French Revolution ? : Sat Jun 19, 2021 8:59 am  

Despite there only being one French club in SL and one in the Championship, The French are taking over.
Catalan, despite the extra travel are riding high at the top of SL and Toulouse remain unbeaten during their Championship campaign.
Hull KR came up with the shock of the season last night, turning over Wigan on their own patch and it's to be hoped that there is a plan on how to fill Old Trafford, if Catalan make the Grand Final.
I do hope that the powers that be have thought about it, after all, there was a gentle warning when Catalan made the Cup Final a few years ago.

Re: French Revolution ? : Sun Jun 20, 2021 8:38 am  

Not sure they will be top two come end of the season. My concern is the amount of French players (more so I the Catalan team) they seem to be relying more on English and imports. For me now we have left the EU we should now enforce that if English Superleague teams sign French players they are counted as quota players and if the French sign English players they also count. Catalan were brought to Superleague to strengthen their National team.

Re: French Revolution ? : Sun Jun 20, 2021 10:38 am  

yes in theory, but perhaps too soon, having a couple of french teams at the top of their respective leagues, or even two french teams in superleague must provide some decent stimulus at grass roots level in the south of france... it will be many seasons ns until those players are knocking on the door, thats the time.

Re: French Revolution ? : Mon Jun 21, 2021 7:17 am  

wrencat1873 wrote:

it's to be hoped that there is a plan on how to fill Old Trafford, if Catalan make the Grand Final.

Good point. Just imagine if in a couple of years Les Catalans meet Toulouse in the Challenge cup final, and meet again for the Old Trafford Superleague final....

But France still don't meet Great Britain at International level?? What a backfire that would be!!!

Good old Richard Lewis and good old Wrenners as you back this nonsense.....

Re: French Revolution ? : Mon Jun 21, 2021 7:23 am  

BigRoy wrote:

yes in theory, but perhaps too soon, having a couple of french teams at the top of their respective leagues, or even two french teams in superleague must provide some decent stimulus at grass roots level in the south of france... it will be many seasons ns until those players are knocking on the door, thats the time.

Not sure Roy? We have big professional RL clubs across the M62 but grass roots playing numbers are falling, why should French kids be "stimulated" to play RL.

In France it's Rugby Unions that is a monster game, and French Soccer is also very big indeed.

Two French clubs in SL push out two English clubs

Re: French Revolution ? : Mon Jun 21, 2021 8:02 am  

supercat wrote:

Not sure they will be top two come end of the season. My concern is the amount of French players (more so I the Catalan team) they seem to be relying more on English and imports. For me now we have left the EU we should now enforce that if English Superleague teams sign French players they are counted as quota players and if the French sign English players they also count. Catalan were brought to Superleague to strengthen their National team.

I dont think we should be going that far but, an agreed minimum of French players in their respective squads (if that can be a rule) would be a very good idea.
The ideal would be for SL to be strong enough to have 14 clubs, including Toulouse & Catalan.
Whether that's even a possibility, who the hell knows

Re: French Revolution ? : Mon Jun 21, 2021 8:08 am  

Donnyman wrote:

Good point. Just imagine if in a couple of years Les Catalans meet Toulouse in the Challenge cup final, and meet again for the Old Trafford Superleague final....

But France still don't meet Great Britain at International level?? What a backfire that would be!!!

Good old Richard Lewis and good old Wrenners as you back this nonsense.....

Nice bit of spin Donny, you have a bright future in politics, I think.

Encouraging the only other genuine RL playing "nation" on this side of the planet, seems pretty sensible if we EVER want RL to prosper on the international stage and there is absolutely no doubt that the sport needs to spark more interest and more investment.

The obvious question regarding France is, are they more ore less likely to compete with 2 full time SL squads to chose from or with one.
Those in charge of the sport still seem to want the game to be stronger in France, which in the grand scheme of things, it seems the right way forward.

Just to be clear, I'm still advocating Toulouse as an additional club in SL and not to replace any of the existing clubs.

If RL wasn't so much on the fringes, we should also have London in the top flight in a 14 club top flight.

Re: French Revolution ? : Mon Jun 21, 2021 8:19 am  

wrencat1873 wrote:

Encouraging the only other genuine RL playing "nation" on this side of the planet, seems pretty sensible if we EVER want RL to prosper on the international stage and there is absolutely no doubt that the sport needs to spark more interest and more investment.

The obvious question regarding France is, are they more ore less likely to compete with 2 full time SL squads to chose from or with one.
Those in charge of the sport still seem to want the game to be stronger in France, which in the grand scheme of things, it seems the right way forward.

Where have you been since 2007 when France got thumped by bigger and bigger scores every year and they eventually abandoned the GB/France tests?

You can keep up trying to say I'm bias or just spinning things, but France failed long ago.....

The real "obvious question" is how does the English game improve if you keep replacing English SL clubs with French ones.

You and all the others who think France is an answer to the games ill's consistently ignore the reality that if you put Toulouse in Superleague you have to then removes an English club like say Wakefield.

It was always the same with TWP, and Ottawa etc.

The blinkered view was and remains the more overseas clubs you put in SL the more the game may thrive internationally and spread.

Completely ignoring the reality this would kill the game as the SKY deal would be lost. Think about it for once

Re: French Revolution ? : Mon Jun 21, 2021 9:00 am  

Donnyman wrote:

Where have you been since 2007 when France got thumped by bigger and bigger scores every year and they eventually abandoned the GB/France tests?

You can keep up trying to say I'm bias or just spinning things, but France failed long ago.....

The real "obvious question" is how does the English game improve if you keep replacing English SL clubs with French ones.

You and all the others who think France is an answer to the games ill's consistently ignore the reality that if you put Toulouse in Superleague you have to then removes an English club like say Wakefield.

It was always the same with TWP, and Ottawa etc.

The blinkered view was and remains the more overseas clubs you put in SL the more the game may thrive internationally and spread.

Completely ignoring the reality this would kill the game as the SKY deal would be lost. Think about it for once

You didn't read the post (or chose to ignore it).
There should be NO replacing English clubs with French clubs in SL.
However, having Toulouse and London in the top flight, in ADDITION to the current 12 clubs would be sensible from a RL point of view.

As for the Sky deal, i'm not privy to their ideas.

We have to find a way to encourage more interest and investment, end of.

Will this happen by retracting to the M62 corridor or by trying to appeal to a wider public, including those in South West France, where there is already some interest in the sport, the answer seems obvious.

Re: French Revolution ? : Mon Jun 21, 2021 1:09 pm  

I wasn’t aware that Langi, Whare, Davies, Maloney, Drinkwater, Dudson, McIllorum, Whitely, McMeeken, the Tomkins brothers and Kasiano all became French.