Where is Rugby League going?

One of several interesting facts is that should Widnes stay up and London and Toronto get promoted 25% of all top flight rugby league would be played on totally artificial pitches.

Fact two should Toulouse and London get promoted they have a combined ground capacity of 7,020.

There are more but it really does seem that expansion outside the heartlands comes at a cost if in nothing else but Stadia.

During the franchise period teams obtained new grounds or redeveloped old ones Leigh Sporting Village, The Shay, Post Office Road in the hope of entering a modern day Superleague with grounds like the soon to be redeveloped Headingley, John Smiths Stadium, DW Stadium, Langtree Park, Halliwell Jones KC Stadium AJ Bell Stadium and New Craven Park.

I add the Select Security Stadium to a second list due to its abhorrent plastic pitch and note the unfair pressure placed on Wakefield Trinity and Castleford Tigers to find a new home or redevelop due to Stadia regulations.

Yet if results fell right we could have three plastic pitches, two grounds with a combined 7,020 capacity with two established strongholds of Rugby League fearing for their future if they don’t spend on the current ground or build a new one!

Add to this a ground 7,000 miles away with beer tents behind the goals and the transformation of Rugby League to the modern day looks to be fading fast.

The vision of a modern vibrant game played in modern spectator friendly Stadia seems to be descending into farce to me it only seems to be taking place in the NRL so with all due respect Ralph Rimmer has a poison chalice he’s damned if he doesn’t damned if he does !

If you took the word Rugby League away from this you would think any sport would be mad to even risk this happening but unfortunately the Rugby League ‘Titanic’ won’t miss the iceberg and will eventually sink into a self made pit of self destruction.

If we were going to allow these Stadia and artificial pitches to be used, whilst modern but at best no better than some of the atmospheric and legendary ancient Stadia that have disapeared what has the point really been is the question I would ask ?

I know I’ll take some flak for this but really you can see why spectators will desert the game and even the John Smiths with 6,000 will look better the the trailfinders with 1,200 and yet another plastic field.

I think we may find we have a whole new ball game soon, and to be honest i think it may well be the last throw of the dice, so lets hope it works out.

The McAlpine/John Smiths/Galpharm has always had a Desso artificial grass woven in to the real grass.

There has been no complaint about the new T 4 pitch in Toronto...some players say it is slow on the foot. It is the newest and best of the artificial grasses and some say far easier on the knees and ground tackles than a grass pitch....artificial pitches have come a long way recently....they are no longer inferior and some feel superior.

Why are you hanging round on here like a bad smell? Have you nee kicked off your own board?
We aren’t even in the same competition as you- and won’t be next year either.

Sounds like someone has the sniffles and needs a Sudafed. Little light headed I see....reread the thread title and Toronto has the newest and best of the artificial pitches.
Not kicked off of anywhere...and will will meet Huddersfield soon enough...Leeds first though. Try to get over it....take two and call me in the morning.

Having refereed on the Town/Fartown ground and on proper artificial pitches too there’s a big difference when much of Rugby League is about contact with the ground espeicially around the knee area.

Many teams won’t risk players at Widnes due to the surface and in our case it was the start of the end for Tom Symonds who got badly injured there.

You are outed it’s a muppet... it’s Kermit the Frog....

The whole point of my post appears to have gone sailing straight over your head it’s about a sport trying to adapt to the future and going backwards when trying to move forwards but of course you’d know all about that your two years of rugby league gleaning more experience than my fifty seven and Toronto having played at Knowsley Road, Central Park, Wilderspool, Belle Vue, Fartown, The Wilows et all....

Having been to all London’s Grounds for example is the current one better than Craven Cottage or Brentford ‘not on your nelly’ even the Stoop another Rugby Union Ground was better....

No sport should stick in the past but the future needs to be better with enough homage to the past that has made it what it is.

