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PROVE IT THEN! Off you, go. I'm done with this thread. All mouth, no trousers. Plenty of "elite" athletes have tried one sport after being successful (or otherwise) in another. There are far more failures than successes. Generally speaking, if you're elite in one sport, you'll only try another once that sport is done with you or if you can earn more money in the other sport. Yes, we're in agreement. However, if you're suggesting that common-a-garden USports player - let's say a 22-year-old cornerback who goes undrafted from the University of Manitoba - is just time and coaching away from being an RL player good enough to play in Super League, then you're out of your mind. There's only so much you can do. You're not arguing with me or just with me, you're arguing with Brian McDermott. While I think he's incredibly overrated as a coach, I would back him over you (or any other do-nothing ##### in this thread) in terms of knowledge about converting players to RL, which is why he pulled the plug on the development team the Broncos were using to bring adult players from Union to League. I say this from actual experience because I've spent time, money and emotional energy trying to prove I was right. If you want to prove a hypothesis, get out there and spend your time and money on it. I'm done with the disingenuousness of people in this thread who repeatedly pass opinion off as fact and ignore any evidence to the contrary. Farewell cakers and your enablers.

I'm going to be nit-picky. You can have Hassler but even a cursory Google search suggests he played Union as a junior. If he's fit (and last thing I can find, he'd taken a step back from Ospreays), he's actually somebody who should be targeted to play League with the idea of getting him into the Wolfpack. Buydens likewise played Union as a junior in Saskatoon. Jason Marshall is a bit of a stretch, given he never really made it big, ended up going from QB to tighthead prop and retired a few years ago. A handful of games in the French second tier does not a gamechanger make. However, he did sign a French second tier contract and given people consider MLR a pro level, I'll say he made it just not big. Tevaughn Campbell is a pretty impressive athlete with decent numbers for a guy who allegedly "can't cover s***". It's more of a damning indictment of Canada's sevens setup that he can walk on for them. If it doesn't work out at the Jets, he'll probably go back to CFL, which I guess everybody agrees is the problem. Tevaughn will be able to have a career in CFL until his speed fades, pretty much no sweat, which prohibits him from converting. Still, as I've said, if anybody wants to try on a micro level to create a combine, a camp, a mini-league, ANYTHING, I would offer my help in anyway I can.

A DNB is a do-nothing #####. And in this case, if the bra fits, wear it. All I see is ifs, buts and maybes.

Prove it then. Off you go, do some damned work, rather than sit on a web forum and peddle fantasy. If the fantasy is reality, show us. I've said this dozens of times, not a single one of you gets off your asses to prove me wrong. And I say this as somebody who actually got off his fat ass to prove other people wrong. Right now, there is no history of players being successfully converted from American/Canadian Football to Rugby League. The best example is Manfred Moore, who converted in the 70s and didn't last a season. In 2008, Crusaders got hold of a guy who'd played in NFL Europe as a European development player called Philippe Gardent. He played a few games but he was not good enough. Wouldn't there be dozens of examples in Union, given it has a much bigger base and they've been trying to convert players for a couple of decades? The closest thing in recent years of a player doing it in Union is Nate Ebner, who asked for a leave of absence from the Patriots to play for USA 7s in the last Olympics. GUESS WHAT!! He's probably best described as a union-to-American Football convert in the first place, given he was a USA age group standout who was selected for Ohio State as a walk-on and made a career out of it. The only person who could prove you right actually proves you wrong. Don't be what Ronda Rousey calls a "DNB" and continue to sit on this forum and peddle fantasy. If you genuinely live in Southwestern Ontario, you must live in an area where there are any number of people who played hockey and Canadian football at high school, college or (in the case of hockey) junior league level. There have to be fields around. A Rugby League field from try-line to try-line is approximately the same as a soccer field, a Canadian football field is longer but narrower, though you'd probably be able to play 13-a-side on either. I have a version of 6/7-a-side league you can play on a half-sized soccer field which requires no posts. I'll help anybody who'll genuinely step up to the plate and prove this can be done.

