Pulga

Great point. If you can't sell Toronto, London and New York what hope do you have selling Wakefield and Huddersfield to broadcasters? I remember last year's Magic Weekend, the Wolfpack played early in the day I think which coincided with Aussies being awake for their game. It outrated all but one Super Rugby game that weekend. The audience in Australia would watch games if they were on at a reasonable time. Maybe play some games in that timeslot and sell it?

Here are the "goalposts". If I've moved them, you've blown them to pieces. You've made a career of strawmen arguments and trying to pigeonhole certain aspects of debates. My favourite is: "The RFL's definition of expansion is blah blah blah". That's terrific if you want to use the RFL's definition of expansion... Unfortunately for you, this is real life and we will use the actual definition of the word in all its facets. Back on to the subject. I don't really need to repeat myself. The population is there to develop French players in a country where league is huge. I'd love to hear your obviously superior insights though...

Oh Parky, you've picked the wrong fight here. I founded the El Salvador Rugby League. If there is a nation out there that was any less disposed to playing RL I'd like to see them. I've been able to put together a team of Salvadorans in Australia and a seperate one in the USA. I'm also putting together a Puerto Rican team in the USA. Colombia has a team of all Colombian born players in Australia. All those I've mentioned are without any money. We make a couple grand in sponsorship a year that doesn't cover costs. Soccer and Union hardly even exist in Australia. It's very easy to convert them, especially union players who see it as basically the same thing. If you have access to registration records you can find someone's heritage. I'd assume the French RL could work out a deal with the QRL and NSWRL. There won't be a stack of new players but you could develop some handy players for French RL with a little cash and know-how.

The thread is about comparing France to Tonga. The population is there to develop them in Australia. It's just about nurturing it properly.

There is 10k Tongans born in Tonga that now call Australia home. There are 25k French born now-Australians. We need to tap into this.

There's many more people of French heritage in Australia than there are Tongans.

Beattie has said he is not going to be in the game long. He wants to make some decisions even if they make people angry and then get out. That is so much better than career administrators who flip flop to try to appease two sides and never get anything of substance done. Beattie is doing well.

I wish it were. Every option is on the table at the moment. If I believed the RLIF were any better it wouldn't even enter my mind.

Yeah, saw that. It's cancelled though. I'm fuming. I don't really know what to do. Thinking about having a chat to the World Rugby League mob.

This game has now been cancelled after the RLIF didn't come through with the funding we were relying on.

No, we get basically no help. I'm based in Australia. Married into a Salvadoran family, that's how it all began.

I came across the team the other week! Haha! Very cool. No links though unless you have a contact?

Mainly, yeah. It's unbelievably frustrating. I can see why they've had almost no sporting success throughout the history of the nation. It's also hard because of the seeming disinterest of the international bodies. It's their job to grow the game but only want to reap the benefits. Nicaragua is coming along nicely though. Mexico, no. I've never seen such disorganisation. I'd love to work with them but I don't see it happening unless something changes. South America is hard. It's a way to travel and Central Americans, on average, are quite poor. $300 a month wages doesn't stretch very far. I am focusing my efforts on Central America. Hopefully ES and Nicaragua can lead the way and get regular games happening. I might have some news from Panama in the next week. I think I can get the game started in 6 of the 7 CA nations.

Frustratingly, yes.