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What a great shirt!

Love that Cameroon shirt with the lion on the front!

Also, dare I say it, due to the game's small footprint and low profile. In this era when the general sports follower in the UK sees continental-scale competitions like the Champions League, UEFA League and Heineken Cup as standard fare, why would youngsters want to play a sport which doesn't have anything like that?

Not in North America they don't. The business model of major North American pro leagues has made franchises in those leagues a profitable investment which makes money for their owners, decades of experience with it in at least five sports has proven that.

Yes he was one of the trialists who landed a contract.

That name is already in use and it's probably been tarnished by that use in view of how little about the "Super League" is super, so another name representing a distinctly different approach would likely be better.

If instead the glamorous big city teams are in a new, separate league of their own, then the traditional fans can still see all the traditional teams in their traditional league and we could have the best of both worlds.

You just showed the fundamental difference between Green Bay and Dewsbury, Castleford, etc. By playing all those home matches in Milwaukee through the years and other such things, the Packers expanded their catchment area to be all of Wisconsin and became Wisconsin's team rather than just Green Bay's team. No small town RL club could become West Yorkshire's team, or even their local authority's team because none of them are the only pro RL club within those areas.

That stupid idea replaced using playoffs to crown the champion, which is the only reason have them.

The part which I bolded is a major obstacle, do any of us think the RFL is capable of doing that?

They are post-season, in the sense that they come after the League portion of the Champions League season.

You overlook the dominance of soccer in the European (UK and non-UK alike) cities in your list, the fact that outsiders to the game look down on RL as a small-time regional sport which they think has limited appeal and the fact that RL remains pretty much unknown over here. Those things all being true, RL in its present form and structure doesn't have an audience in those cities but needs a way to create that audience (as Toronto did over here) for any expansion efforts there to succeed. That frankly cannot be achieved within the existing UK structure, it can only be done outside it with a whole different approach.

Playoffs which don't crown a champion? What an utterly stupid idea.

Sorry, but playoffs which don't crown a champion is a stupid idea. Crowning a champion is the only reason to have playoffs.

Yes the right plan, one which could attract the several million dollars needed from the sort of investors who could afford to make up initial losses as the new league grows towards stability and profitability, and also interest broadcasters and sponsors in paying for the relevant rights.