Having recently moved to Northern Spain, I am really enjoying being able to nip over the border and still watch Super League - from what I can see, although away fans attendance has dropped off (weak pound, novelty value faded), I get the feeling the Catalans are here to stay. Good local following, investment in the ground.
But, other than them, I can't see the franchise system going to Wales and London (previously south yorkshire and the north east) really working long term. Only survives on funding and cheap tickets, no real support, poor teams.
Do fans think the Catalans are hear to stay? Will you go to the game year in year out, or has the novelty worn off?
Will RL eventually get back to basics and be happy to thrive in the traditional heartlands? Or is expansion the way forward?[url[www.catalanRL.com

Catalan Dragons play in RL heartlands. Crusaders and Quins don't.

Accidental post.

We need another succesful team in france like Catalans. Toulouse would be great!

Catalans crowds will be superb when they play the top teams and the stadium is done!

Crusaders is looking good right now as well.

only 4k on today, could be worrying for them

[urlhttp://www.superleague.co.uk/results.php[/url

Thats against Hudds though. Against us, wire and saints they will be getting over 6k maybe even 7k.

And Cas from the traditional heartlands had only 5K on.

Slightly of topic but heard a few whispers that plans will be announced this week to have Cas, Wakey and Fev playing out of the same stadium. Think it was also mentioned on Radio Manchester[size=50, which by rights removes all traces of credibilty[/size

That would be fantasic IMO, sorts out 3 teams at once.

That would be a mixed bag imo. Wakey and/or Cas are the teams that are at risk of losing licences to bring in TRUE expansion (eg Barrow, Widnes etc) if they get a new stadium then they will no doubt get another licence and we will still have a ridiculous amount of Yorkshire teams and these two will continue (in all likelihood) to be a bit boring.

Absolutely no chance that Toulouse will be ready, the city is rugby union mad and TO XIII simply can't get a foothold - can't have been many more than 800 home fans when we were over there at Easter.

crusaders are getting crowds and results on a par with cas and salford .
i feel crusaders have just as much claim to a future as cas and salford, so long as they have decent management. espy if they can use the scorpions to develop a s wales development area.

london still havent kicked on after 20+ years, and i fear more for them as a long term venture.

That is more than they had for the same last year though I bet. Probably around 3.5k 3.75k home fans. It's a start.

Cumbria has been tried and failed, they need to get there own house in order and make some decisions and take a hit by losing teams to produce 1 and they may be ready in 2015.

How Widnes is expansion is beyond me.

Crusaders crowds are already up 185% (so almost trebled) and they have local rivals (it's not that far down the M6!) Wigan, Warrington & St Helens all to visit there yet. Thats very encouraging. Still early days at Wrexham though, they are three home games behind Wigan at the moment.

Sounding good then

It is early days but being almost local to them there is more interest than I thought there would be.

When my son's RU team played at Wrexham a few weeks ago I noticed in the bar after the match a little lad carefully putting all his Crusader's stuff such as a poster, match program and so on into his bag. Hardly evidence of a core support I know but I thought it was very encouraging to see this at the local RU club. He'd obviously been taken along and had already adopted them as his team.

Dave

i think we need a team in scotland.
weve been selling the game with CC finals at murrayfield, and magic weekends, so its the logical next step imo.

hamilton accademicals hammers sounds good to me

How long before Leigh and the pies do the same.

Nah - can you imagine the uproar from Latics fans if there were two rugby teams playing at The DW

Nice one Conroy

but Lactics will be relegated and playing at LSV by then.

More seriously, though, the struggling heartland clubs have had 100 years to get their acts together, so I think the expansion clubs deserve a bit more time yet.

Think it might be [size=200=#0000FFSIX[/size years now that people have been saying that

So managing to keep the game alive for 100yrs counts for nothing?

Depends on the extent of one's ambition, I guess. Playing in a hundred-year-old stadium in front of a few hundred spectators barely qualifies as alive, IMO.