There's a bundle of ideas in here I just don't understand but this point alone bothers me. Every RL club in England has needed players from outside their key areas since day 1. This is why, pre-pokies, the top Aussies would come here because they could earn more money. It's why RL clubs raided the Welsh valleys and looked for possible converts in Union across the UK who weren't getting the patronage or boot money they deserved. However, those traditional areas to raid are closed to us now and our own players are now a commodity to be raided by Rugby Union. So, saying Wigan require players and coaches from overseas is a moot point on one hand and reinforcing the opposing view on the other. We have a finite quantity of good to great players and coaches, so English clubs have always had to look abroad. Teams outside the heartlands have had to locate and develop their own players, generally from whatever amateur scene is there or getting juniors to cross codes while they still have some development left in them. Wakey re-signed Mason Caton Brown yesterday and he's an example of a Union kid who moved over whilst a teenager and, while a good Super League player, his whole career has been in Super League's second tier of clubs. Toronto signed Krasniqi last season and he's a London-developed talent, as if to underline the damned point. If London see it not just as a responsibility but smart business to sign and develop local talent, why shouldn't clubs in the US/Canada? Forget try-outs, converting players from Union when they're 24 or signing the guy who played left tackle for some D2 college nobody really knows because he's hard as nails. They need to create their own junior amateur system. End of discussion, there's no literally no disagreeing with it but people continue to disagree with it to be contrary. You can't continue to import an entire team forever if only because they're going to hit the wall of the SL salary cap, which is unfair and biased towards clubs in the key development areas.

Double post - board still on the blink.

Thing is, we had 14 teams before. Back then, we had a larger playing pool with a lot more grant money going into junior sections, decent chunks of the country with development officer resources and more facilities. The £ was stronger against the AU$ and the NRL salary cap was much lower, so it was easier to sign Australians and New Zealanders. Even then, we didn't get the best players from over there and haven't done since pokies made their way into RL clubs across New South Wales. You're not going to create more opportunities for untapped talent, you'll turn people who don't have the talent for professional Rugby League into professionals and drag the standard down overall. It has been shown pretty conclusively that the only way we can have a bigger competition is to produce a lot more serviceable professionals. If sponsors turned up due to being in big cities, Super League would get more sponsors with London in the competition. As it stands, the Broncos once stole a sponsor from a London junior club because they couldn't generate decent quality sponsors on their own. Would I like to see the game more widely played? Of course and, unlike many here, I walk that walk as well as talk that talk. If we want a stronger competition, we need to find a way to bridge the massive revenue gap between us and the NRL, which is not only due to TV revenue but their reliance on clubhouses acting as casinos and the majority of their teams playing in two global cities. If expanding the footprint was the only key to that. we'd still be talking about the Celtic Crusaders. If getting into big cities was the silver bullet, the Broncos would be leading the league in turnover. It wasn't always like this, the Broncos had a much higher profile in the late 90's. The idea that a rising tide lifts all boats assumes that anybody caught in that tide floats. Some people take the attitude that if you can't float, you deserve to die. I just want to know that this supposed rising tide is actually real and not based on fantasy and unsustainable sponsorship. If the tide goes out, I don't want to find the RL equivalent of the Morecambe Bay cockling tragedy lying on the silt and sand. One way they could perhaps mitigate my fears is that they're out there looking to develop even a small amount of the extra players you'd need to sustain any number of extra clubs but they aren't. I don't understand why my fear makes me wrong and your ignorance makes you right?

As I've said on here before, only a handful of players in American (and Canadian) Footballers ever learn the sort of transferable skills for Rugby League. If you look at American Football pitching technique, it's risible nonsense that wouldn't cut it as a Rugby League pass. Some roles are so specialised that, for instance, offensive linemen exist just to block. You seldom see a quarterback punt and I don't think one has regularly kicked since George Blanda in the early 70s. It's ridiculous language but they'd need to delearn to relearn. Can you become an elite player if you've never even passed a ball properly until the age of 22? I know Crusaders had some French kid who'd played in NFL Europe at one point but he didn't make it. I convinced myself in the past it could be possible. I'm now convinced that it's a real one-in-a-million shot.

The irony of this is that I'm not from a heartland. More the case, I have an idea of how expansion actually works. You can't do pie in the sky. If you mess it up from the start, you're unlikely to get another chance at it. If North American expansion fails, the sport will be deemed a failure. So the idea that you try, even if it's a half-baked idea, is not just wrong but dangerous. Here, it has been called "the truth"! I want this to work but it can't work if it's not done properly. To sustain or improve the standard of the league, there needs to be widespread development in Toronto and, over the next however many years, the Quebec-Windsor Corridor (which is bigger than Britain and has a third of the people, most of whom want to play other sports). Toronto don't have a development plan, which means we're collectively holding out for some sort of "Carter Effect", where a star will crossover and make kids turn up demanding to play. That's not a plan, that's a fantasy.

I'm not having a go but knee injuries are far from cut and dried and they're difficult to come back from, especially mentally. If you don't feel you can explode forward, that first yard of pace won't be there whether it is actually gone or not. You're right, he needs until the end of the season. Equally, the club need to prepare for the possibility that he might not ever get it back.

