If you think we don't need to and that things can carry on in the north just as they have done for 100 years,then fair enough.
Personally, i think the world has changed so much in the last 100 years that consolidation in the north is as good as accepting extinction in the next 25 years as a professional sport.
I honestly don't know how you take a 115 year old sport to places where they don't want it!
Football is the worlds biggest game but the world's biggest sporting nation, USA, isn't really interested. Their national sport is baseball but outside of North America, no-one is interested.
Umm. Yes it did. Seeing as we went professional before them and supported their professional tours over here and they took up our rule changes over there. And most recently, New Zealand's recent success has come directly as a result of the aussies expansion agenda deciding to put a NRL team in the union dominated New Zealand.
I guess we should've told them to go away as the majority of people down under played Rugby before 1908. A waste of our resources.
It seems you have a fatalistic attitude to things. What will be will be, no point in fighting it. Just let the sport die if that is what is going to happen.
In the states football is steadily becoming more and more popular, it is no longer the joke it once was. If football can do that in a market as hostile to their product as it once was then anything can be done.
We've got to expand to survive. Otherwise our heartlands will be eroded more and more until there is nothing left that will support a professional sport.
Let me ask you. What keeps Sam in this sport now. IMO the only thing is because of where he is from. He could earn much much more in yawnion and have a much higher profile. We have to extend the reach of our game to keep our stars like Sam. And to do that we have to expand the sport.
Mike wrote:How do we expand the game then? Where?
If you think we don't need to and that things can carry on in the north just as they have done for 100 years,then fair enough.
Personally, i think the world has changed so much in the last 100 years that consolidation in the north is as good as accepting extinction in the next 25 years as a professional sport.
Not really expansion BUT we seriously need a Super League team in Cumbria, the RFL need to seriously stump up the money and my home County need to stop the petty rivalry between Whitehaven and Workington and build a stadium at Lillyhall and go from there, it's a travesty that there's no Super League club in Cumbria.
Mike wrote:How do we expand the game then? Where?
If you think we don't need to and that things can carry on in the north just as they have done for 100 years,then fair enough.
Personally, i think the world has changed so much in the last 100 years that consolidation in the north is as good as accepting extinction in the next 25 years as a professional sport.
Not really expansion BUT we seriously need a Super League team in Cumbria, the RFL need to seriously stump up the money and my home County need to stop the petty rivalry between Whitehaven and Workington and build a stadium at Lillyhall and go from there, it's a travesty that there's no Super League club in Cumbria.
There was a S/L club in Cumbria - 1st season & Workington were in, but playing results very poor & attendances terrible, so bad it almost brought the club down financially and a position which they've never really recovered from.
'Haven & Workington will NEVER merge - they despise each other more than (say) us and wire ! They have a 'small town mentality' with history and all that stuff behind it, despite only 4 or 5 miles apart.
Also,been on other threads here, the population just isn't big enough to justify S/L (largely sheep country) - especially if not a winning side - the largest of the cumbrian towns is Barrow, but that's miles away, with poor roads and communications inbetween.
To have a team in there at present would be chucking their S/L money down the gurgler,imo, because although it's very strong in its communities - problem is they are very tiny communities up there ! Worked up there for a while, so I know the people and the geography.
A club in Cumbria is a nice idea the problem comes though with attendancies, I think you would have to merge 2 clubs which wouldnt want to be merged and put a stadium somewhere in the middle which people would not want to travel too, look at Stains there fans are down because of the stadium scenario now imagine they had merged with us, possible disaster.
The expansion idea is good and incidentally talking about america they would love our game given the chance of playing it, the trouble is the RFL seem to go about things the wrong way, they would much rather build a club from top to bottom and this doesnt work they need to start at the bottom, incidentally a good way in Wales would have been to incorporate RL into the school PE syllabus have a short league season in the off season of RU, if it become a success start an amateur League and build on that!
Crusaders was formed given money and didnt use it wisely, they bought a load of imports and couldnt afford them looking for instant success and now look at them.
Catalans has worked a treat but how many years has it taken them, Quins arnt doint too bad either building from the bottom but they need to become better at marketing to draw in some fans.
