Captain Survival

Yes, I am in agreement with this. Somewhere on the forum I had suggested that TWP might use certain players: some closer to retirement and perhaps not up to the rigor demands of a higher tempo now, some perhaps not at Championship/SL quality/experience, or just in need of more experience, to seed new North American teams. Your point that that Quinn and Burroughs could be loaned out to other squads for more playing time is equally a possibility. Normally I think this happens between a club in an upper, and lower division, not between peer clubs in the same division. There might be some difficulties as neither of these players calls the UK home, nor are any of the L1 clubs other then Bradford (just relegated) full time. I think there is a strong chance Burroughs will end up on the NY squad for nationality reasons. It would be a shame as I think he is a dynamic quality player with quick hands, feet, a sharp eye and good size. I would prefer we keep him vs trading him or allowing him to be bought out.

I am a bit surprised that now well into October, we have no word yet on returning players, only new signings. I think almost every other club has indicated at least some of their returnees, but TWP are really holding this matter close to the chest. Maybe as Perez has indicated recently he is still hunting down 1-2 more big signings that might be the factor with budgets determining who might be dropped, but I have to think most of the players by this time need to know in order to plan their own futures. Of course they might all know but it just not be public knowledge...

Wow, it was difficult wading though some recent pages and the thread topic was almost lost it seems but coming back to it, I liked what @absentee thoughtlord said a few comments above about conferencing, and which others have similarly said in past threads. For the life of me I confess I am confused on why there is so much resistance to conferencing should expansion transpire. And now we also have news Villeneuve planning application to L1 as well. Every sport in NA works on the basis of conferencing, with teams in conferences, and the divisions within those conferences playing a rotation that all in all seems to work quite well. I know promotion and relegation is dear to the heart of some purists, but there is plenty of evidence of the damage it has done to both teams, and I suspect one could even make for a case, to the health of RL. Maybe its because I am an outsider and newcomer in Canada, but from a business perspective I think I could with relative ease make a business case that P & R has more negatives then positives, nor am I attached to it purely from a fan perspective. I have been respecting it as a tradition, but I am not stuck on it as a necessity. Finally, while I think it made sense for TWP to start in L1 as it was the test case, were the current league structure not to change, I think full time future entrants should start in Championship if they feel they are up to the task. There really was a great disparity between TWP and its peers in L1, and this was the 2nd yr in a row this happened.

Leigh is really tooling up it seems with signing after signing.

Very interesting, so not only do we have the potential of new North American teams, the continual push apparently by Manchester (which I favour but seems to be a long shot but do not want to sidetrack this thread on that topic) but also Villeneuve desiring to step onboard as well! Its going to be busy years post 2018. I can tell you that if we get both Montreal and Villeneuve, plus NY, plus already in the mix are TO and the Catalans fans in Toronto, Montreal, and dare I say NY (who will like the international flavour) will be very interested IMHO.

I would swear that article was written by certain naysayers who are frequent contributors of doom and gloom on this forum! And I suspect much of the same was said about the launch of the TWP, in a city where rugby had an even lower profile then almost anywhere in the USA. And yet here we are one season later and TWP is a smashing success - although apparently doomed to failure in the near future due to a lack of many important fundamentals such as away fans, 6 tiers of academies and so on... matters such as solid financing, good sponsorship, profitability and an interested fan base being of no account at all...

I think for Workington, which did not have the season it had hoped and is in the midst of a housecleaning, this at least signals to its fans to an intent by management to attempt to rebuild to a contender. Hiring a high profile individual in the sport is one step in that direction. I don't have any issues with the health matters, physical or mental. Good on him for recognizing and seeking help, and it should make him a stronger coach and more cognizant of such issues in his own players.

If my understanding is correct that we are to see a major restructuring of the league post 2018 season, plus we are to see at least 2 new entrants to RL commencing 2019, then I have to suspect at that time the salary cap will be revised as well. I understand the reasons for the cap given the historical disparities in club finances. I think of RL wants to become more then a niche sport with a niche audience (other then NRL) matters such as the salary cap will have to be drastically revised. High caliber athletic talent desires high wages. Sadly for me, the entire thread on the NYC club opened and was closed before I ever got to chip in my 2 cents worth. I guess once it becomes "official" I will get an opportunity to contribute in whatever new thread comes at that time. Suffice to say in the interim that if one of the new entrants is confirmed to be New York, the other definitely will not be Hamilton - what a buzzkill that would be following New York!

Now this is a discussion of merit and I think worthy of its thread: depth of playing talent to expand the league. I know in past discussions a contention of yours has been the issue of clubs having academies, junior programs and in your words above, I have a better grasp of why you have in the past been so adamant on this issue. I really think this topic deserves its own thread and you should commence one using the words of your comment as the opener. In the interim, I can only point out that based on the North American experience which has seen each of football, baseball, hockey, basketball, soccer and lacrosse expand dramatically (hockey for example has gone from 6 teams to 30) when the opportunity presents itself for athletes they seem to fill the demand void. I think that for awhile purists might have to put up with a lower calibre of play - which effectively one already has via the current league structure, until the quantity of talent grows enough to meet the qualitative needs. I also believe that if RL finally gets the upper hand in the limelight via NA expansion, not only might one see some union players cross, but as I have noted before (and I say this as a former multisport competitive athlete) if the talent floodgate in NA opens up, it will take less time then you believe for the talent gap to be met via contributions from the Americas. Anyways, I do not wish to sidetrack this discussion to much. Commence a new thread then we can all start turning over the woodwork on who, where, when and how long.