Or, more the case, Eric Perez hasn't always delivered what he said he would and was elbowed out of his own club at the first opportunity. It seems his idea of player development last time was more than a little bit flawed. If he has a plan this time, more power to his elbow. However, to quote George W Bush, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

That's a hell of a shout actually. Ottawa lost their AAA team over a decade ago, they've had a patchy Can-Am League team over the past few years. Gubby, he doesn't get it, he never gets it. When they expanded Super League to 14, all anybody seemed to complain about was the overall quality of play dropping. Too many guys who aren't of the standard being brought in to fill the gaps, dragging down the lesser teams in the league. The only way make sure the standard doesn't drop if we go back to 14 is to expand the development base of players. We need more juniors playing, which is difficult when money is still tight in much of the UK, facilities are still disappearing (both in and outside RL hotbeds) and when grant money has dried up. This is where any cashed-up Transatlantic side should be honking their horn. From what I've seen, the absolute latest you can start in Rugby League and make it to the pros is 15/16 (i.e. McCarthy-Scarsbrook). Create your own development system from the first moment and have plans so it can get going immediately. Create minis programs, create u14s and u16s and then fill in the gaps in year 2 onwards. When the RFL was cashed up with Sport England money, they were forming clubs left and right. If an expanded league is going to be a viable product, it can't just be players from the same places we already get them from. I'm not placing demands on them, I just think it would be sensible from their perspective. EDIT: I'm aware of what Perez has said but he's said that stuff before. Toronto are years behind on this and NY have said nothing.

A different set of clubs voted to accept the new teams than the one who they want to eventually play. The one who they'll eventually play are saying they don't want to play them!

No more clicking "show this post".

Is this on the web? Facebook? I can find the teams out in BC but it's as though literally nothing exists in Ontario and hasn't for years. Is this a failure within the CRLA and they're not publicising it?

You are a disingenuous stain on this forum, canoeboy. You know nothing, you have literally nothing of any consequence to contribute. I have you on ignore but you pop up so much, I had to see what nonsense you posted. And what was it? Nonsense. Why post on a General Rugby League forum when you have no Rugby League knowledge to speak of?

You and I are quite literally arguing the same point, just at different times. True story, everything you wrote is in a presentation I did to get a job back in 2015. It's exacerbated by salary exemptions too, where the clubs who don't need cap space get given more because they've trained players for England. And then you can't raid talent from emerging markets because they're not allowed to come here. On this point, I agree with you and I long argued to abolish the salary cap and let teams pay what they can afford. However, Toronto are different in many other ways and in those ways they're asking for special dispensation. Two of the most powerful club owners have voiced dissenting views. The backroom briefing is that several more are on their side. Is this just rumour and innuendo?

Jog on, canoeboy, adults are talking.

Then why are people briefing the Rugby League media now that they're concerned? Why? I don't care what Elstone said when he came through the door. He doesn't work for the Wolfpack, he works for Super League Europe Ltd of Fourways House, 57 Hilton Street Manchester (Google is my friend too!) and he's answerable to the 12 clubs who pay his salary. All we keep hearing is that they're now saying that it's a concern. Doesn't matter what what smoke was blown into what orifice last August. Doesn't matter who gave a reach-around to whom in the summer, it's about what the concerns are now when Toronto are in first position in the Championship and two more Transatlantic teams are coming in now. Apropos of absolutely nothing but I thought the tide seemed to turn when they invested in London Skolars. Last year, praise was gushing and effusive. This year, the praise is guarded. I don't know what has changed and nobody here has any insight either but it is telling.

Explain this more fully because you've made a sweeping statement and expect to get away from it. Fair enough if you think I'm trying to have it both ways on Lenagan. I probably am to be fair.

If you're making an argument that the circumstances of a pre-launch Eric Perez-led "it'll never work" Toronto Wolfpack and the reality of a David Argyle-led cashed-up Toronto Wolfpack knocking on the door of Super League then I agree. Then again, I've never been convinced that Toronto will ever be able to pay their sizeable bills on their own. Problem is, if they did come up with convergence criteria for how Toronto can come into Super League and not damage themselves or the league, it wouldn't be good enough. What a lot of people in this thread want is special treatment. They want special dispensation. They want people to turn a blind eye to any problems and just embrace it anyway. If you go the other way, there are people who want them to face a harsher set of requirements or not be let in at all. Never the twain shall meet.

Super League. Nobody calls the RFL "the League".

Now you're just being obtuse. I expect it out of canoeboy but not out of you.

I know you're beating the "clarity" drum but the league's position has been made clear since day 1. Toronto need to show they are viable long-term on any number of criteria. Unfortunately, the big clubs in Super League rule the roost.

Elstone hasn't done a major interview with January. The only thing I've seen on this was the Adam Pearson article on this very site in the week which suggested Elstone and several Super League owners are concerned about this.