Re: Expansion done right : Fri Sep 09, 2016 3:08 pm  

JEAN CAPDOUZE wrote:

If Nigel "Dominos" Wood insists that they all waste their collective times climbing the divisional ladder, then so be it. That process is of course a massive waste of time and resources.

This part I agree with. It makes no sense making Toronto waste millions of pounds paying to fly over to play Hemel Oxford and Gloucster University, plus pay for those teams to go and play in Canada. It will benefit nobody but cost a shed load of money, just to try and legitamise their inclusion to a few flat cap supporters.

If the RFL think it's a good thing to have a Toronto based team in the leagues, (and I'm not saying it isn't a good thing) they should have grown a pair and placed them straight into super league or the championship at an absolute minimum.

Re: Expansion done right : Fri Sep 09, 2016 4:09 pm  

Sir Kevin Sinfield wrote:

This part I agree with. It makes no sense making Toronto waste millions of pounds paying to fly over to play Hemel Oxford and Gloucster University, plus pay for those teams to go and play in Canada. It will benefit nobody but cost a shed load of money, just to try and legitamise their inclusion to a few flat cap supporters.

If the RFL think it's a good thing to have a Toronto based team in the leagues, (and I'm not saying it isn't a good thing) they should have grown a pair and placed them straight into super league or the championship at an absolute minimum.

If nothing else it has exposed the hypocrisy of certain anti-expansioners who argued tooth and nail that putting Toulouse in the championship was unfair on the championship sides, not to mention their numerous criticisms aimed at Crusaders.

In reality when it has boiled down to it, when it is their club wanting to spend massively and adversely affect the competitiveness of the league it was perfectly reasonable, where their club has, by hook or by crook, filled their squad with overseas players its a reasonable measure to try and get promoted, and when its the clubs in the league below them taking the hit from expansion clubs affecting the competitiveness of that league, its all perfectly fine.

At least now it is unarguable that those claiming to be fighting for the grass-roots of the game, really didnt give a fig about anything outside their tiny fiefdom.

Re: Expansion done right : Fri Sep 09, 2016 9:59 pm  

Under licencing with clubs competing against each other the sport is better served with comparable salary caps for all clubs , we didn't have this with the Celtic Crusaders as they somehow managed to run a full time squad initially on a £ 150 K cap in NL2 and then a £ 250K cap in NL 2

Toulouse actually suffered because they stuck to the cap which was less than what some clubs were spending in Elite 1

We now have a system where clubs have to play , and defeat SL clubs on a 1.8 million cap , so for this system to work , something had to give , unfortunately that has been the competitiveness in the Championship

The answer ? , not 100% sure , but yet to see anybody that has it either

Re: Expansion done right : Sat Sep 10, 2016 12:22 am  

Willzay wrote:

Got to be the biggest load of poppycock ever spouted on RLFans.

How can you say something like that? Your judgments strike me as sweeping and extreme.

Re: Expansion done right : Sat Sep 10, 2016 6:36 am  

SmokeyTA wrote:

If nothing else it has exposed the hypocrisy of certain anti-expansioners who argued tooth and nail that putting Toulouse in the championship was unfair on the championship sides, not to mention their numerous criticisms aimed at Crusaders.

In reality when it has boiled down to it, when it is their club wanting to spend massively and adversely affect the competitiveness of the league it was perfectly reasonable, where their club has, by hook or by crook, filled their squad with overseas players its a reasonable measure to try and get promoted, and when its the clubs in the league below them taking the hit from expansion clubs affecting the competitiveness of that league, its all perfectly fine.

At least now it is unarguable that those claiming to be fighting for the grass-roots of the game, really didnt give a fig about anything outside their tiny fiefdom.

This 100%

I really struggle to understand the vehement opposition to expansion. Rugby League's a great game, the greatest many would say, what better than to have it played and talked about the length and breadth of the country, plastered across the media.

Re: Expansion done right : Sat Sep 10, 2016 7:17 am  

Newbridge_Wolf wrote:

This 100%

I really struggle to understand the vehement opposition to expansion. Rugby League's a great game, the greatest many would say, what better than to have it played and talked about the length and breadth of the country, plastered across the media.

What ' Vehement opposition ' ?

Find me a post on any discussion on this subject where there is vehement opposition to expansion of RL ?

Re: Expansion done right : Sat Sep 10, 2016 9:49 am  

I think legitamising a club by making them go through the ranks could be a very good process. People may buy into the idea more if the club has earned it's stripes rather than just been plonked in to the top because of who they are and where they're from.

Yes, they will hammer through the leagues at the start, but that's sport. Significant investment lower down a system causes that to happen in any game. Throwing them in at the top just doesn't sit right with a lot of the fans of our game, or sports fans in this country in general.

Let's see how it pans out before inevitably in true rugby league fashion we just slag it off!

Re: Expansion done right : Sat Sep 10, 2016 9:55 am  

Wellsy13 wrote:

I think legitamising a club by making them go through the ranks could be a very good process. People may buy into the idea more if the club has earned it's stripes rather than just been plonked in to the top because of who they are and where they're from.

Yes, they will hammer through the leagues at the start, but that's sport. Significant investment lower down a system causes that to happen in any game. Throwing them in at the top just doesn't sit right with a lot of the fans of our game, or sports fans in this country in general.

Let's see how it pans out before inevitably in true rugby league fashion we just slag it off!

I concur

Re: Expansion done right : Sat Sep 10, 2016 12:18 pm  

Wellsy13 wrote:

I think legitamising a club by making them go through the ranks could be a very good process. People may buy into the idea more if the club has earned it's stripes rather than just been plonked in to the top because of who they are and where they're from.

Yes, they will hammer through the leagues at the start, but that's sport. Significant investment lower down a system causes that to happen in any game. Throwing them in at the top just doesn't sit right with a lot of the fans of our game, or sports fans in this country in general.

Let's see how it pans out before inevitably in true rugby league fashion we just slag it off!

But, again this is an entirely 'flatcap-centric' viewpoint.

To an expansion club there is no question of their legitimacy to them or their fans. Toulouse fans arent going to be congratulating themselves on 'earning legitimacy' from a minority of fans from the north of England.

Those people who didnt 'buy in to London' because at some point in their history they didnt get promoted through a convoluted system, didnt actually matter to london, they werent london fans, and they werent ever going to be london fans, because the only people it ever mattered to were a small minority of northern people protecting their own self-interest, not the people of london.


The question of legitimacy would only ever be posed by a heartland fan, it would never enter anyone elses head.

Re: Expansion done right : Sat Sep 10, 2016 1:59 pm  

SmokeyTA wrote:

But, again this is an entirely 'flatcap-centric' viewpoint.

To an expansion club there is no question of their legitimacy to them or their fans. Toulouse fans arent going to be congratulating themselves on 'earning legitimacy' from a minority of fans from the north of England.

Those people who didnt 'buy in to London' because at some point in their history they didnt get promoted through a convoluted system, didnt actually matter to london, they werent london fans, and they werent ever going to be london fans, because the only people it ever mattered to were a small minority of northern people protecting their own self-interest, not the people of london.


The question of legitimacy would only ever be posed by a heartland fan, it would never enter anyone elses head.

It's not a case of expansion fans buying into the expansion sides. It's a case of sports fans buying into the sport. It may be good for Toulouse to be dropped straight in, but many of the rest will not like how it has happened and feel that their place hasn't been earned,thus turning them off it.