But in all honesty has letting the likes of Oldham, Swinton Leigh and now possibly Salford or Widnes go to edge of oblivion to be replaced by Paris St German, Crusaders and now Toronto, London and Toulouse really improved the experience and game I for one think not.

But let’s replace Huddersfield with Coventry, Castleford with New York and then St Helens with Dubai that will improve the game no end let’s let Toronto start playing at the end of their winter home and away and relegation to be decided after the Grand Final ‘the nutcases will have finally taken over the madhouse’

There's absolutely no evidence that Widnes pitch causes more injuries whatsoever. Same at Toronto.

As for Cas and Wakefield, their grounds are a bloody embarrassment to the game. A Sunday pub league wouldn't want to play in them and they should have been kicked out long ago. Wakey shouldn't have been allowed in to start with.

Tolouse have as good and long an RL history as any other in the game, from an RL heartland - just because it's not on the M62 some folk don't like it - fun fact they were invited to join the Northern Union in 1895 but couldn't deal with the commute back then .

Rugby League has two choices. Change or die. Thanks to those that hate change we've seen RU over take League in terms of sports. We're a minority sport in a world flooded with other options

You want to watch a semi pro team in a public park? Fine. I'd rather watch a fully professional and world class team play in a world class stadium. If it's Toronto v Tolouse then so be it.

I love the Giants, but I love RL more

I must say I agree with you with regard to Cas and Wakey that was the RLs fault, rules were made about stadia crowds overseas players etc and were never enforced.

As for Toronto If they could meet all the criteria I believe they would be welcomed by the majority of clubs but theres the rub they cannot meet the criteria .It's very easy to jump up on a soap box and shout about the Wolf pack but what about the rest of the SL clubs?One set of rules for ESL and another set for The WolfpackI think not.I believe it has been mooted that if promoted to ESL they would play all their away fixtures at the beginning of the season and then their home games in the second half of the season,fine for Toronto but think of the other SL teams.I would love to find away round the problems but in all honesty there are to many and I believe that the other SL clubs will vote against it.
I have just been on the Toronto web site viewing the playing staff.16 Brits,6 Aussies ,1Kiwi,1Albanian Oh and 1 Canuck.Hardly a Canadian side.I rather think that the SL clubs wouldn't be bothered about playing them its the other problems that would be the biggest bugbear.But time will tell the Rl have made sillier decisions.
I have visited Canada and I must say it's a wonderful country and the people are fantastic I truly hope that they can someway make it work but I fear it will be much too difficult.

Short memories eh! that is of course if your old enough to remember the Wembley of the north good old Fartown, wonder if you'd be as gobby about these two if you still played at your illustrious old ground and weren't lucky enough to have dropped on, we survive by standing on our own 2 feet and not, from a sugar daddy forever dipping his hand in his pocket, not sure if your just a plain old fashioned hypocrite or just suffering from selective memory loss regarding what's the term you lot at shudds use, merger


so pardon me for peeing my pants with laughter at your post regarding us not being allowed in, get over your bitterness it's making you sad.

our ground is exactly that, 'our' ground, the only thing you lot own is that friggin cowbell now thats an embarressment

Which World Class Stadium is this ? It ain’t Toronto albeit Toulouse can play in an older 37,000 capacity stadium in the City.

What team outside these shores are in the top division of RU well none actually they have many countries in the UK, France, NZ Australia etc etc with their own leagues and teams and a superior International Product.

The RL have four sides plus Tonga Samoa and Fiji most of whose players play in Aus and NZ.

Filling the UK rugby League with foreign teams from Canada, New York South Africa etc etc is all well and good but when they fail as all the passion and rivalry leaves the game who replaces them ?

RL is in no position for a failing false dawn but Code 13 let’s spare the Wolfpack the qualifiers and let Ken get some money back selling the Super League place that we have then you can bugger off to Toronto and Toulouse every other week and watch the beautiful game......

Talk about living in a glass house.....

here he is again



obsessed with everything Giants, secret fan?

