Despite there only being one French club in SL and one in the Championship, The French are taking over.
Catalan, despite the extra travel are riding high at the top of SL and Toulouse remain unbeaten during their Championship campaign.
Hull KR came up with the shock of the season last night, turning over Wigan on their own patch and it's to be hoped that there is a plan on how to fill Old Trafford, if Catalan make the Grand Final.
I do hope that the powers that be have thought about it, after all, there was a gentle warning when Catalan made the Cup Final a few years ago.

Not sure they will be top two come end of the season. My concern is the amount of French players (more so I the Catalan team) they seem to be relying more on English and imports. For me now we have left the EU we should now enforce that if English Superleague teams sign French players they are counted as quota players and if the French sign English players they also count. Catalan were brought to Superleague to strengthen their National team.

yes in theory, but perhaps too soon, having a couple of french teams at the top of their respective leagues, or even two french teams in superleague must provide some decent stimulus at grass roots level in the south of france... it will be many seasons ns until those players are knocking on the door, thats the time.

Good point. Just imagine if in a couple of years Les Catalans meet Toulouse in the Challenge cup final, and meet again for the Old Trafford Superleague final....

But France still don't meet Great Britain at International level?? What a backfire that would be!!!

Good old Richard Lewis





and good old Wrenners as you back this nonsense.....

Not sure Roy? We have big professional RL clubs across the M62 but grass roots playing numbers are falling, why should French kids be "stimulated" to play RL.

In France it's Rugby Unions that is a monster game, and French Soccer is also very big indeed.

Two French clubs in SL push out two English clubs

I dont think we should be going that far but, an agreed minimum of French players in their respective squads (if that can be a rule) would be a very good idea.
The ideal would be for SL to be strong enough to have 14 clubs, including Toulouse & Catalan.
Whether that's even a possibility, who the hell knows

Nice bit of spin Donny, you have a bright future in politics, I think.

Encouraging the only other genuine RL playing "nation" on this side of the planet, seems pretty sensible if we EVER want RL to prosper on the international stage and there is absolutely no doubt that the sport needs to spark more interest and more investment.

The obvious question regarding France is, are they more ore less likely to compete with 2 full time SL squads to chose from or with one.
Those in charge of the sport still seem to want the game to be stronger in France, which in the grand scheme of things, it seems the right way forward.

Just to be clear, I'm still advocating Toulouse as an additional club in SL and not to replace any of the existing clubs.

If RL wasn't so much on the fringes, we should also have London in the top flight in a 14 club top flight.

Where have you been since 2007 when France got thumped by bigger and bigger scores every year and they eventually abandoned the GB/France tests?

You can keep up trying to say I'm bias or just spinning things, but France failed long ago.....

The real "obvious question" is how does the English game improve if you keep replacing English SL clubs with French ones.

You and all the others who think France is an answer to the games ill's consistently ignore the reality that if you put Toulouse in Superleague you have to then removes an English club like say Wakefield.

It was always the same with TWP, and Ottawa etc.

The blinkered view was and remains the more overseas clubs you put in SL the more the game may thrive internationally and spread.

Completely ignoring the reality this would kill the game as the SKY deal would be lost. Think about it for once

You didn't read the post (or chose to ignore it).
There should be NO replacing English clubs with French clubs in SL.
However, having Toulouse and London in the top flight, in ADDITION to the current 12 clubs would be sensible from a RL point of view.

As for the Sky deal, i'm not privy to their ideas.

We have to find a way to encourage more interest and investment, end of.

Will this happen by retracting to the M62 corridor or by trying to appeal to a wider public, including those in South West France, where there is already some interest in the sport, the answer seems obvious.

I wasn’t aware that Langi, Whare, Davies, Maloney, Drinkwater, Dudson, McIllorum, Whitely, McMeeken, the Tomkins brothers and Kasiano all became French.

Oui, oui, just as soon as they pull on the Catalan shirt.



Nobody seems to mind where players originate in the round ball game.
Plus, how many Cas players play for Cas or Warrington players play for Wire ?

After 25 years most in Superleague London now attract no investment at all from London

Their Northerner chairman/owner is the only investor.

