Re: Brian Noble : Thu Feb 20, 2020 9:56 pm  

The games descending into farce and it can only get worse. The RFL need to make Toronto exempt from relegation if they truly believe this out of control club with no TV deal, youth setup and no home grown players are really the future of the game.

They could change the salary cap or increase marque players to five to get around the current problem of how they avoid going down just allow Argyle to buy whoever he wants.

The same with Guasch there’s loads more NRL players likely to be banned from the competition let’s let them play for the other team with no TV deal and having failed in its effort to create a competitive international side in France.

From the early season positive story of SBW ( not my point of view) the whole thing has descended into a farce at club level and where if England play Australia in the World Cup final a fair bit more than half of the players on view will be Australian. Australia A v Australia B ??

When Saracens the darlings of English RU are going to be relegated for breaking the salary cap by finding ways to pay players top dollar in their pocket but not through the books we have a star international rugby league player playing on trial for ‘nothing’ but his respect for the magnificent Wolfpack if you believe that you’ll believe anything.

Rugby League is heading fast into the Abyss on the back of over playing it’s hand... two years before a World Cup that should raise the game back into the public profile it’s in danger of destroying itself to promote an expansion that will never work.

Just keep the whinging Mc’s Dermot and Namara off TV please as they bring the game into disrepute every time they question all the unfairness against them brought on by no one but themselves.

Re: Brian Noble : Thu Feb 20, 2020 10:18 pm  

I agree (I think) that if the game believes Toronto are essential / good for the British game then they need to be exempt from the salary cap, etc. Otherwise, it’ll inevitably flop and be yet another waste.

Re: Brian Noble : Fri Feb 21, 2020 12:11 am  

Fishermanscap wrote:

I have never believed in Toronto as a concept. You simply cannot start a pro team in any sport without a domestic/junior comp to back it up. That is why Catalan worked and Paris didn’t. That’s why Sheffield limp on, not because they are great but because they are close enough to the action to benefit from the scraps. Ditto London who operate in the worlds most diverse and cosmopolitan city.

Toronto is in world terms a relative backwater. It has its own sports but more importantly it sits on the border of the USA, do I really need to say more!

It’s a million miles away from the two centres of RL. In fact if you were to go out and pick the most unlikely city in the world for RL to thrive in, Toronto would be up there.

At least most of the other places we’ve tried and failed in have at least had a RU set up that we could borrow off. Toronto doesn’t even have that, even RU struggles in Canada. Though it’s a positive giant compared to the Wolfpack, in at least it has an amateur competition.

So much money wasted that could have gone elsewhere rather than SBW bank account. Another RL tragedy in the making I’m afraid.

Melbourne Storm say hi

Yes I know they have junior sides and programmes for the sport in Victoria but still 20 years later very few Victorians have made it through.

It's not as quick fix but nobody can deny the Storm are good for the NRL.

You see the difference is the NRL didn't want the Storm to fail.

Re: Brian Noble : Fri Feb 21, 2020 1:53 am  

Fishermanscap wrote:

I have never believed in Toronto as a concept. You simply cannot start a pro team in any sport without a domestic/junior comp to back it up. Toronto is in world terms a relative backwater. It has its own sports but more importantly it sits on the border of the USA, do I really need to say more!

It’s a million miles away from the two centres of RL. In fact if you were to go out and pick the most unlikely city in the world for RL to thrive in, Toronto would be up there. So much money wasted that could have gone elsewhere rather than SBW bank account. Another RL tragedy in the making I’m afraid.

On wednesday last Martyn Sadler opined from his editorial position of Total RL .com that "It is clearly in the interests of rugby league as a whole Toronto Wolfpack are successful to the point at which they create a significant market for rugby league in North America. But from the point of view of the other eleven Superleague clubs the Wolfpack are seen as a threat to their future".

That was the wisdom handed down from the great man himself, but I am a loss to understand what on earth he means? Is this Success:-

1. Business Profitability
2. Player production
3. TV deals
4. Actual Canadian investment as opposed to an Aussies dollars.................all four? Not that I can see any of that from where I stand?

What is the "point at which they create a significant market for Rugby League" again is this 50,000 Canadian RL fans, is this Canadian TV companies signing multi-million deals?

Or is it when half of Superleague contains Canadian and American clubs and the English clubs they replace are down in the championship?

