Drop Quins and Celtic for me, is RL any bigger in London these days and do they offer anything significant to the league? averaging less than 3500 last season, if teams like St Helens, Wigan, Hull KR and Bradford are losing money how are Quins finances? Havnt they been bailed out once already?

I still think the best option for SL would be to drop down to 12 teams and then have a good go at making those 12 teams as strong as possible.



Ask yourself if adding Salford and Celtic improved or weakened last years comp? Imo it weakened it significantly as although both clubs had one or two high points for the rest of the time they were simply a guaranteed two points.



Now I can’t see the point in keeping these two and then adding a further two from the championship. If two teams significantly weakened the comp what will four poor teams do to it? At least if you keep 12 of the current teams you’ve got SL standard clubs, add some top notch stadia over the next 3 years and then imo SL will be in a much better shape.



Of course it would be beneficial to move to say 16 teams in the league in the not to distant future but trying to add extensions to your house before your foundations are 100% set is a stupid idea.



As a side note if we did drop 2 teams into the championship we would be looking at a strong league there as well- Salford, Widnes, Fax, Leigh, Barrow etc. The RFL should look at getting better TV coverage for the championship and that will in turn raise it’s profile.

How long do we need to get the foundations 100%? It's been over 100 years already.

I don't care if we'd been going 400 years there would still be no point trying 2 expand the game when 'established' clubs in the heart land can't even sort themselves out.



It's time we looked inwards for a while and made the product as strong as poss before we look at taking it 2 RU strong holds like Wales.

Surely that is the very reason to expand? Les Cats have shown how it can be done. How long have they existed compared to Salford, Cas and Wakey?



In other words isn't about time to admit some of the so called heart land clubs never are going to make the grade and that they need to be moved aside to allow clubs that can take their place? I thought that is what franchising was about. Prove you are worthy of a franchise or leave.



Lets not forget we were in the doldrums of the 2nd division once and got out of it in a relatively short space of time yet some clubs such as Wakey seem to have lived charmed lives to keep their SL status yet still can't seemingly progress.







And what makes you think if we did that the current basket cases in the heart lands would be any better a few years down the track than they are now? If anything giving them what would be in effect protected status would be just another excuse to carry on as they are.



Dave

Agree with you on this, but just wanted to make the point that Catalans are a heartland club, albeit the heartland in this case is in France.



A big part of the reason (there is also the excellent council support and some decent management and marketing of the club) the Dragons have been such a success (and probably the one good thing to have come out of 15 years of SL failure on and off the field) is that they are a heartland club, in a region desperate for quality RL. To me any workable proposal from a traditional RL area in France has massive attractions over keeping failing traditional Yorkshire or Lancashire clubs in.



Toulouse played Catalans the other week and got over 4 thousand for a friendly. Just imagine a Toulouse team playing Catalans in SL, if we bring a viable Toulouse club into SL the rivalry in Southern France between those clubs would be immense. Toulouse and Catalans could be massive clubs in RL, just like the French clubs are in Union, they could be as big or bigger than the likes of Wigan and Leeds. Long term the French could have their own SL and play the English sides in a Heineken Cup style comp, which would be a real money spinner. (But even if they didn't we'd still have two big clubs in Southern France giving RL players from that region something to aim for and providing a base for a solid French RL international side, which would be a real boost for the international game). That's the kind of ambition I'd like to see from the RL authorities. But I'm not holding my breath.

Catalan is a special case. Established RL territory. The French National team's best players plus a sprinkling of top quality Aussies. If you sent those same Aussies to Cumbria (or Leigh or Featherstone) plus Sinfield, Roby, Peacock, Tomkins and Eastmond I would imagine that would be quite successful too.



For me, this is why expansion in Toulouse will have more chance than in Wales.



Also, I don't necessarily agree with all this "they've had a 100 years to get it right" rubbish whan discussing heartland clubs. What should be remembered is that RL has been sufficiently strong in these areas to survive for the last 100 yrs. You could just as easily view it as a sucess rather than a failure.

Thats the thing, that RL area of south France have been going for decades upon decades. Fans turning up season after season. Toulouse>Crusaders.

The thing that convinces me is Warrington. I think there are a few clubs who could do what warrington have done.

Got to say I agree. Catalans could be a massive club once they get their new stadium and get more fans in. Throw in Toulouse a few years down the line and we could have 2 genuine big clubs outside the country. There is also possibility of a big team in Paris.

But they don't show any signs of doing it one season to the next and in any case Warrington have never exactly been a badly supported club or one who were ever mentioned in the same bracket as the like of Cas and Wakey.



Dave

You could but that would be stretching the imagination a bit too far IMO.



Point taken about Les Cats being in the French heartland but that just makes the failure of our heartland clubs all the more depressing. Les Cats may have been given an advantage with their playing roster but the club was effectively brand new and so needed running properly and it does seem to be properly run to the extent I don't think anyone would consider their position under threat when the franchises come around. They are successful in franchising terms both on and off the pitch and offer a stark contrast to some of our sides and there is more to it than just getting hold of some decent players.



Dave

I see this term or similar ones so many times on here , would you care to actually explain how clubs should be run ' properly '

I've made a couple of posts on this now but imo it should all be about moving to 12 teams and consolidating what we've got in order to make the comp stronger. You can’t consolidate if you want to expand as well as the quality of the comp suffers as we saw last season with the two new teams.



Whilst I agree that the progress made by the likes of Wakey, Cas & Salford isn’t acceptable in the case of Wakey and Cas I’d still much prefer them and their SL ready teams in the league next season compared to moving a championship side up and having to deal with the bedding in period that follows.



In regards to the progress of Wakey and Cas they desperately need new stadiums to kick them, cas especially, onto a new level. Hopefully they can see the sense in joining together stadium wise as it would also if thought out correctly double up as RL’s national stadium. Also



Don’t get me wrong I’m not a flap capper as I would love to see a truly national SL but imo the quickest way to do this is by strengthening and improving on what we have. Make SL more competitive by having 12 strong teams, with home grown players and quality grounds.