We in Toronto have heard good things about Batley actually, and one of its fans has contributed occasionally in our TWP subforum threads. I wanted to address a point you made I believe you will find that Toronto, both management and fans, will be very respectful of Championship. As they demonstrated to all their L1 peers this past season for which there is ample positive public evidence and feeback. I think we need to differentiate between respect, and ambition. Its the Canadian way to be respectful. But its very North American (particularly "American") to be ambitious. And I assess that TWP management has looked at the RL landscape, and decided that in order to really thrive, they need the league to thrive, and in order to do that, they need to move TWP into the limelight quickly, and have some name brand compatriots (aka New York, Montreal, Boston - not Hamilton!) on their heels as soon as possible. Some will quickly jump on that attitude as presumptive and arrogant, but I am looking at this purely from a business perspective, as high finance and strategy is my expertise, and that is how I assess their actions from the outside. By North American standards (and in part at least Parksider's standards as well...) success in professional sports is measured by a big fat tv contract. Languishing in the lower tiers of RL as an army of one will not accomplish that. I argued before in these forums that last season was all about templating. Now that is past, the test case has proven to be successful and its time to push. All the way to the top. Any serious North American money: money with longevity and depth, is not going to be interested in 2000 people in a stadium. 20K people, with big merchandise, and loud tv, is what will grab their attention. And so rightly perhaps traditionalists should be concerned as I don't disagree that while it might help the overall profile of the sport, it may also be the death knell of many a marginal, but historic, team. But will Toronto respect its peers on march of its business plan? Yes. But as Krzzystuff said so well "the concept is meant for SL". In fact it has been tooled for SL, in a cold calculating business manner because, the goal of business is profit, and the most profit is to be had at the top of the pack. As an aside to my thoughts above, it should not be left unnoticed that Perez broadly hinted in a recent interview that TWP was essentially already profitable. I don't doubt it to be true, but in my mind that was really clickbait for a certain audience. We were not it.

I do not know enough about London to say whether it has been an utter failure although from my view from afar it does seem odd not to have a "London" denoted club in SL helping champion the league in the public eye. I do agree that it seems like many a club below SL is toughing it out. But I would also point out that quite a number of the L1 clubs are feeling pretty frisky currently, and I believe many would say to you that their TWP interaction has given them some impetus. Several are retooling both on and off the field (we have some threads down in the L1 dungeons where such is being discussed) and they are looking forwards, not backwards. They are not disheartened by the last season, quite the opposite in fact from what I am observing. Toronto does not need your millions of pounds but if they stick around long enough and are joined by a friend or two which it seems is imminent, they might just bring you all a few. May I ask, is pessimism the most prominent behaviour trait in the UK? I do not believe I have ever had the pleasure of participating in any other sporting fan forum where the glass 90% empty was the most common element of fan expression. Could it be that fan attitudes are a contributing factor to the state of the sport in its UK heartland? To be or not to be...

I spoke a long time ago on the forum about playing the game in my junior high school years and then not seeing it again until the emergence of TWP. I wonder if this is a tacit acknowledgement by union that if they want the game to grow, and their developing players to have any potential for a professional career, the only real potential for either is contingent upon TWP success ? And it certainly helps that most new fans will not be discriminatory against one code vs the other, although I believe most of the new fans will not find union style to their taste vs the faster more freewheeling RL style - easily similar to hockey, lacrosse and football to many viewers from a macro perspective. @CanaBull my gut check is that Rugby Ontario was likely far more dominated by tradiionalist expats from the UK in the 90's versus how it might be now, and perhaps that is why we see more willingness? Canadian vs UK attitudes?

Thank you for the article link. And I agree with your sentiment. The gates for some of these clubs to me were astonishingly low but I had not wanted to make that observation without at least some corroboration from those "on the scene". When I see these numbers, I really become more convinced that Toronto may steamroll through Championship sooner rather then later as their avg attendance already matches Hull, and it is not hard to forecast it increasing as awareness of the club grows. I suspect they already have several thousand season tickets holders as fans lapped up a deal offered in the last slate of home games. Perez from TWP as much as said outright in a recent interview they were already making a profit, which surprised me not at all. In the UK, my perception is soccer dominates crowds and headlines, and everything else, even Rugby, is second fiddle. Its so different here. Toronto supports 7 or 8 different professional teams effortlessly, plus the farm hockey team for Toronto which plays in a suburb and draws 15k fans per game, even when the parent team is also playing. I keep on reading the posts by skeptics who forecast the end of the world if TWP has a bad day, and its really apparent how different the cultures are since that attitude has no basis in reality here. Even fringe sports like roller derby draw better then some of the L1 and C1 teams. My hats off to management and players on these teams for just making it to the field. It certainly has to be a battle every week for some of these clubs.

I have already spoken elsewhere about my surprise from a Canadian perspective at the low attendance figures for SL teams. I don't know C1 very well so I am interested to see what you longstanding stalwart fans say about these numbers. I know Championship is a mix of full and part time but it has to be tough for some of these clubs to be economically viable?

@Krzzystuff I think you hit the nail on the head but not the intended target on loaners. If new NA clubs are on the way perhaps the intent is to place some of the TWP squad that may no longer be up to the rigours at Championship level, or who need more playing time, on the new clubs as foundational players. I can think of a half dozen players immediately who fit the bill for one of those 2 criteria, and yet would be a boone to a new club starting out.