The business plan is in it's fourth year with the club itself admitting they haven't come up with the players or the TV money, admitting that importing players is a massive expense, and neither New York nor Ottawa have made any attempt to even put a toe in the calm waters of Championship one. On what basis does he believe English Superleague clubs are quaking in their boots? The man has a whole website to explain it, he has a whole Newspaper to set it out, but not once have I seen him articulate the complete business plan or define "success" or explain his vision.

Same for Danny Lockwood - all those pages to fill but he never gets past a sentence declaring how important Toronto Wolfpack are, and how horrible Superleague clubs are. I would not mind had actual Canadians in numbers come together to build a professional Rugby game in Canada........... Oh hang on they have, they've a network of junior and senior clubs and Toronto Arrows are now in the MLR...... only problem is this is union NOT league?

However if the "significant market" was achieved in Canada, and the frit and backward English Pro RL clubs fought off their fears, stood down their own pro-ambitions and released their playing roster to emigrate to Canada for the good of Rugby League as a professional game how would that be "success"?

This week RL & League Express was 36 A4 pages and approximately 40,000 words, it's this big every week, same in League weekly, every year what 80 million words are churned out , enough volume for these editors to actually use some of these words for once to explain to the likes of you and me how we are wrong? and why we don't get it?

Re: Brian Noble : Fri Feb 21, 2020 5:50 am  

Fishermanscap wrote:

I have never believed in Toronto as a concept. You simply cannot start a pro team in any sport without a domestic/junior comp to back it up. That is why Catalan worked and Paris didn’t. That’s why Sheffield limp on, not because they are great but because they are close enough to the action to benefit from the scraps. Ditto London who operate in the worlds most diverse and cosmopolitan city.

Toronto is in world terms a relative backwater. It has its own sports but more importantly it sits on the border of the USA, do I really need to say more!

It’s a million miles away from the two centres of RL. In fact if you were to go out and pick the most unlikely city in the world for RL to thrive in, Toronto would be up there.

At least most of the other places we’ve tried and failed in have at least had a RU set up that we could borrow off. Toronto doesn’t even have that, even RU struggles in Canada. Though it’s a positive giant compared to the Wolfpack, in at least it has an amateur competition.

So much money wasted that could have gone elsewhere rather than SBW bank account. Another RL tragedy in the making I’m afraid.

How else do you suppose rugby league reach new audiences, fans and sponsors when you consider that the rfl aren't particularly flush with money and Toronto isn't costing the game a cent?

Hopefully the game's powerbrokers don't squander the opportunity presented and Argyle can keep funding against the odds.

Re: Brian Noble : Fri Feb 21, 2020 6:00 am  

Willzay wrote:

Maybe it’s the lack of developed players in the player development aspect of his role.

How many clubs have been better off when Noble departed than when he arrived?

Wigan.


That's about it.

Re: Brian Noble : Fri Feb 21, 2020 6:33 am  

2020 Toronto finish bottom, get relegated and it’s all over. Alternatively SL is expanded to 14 clubs and they survive.

Re: Brian Noble : Fri Feb 21, 2020 6:51 am  

The only ESL news in Australia this year is about SBW or Folau.
If it wasn't for regular stories about them, the ESL would be invisable.

Re: Brian Noble : Fri Feb 21, 2020 7:24 am  

roopy wrote:

The only ESL news in Australia this year is about SBW or Folau.
If it wasn't for regular stories about them, the ESL would be invisable.

Exactly, love or hate them, they have brought exposure to the Super league of the like it hasn't seen before.

Re: Brian Noble : Fri Feb 21, 2020 7:28 am  

The Silent H wrote:

How else do you suppose rugby league reach new audiences, fans and sponsors when you consider that the rfl aren't particularly flush with money and Toronto isn't costing the game a cent?

Hopefully the game's powerbrokers don't squander the opportunity presented and Argyle can keep funding against the odds.

But where are those new audiences ? Like Catalans this is heading one way the only new fans are within a small geographical area, any media growth of the game is non existent as there isn’t a French or Canadian TV deal.

The purpose of relegating the 11th placed team (sounds ridiculous even now) and ring fencing Catalans was to get a competitive French National team which has failed !!! All we have is a team in a small region of France not a French team competing with England, Australia and NZ which might have done the international game and the next World Cup some good.Now that might attract new fans.

In reality apart from having owners with a few bob the teams could be in Featherstone, London or Leigh and make no less impact.

As for SBW and Folau ones in it for a massive amount of cash, the other cos no one else will have him, yeah fans are gonna switch from union or ice hockey in their droves. For better or worse the UK is an island of which England is a part and that’s where the teams should come from cos European/Transatlantic superleague sounds totally daft...