Oh absolutely, cracking post by the way brearley

Chisset you are obessesed. And as you often are about Huddersfield RL- yet again wrong about things in you post..
No one has to remember fartown- it’s still there- and rugby is still played on it by an amateur side - (as well as football and Gaelic football) yet there’s wakey still playing on an inferior ground despite all the false promises.
We were in a similar position to you, in a not-fit for purpose crumbling stadium with volunteers helping to keep it going- so we should feel some empathy- but personally due to wakey fans like you- I don’t.
We moved out of fartown before Ken came on the scene. We moved out in 1992 and ken became chairman in 1996. So a “sugar daddy” is nothing to do with us upgrading our stadium.
I think the bitter one is you. Your council won’t support you- ours did.

By obessesed I presume you mean obsessed, you could not be further from the truth old girl, I honestly could not give a toss one way or the other regarding shudds, I know this is the shudds board and therefore your entitled to discuss who you want, but the problem I have here is that you codey and brearley come on here bad mouthing Wakey at every opportunity, which is fair enough as I say it's your board, but when we exercise our right of reply to your comments apparently we are obsessed, codey's just bitter about everything you and brearley are the ones with the obsession, I'm not sure where it went wrong for you.

You'd do well to read my post properly before commenting, I asked code13 if he thought that us and Cas should still be kicked out if shudds were still playing at fartown, not too difficult to understand even for people with limited intelligence, Davey's bankrolling of the club was said in the context of us standing on our own two feet despite codey's insistance that we weren't fit to be in SL, which not unsurprisingly you've chosen to ignore and I'll put it politely your dealings/merger with the eagles, as for your last comment, I'm not sure any Wakey fan could care less what Kirklees council have done for you, more a case of what Wakefield council hasn't done for them, but I'm sure that won't stop you having a dig, owt else you want to get off your chest.

so boring you really are.

go back to the wildcats board and return when we play you in a few weeks if you really have too.

Top post brearley, another informative post

But chisset- you come on here regularly and comment- even when wakey isn’t mentioned at all- even if they were the fact youre skulking about to notice is a bit weird- Unless we are actually playing
wakey - we don’t even give your board a second thought . Wakey are that insignificant to us.
Whereas this thread -about artificial pitches you e read through. Odd.... very odd...

jules lovey as I've said before I could not care a toss about shudds, but I do care about the crap you and yer sidekick brearley post on a regular basis about Wakey whichever board it's on, there seems to be a trend with you posting late at night, maybe this is alcohol related I don't know, but you seem very selective with your replies and at no time do you address any of the issues I confront you with regarding the insults charged against Wakey, perhaps you'd like to explain the reasons for this if it's possible, thanks in anticipation.

Here's the offending post that you chose to conveniently ignore, maybe it goes some way as to the reason you and a couple more of your mates are treated with contempt you deserve, especially when your more than happy to throw the insults our way, when it suits you of course.

But my point still stands chisset- why would you even SEE the post you refer to unless you were skulking about on our board reading all the posts- -the title doesn’t ref wakey at all.
You come on hear and post on here an awful lot for someone who claims to not care about Huddersfield. It’s rather odd.....

But you don't have a point, I can see what your doing here jules old lass your trying to confuse me with a post that doesn't make any sense and littering it with spelling mistakes, maybe you've just had a hard day.

theres a few wildcat fans obsessed with the giants

last season when the giants went to salford in the super 8's and got stuffed, there were 3 or 4 wildcat fans sat in the giants section just intent on winding up giants fans and cheering salford

seen them before easy to point out... they didnt look so happy at magic weekend though this time

Sounds like someone is totally confusing the issues and is 'caught up' in trying to justify old grievances. My understanding is that the players, yes the players are the ones who would know, have no issues with the new T 4 pitch in Toronto other than it is 'slow on the foot'. The new turf has really advanced...this is my understanding...do you have proof to prove different?