championship 1! Will you be financing it or have you made alternative arrangements?

As for Dublin, exactly which team do you think will step up?

By 2015 South Wales might hope to be a strongish (solid mid-table) Championship side but SL I don't think so.

I wasnt saying these clubs should aim for super league, I was pointing out that there are rugby league clubs there as you stated there was not.
New clubs should be introduced at championship 1 level, as with South Wales Scorpions, initially financed by the RFL for the good of the game.
The best players from the current existing clubs can then move up to championship 1 level

This is a fine assertion but, given that London hasn't managed "a sustainable fan base" or "a substantial number of home grown players" in 30 years, I think it's probably just fanciful bollox.

To be fair london do have a fair amount of home grown players and a lot of schools/amatuer's playing the game.

As for why they havent been successful in getting a sustainable fan base. Bad management of the club, constant re-location and name change cant of helped.

But as I said earlier Wakefield/Salford ect havnt managed this also. It wouldnt take much for a new club to overtake them

Why is it some idiots on here can only see RL expansion as SL clubs ?

Is the amatuer or Championship level not expansion ?

You could finance 4/5 Championship clubs for the cost of 1 SL club

Quite obviously to many SL is RL , and anything else is nothing , then they wonder why some of us seem a tad ' peeved ' with this

When this ' big money ' comes in , who will get it ?

Be quiet peasant - toddle off below stairs - Nigel is ringing his bell from the drawing room - he wants his single malt and the fire needs stoking.

Flatcapper



Gordon Tallis also hailed from Townsville.

And his Dad learned how to play RL at Leigh

You been reading wikipedia too then bugman

Dont need ' Wiki ' for that , Wally Tallis is a Leigh legend

security costs would bankrupt most clubs plus imagine the nightmare of a trip to TO or Perpignan - mind you,we could always send them all down under with all the others ...

The Sl should only expand when the game can afford it and for strategic reasons. Extra money has to be pumped into a new expansion area to make it a success and if Quins and Crusaders (along with Gateshead, Paris etc ) have shown anything it is that the build it and they will come mentality doesn't work with RL as it does not have a big enough national/media profile.

Paris was a disaster waiting to happen and could never be sustainable - a novelty to begin with but with the french RL heartlands in the south Paris could never seriously work

which is an argument you could make for any expansion team outside the heartland areas. Hence why it has to be done when extra funding can be made available and that extra funding should come from the Tv deal which increases due to opening up new markets.

exactly,couldn't agree more

Think of the cost of something essential like travelling to away games for a Scottish & Irish team playing in the championship with no crowds generating income. Ireland won't be interested especially given the competition from GAA and an established Union base. Look how much Scottish RU clubs struggle for crowds. If your going to expand that far outside the M62 corridor you need a ready made fan base ready to go like Catalan.

Its putting pins on a map/expansion for expansions sake.

Then you're an idiot.

How many current SL clubs are sustainable? A handful at most. The licence system is seeking to allow clubs to address that. Using Castleford as an example, we have used the licence system to focus on developing young players rather than spending a fortune on players to try and keep us in SL. This has reduced expenditure and last year I believe the club posted a small profit - that is growing sustainability from a strong base and 6-7k crowds.

How long would it take Edinburgh to get paying crowds close to that? A long time. London still can't do it after 30 years. They're growing slowly, as will Crusaders, who have been around for 6 years. Developing a sustainable fanbase (i.e. one that generates revenue for the club) takes a long, long time. London have hampered their efforts by moving around, but given solid roots at The Stoop and Wrexham, Quins and Crusaders should be able to grow. They won't be seeing 10k crowds for a long time yet, and the licence system is designed to allow teams the security to start developing and growing support and local players.

On the playing front. Scotland is a RL virgin in the public conciousness. I suspect the number of schools playing the sport competitively could be counted on one hand. You need to get kids excited about the game to want to play it, then you need to have enough of those lads playing the game to an international standard. That takes 30, 40, 50 years to have a consistent production line of talent - one only a handful of SL clubs have at the moment.

You cannot build a house on sand. It has to have solid foundations on which to stand. Chucking clubs into random locales and expecting immediate success simply doesn't work. It needs time, investment and commitment. How many more PSGs do we need before some people start to understand that true expansion is unlikely to be fulfilled in our lifetime? The best we can do is build the foundations and let our children see the fruit of that labour.

If you read my previous post I said clubs should start off in Championship 1, as South Wales Scorpions have done

The clubs obviously, maybe then our game will be able to afford to keep players like Kyle Eastmond and Chris Ashton ect who are currently being poached