One of the biggest and richest capitols in Europe and no interest or investment END OF

you get on about me falling for wind ups, if there was going to be any investment it would of happened by now

Wouldn’t invite another French team in without putting something in place ensuring the talent pool gets a kick up the backside. French players of quality in their team is getting smaller and sharing the talent pool with Toulouse could shrink this further. As mentioned before their needs to be a quota on French players over here and likewise if french teams sign players from uk.

If we are going to have French SL clubs they need to provide French SL quality players and French TV money.

Same applied to Canadian clubs with Perez acknowledging from the start that TWP would deliver this, and when they didn't provide a single player nor a single TV dollar he said it would "take time" to kick the can down the road. Then they collapsed....

I'm all for supporting the French 100% especially providing top French players with Careers in Superleague like Theo Fages trouble is after 15 years they couldn't even raise a seven a side team of French superleague players who were first choice for their clubs....

But of course this is all apparently "expansion" despite the fact that in 2020 we had only 10 English Superleague clubs

Back in 1999 we had 14 English SL clubs........

This last three seasons has been full of utter garbage as regards "expansion"

Just a small correction Donny, there were only 12 clubs in SL in 1996 (not 14) and on the basis that Paris were inaugural members, in a move to "expand" the game, really, we're looking at 11 English clubs for the vast majority of the SL era, plus 1 French club and then the Toronto debacle, which for 1 season only (and a screwed up one at that) it dropped to 10.

Currently though, we are back to 11, which has been the case for most of the SL era.

It's almost as though you are trying to deliberately skew the numbers ?

Once again, for the record, there should need to be a minimum number of French qualifying players in the Catalan (and Toulouse) sides, assuming that this can be properly agreed.
There are of course issues if English clubs sign French players and preventing them from doing so would be some kind of "restriction of trade" so, it's far from straight forward.

We still come back to money (or the lack of it) and right now, RL is going down the pan, lower participation, lower investment, falling crowds (hardly surprising for the last 2 seasons) and mickey poor administration for the sport,- this weekends "international" being a prime example.

Well it’s not really a French Revolution if the big hitters behind said revolution aren’t French.

Cant argue with that Willzay, the clubs are French though.

Leave it out, it's not about me and your "correction" is wrong, read the post - I was talking about 1999 "Back in 1999 we had 14 English SL clubs"

It's already done, last night top of the table Les Catalans put Morgue, Yaha, Laguerre, Da Costa, Bousquet, Julian, Goudemond Belmas and Baitieri in the side and that's NINE Frenchmen. I was looking to see if Israel Folau was anywhere to be seen but clearly he was not there.

There's been a massive switch by les Catalans to become a real French team playing the best French players and it's blooming marvelous.

You can look out for some sort of public announcement Gausch has been given the hard word that he won't be in Superleague 2022 unless he does the job he was allowed in to do which is be a conduit for quality French players.

Toulouse are stuffed for Superleague next year. They aren't going to be promoted on winning the Championship on "percentages" with loads of games not been played, and certainly aren't going to be promoted using English and Aussie players......

And they aren't, as a Faux "French club" going to get the nod over Leigh staying in Superleague...........

Sorry I haven't got an article from Rugby Leaguer journo's to confirm this, but I do have a pair of eyes............

My apologies, that must have been the season pre the Hudd-Sheff merger and the Gateshead - Hull merger.


Neither of which have anything to do with this thread.

Good win for Catalan last night though ?

Nine Frenchmen gave Cas a big hitting last night, and you can bet if there are any French lads playing for Toulouse who are good enough they will be taken by Gausch.

Nothing surprising here, Superleague have been patient enough this last 15 years, but if the SKY money is being heavily slashed then Gausch needs to play the game if he want's to have some of that money. He's had 15 years to find a regular French TV contract...

The SL bosses were furious with him over Folau, and the total lack of any French player development. The TV deal being slashed obviously meant Gausch was also in real danger of being himself cut out. We've had too much Fantasy Rugby League this las few years.

Remember "Toronto" "New York" "Ottawa"

and the recent "who will be next after Catalans and Toulouse"??

There is the reality of one small English TV deal so goggle eyed fantasy fans





can forget Adelaide Rams coming in next year despite Lenegan OK'ing this in public......

It would not have been if their side had been all Aussie/English with Israel Folau poncing about.

It had nine Frenchmen and as such was a major major Triumph way way beyond the "2 points"