ParisSurtout

Interesting point. I tried to find it on the website but it has not been posted there. While I am at it, the Footy Show had a great interview with the Prime Minister Julia Gillard by Fatty Vautin. She was funny. I enjoyed her correcting his poor attempt to speak English. http://wwos.ninemsn.com.au/nrl/footyshow/video/ I look forward to the day when a British Prime Minister agrees to speak to a rugby league interviewer on a prime time British rugby league TV show. The day when that happens we will know that rugby league has finally made it in Britain.

Could someone please clarify for me whether this stadium will be a 20,000 seater (as this article states), or a 15,000 seater or a 12,000 seater (as other articles have stated)?

Now all that is needed is a positive cash flow.

Sam Burgess already has a tremendous tackling performance every game. He also makes good ground with the ball on almost every run he makes. One problem is that because of injuries at Souths they have switched him to prop a few times. That is not his best position, even though he can perform well there. His best position is either second row or lock. Sam's only real development problem is that he needs to know when to offload and when not. He is learning that slowly, week by week. Once he gets that right, he will be a champion.

Les Catalans and Toulouse bring plenty of things other than visiting supporters. Most important: (1) They expand both the supporter base and the player base of the game in France; (2) They expand the number of stakeholders (i.e. individual, corporate and government investors) in the game in France, because only professional sports attract large numbers of paying spectators, TV viewers, and sponsors; (3) As the number of professsional teams in France is increased, the value of a French TV contract will increase, so that eventually France will go from being a financial burden to becoming a financial asset to Super League; (4) Les Catalans and Toulouse provide the core building blocks for a future strong French national team, which the game needs if it is ever to be a credible international sport. They are not sufficient building blocks for a strong French national team (another club in Paris at the minimum is also needed), but they are necessary. International sport is the most financially lucrative dimension of sport. Because rugby league has been allowed to stagnate on the international level for so many years, it has lost many opportunities for corporate sponsorship that rugby union has grabbed with both hands. Only when France and England are both strong will the game of rugby league have a strong and attractive international profile, from which can be developed a substantial stream of sponsors' income needed to develop the game in established nations, as well as to expand further into new playing nations. A strong France is the key to any possible further developments of the game in Spain, Italy, elsewhere in Europe, as well as in the Middle East and North Africa.

You and Hannibal should form a comedy troupe: The Homeless Reactors: Opinionators Without Premises.

I disagree. Ellis was a good player at Leeds before he went to Australia. But he was not a great player. He has become a great player at West Tigers. Whether it was Tim Sheens' coaching or the need to prove himself, or both, I don't know. But no one would have rated him so highly before he went to Australia. Burgess is a slightly different case. He had been outstanding on occasion when playing in Britain. His Four Nations final performance was superb. But he was inconsistent in the level of his performances. Now he is at South Sydney there is greater consistency in his outstanding performances. Now he plays a great role at Souths that has made him a key figure in the squad. He ranks with Isaac Luke, Dave Taylor and Nathan Merritt as one of the team's stars. (go here: http://www.rabbitohs.com.au/ Sam is the first cab off the rank in the list of club stars.) Also Sam Burgess is now a media celebrity in Australia. This is a sign of how much he has developed in less than one year in the NRL.

The moderator has adjudicated the relevance of this topic to the forum. But you refuse to accept the referee's decision. There is a legitimate issue of how and why English players have been able to step up a level in performance when they have made the move to Australia. You don't want even to think about it this matter, let alone discuss it. Instead you offer a predictable negativity. You have nothing constructive to contribute to this thread, or in fact to any thread that I have seen on this forum.

Try rereading the original post. I explained it all there.

Season ticket holders are, I think, in the vicinity of 5,000. But that is still a good crowd since some ticket holders don't go to all games, and there are more of these absentees in the summer holiday months of July and August.

A lot of people on here don't think so.

Gareth Ellis scored two fantastic tries for Wests Tigers against Penrith Panthers. It was the icing on the cake of an outstanding performance by the Englishman, who was awarded the Channel 9 Man of the Match award. The Channel 9 commentators, especially Peter Sterling, were ecstatic. Millions of Australians have by now seen or read about the English rugby league star Gareth Ellis. Ellis already had an excellent reputation last year, winning the West Tigers players' player award in 2009. But now he is even exceeding that powerful reputation. This all accompanies the huge reputation that Sam Burgess has built in Australia for his magnificent performances in the South Sydney Rabbitohs team. Burgess is one of the key players in the Souths team. These two Englishmen rank with Australia's Sam Thaiday as among the top five backrowers in the entire world. Without a doubt both Ellis and Burgess have benefited from playing in the NRL. They are both better players today than they were at the beginning of this season. James Graham has suggested that he is interested in following them. I would hope that more English players like Graham can follow Ellis and Burgess down under. Once that happens I foresee the English pack establishing clear dominance over the Aussie pack in the 4 Nations and World Cup. From that position of forward strength Sam Tomkins and Kyle Eastmond can weave their magic. However Gareth Widdop may swap or alternate the number 6 and number 1 jersey with Sam Tomkins. All that will be still left to do is to find a decent set of three quarters who can finish off the good work of the English forward and half back stars.

Crusaders sit two points ahead of Castleford in the battle for eighth place. Final two games are tough ones for Crusaders at home: St Helens and Hull KR. They will probably lose both. Castleford have a home game against Harlequins, which they would be expected to win, followed by St Helens away in the final game ever held at Knowsley Road, which Castleford should lose badly. If Castleford win one and Crusaders lose both then Crusaders and Castleford will be equal on points, but Castleford have a better for and against. So if Crusaders are to make the playoffs, then either Crusaders have to upset a highly motivated Hull KR (now neck and neck with a rampant Huddersfield), or else Harlequins have to upset Castleford. The latter seems to me more likely, even if unlikely.

That was a very thoughtful response. I liked the way that you marshalled your evidence in support of your conclusions. I was also amazed by your knowledge of the situation on the ground in France and Spain.

This issue you raise of 3rd party sponsorship is a real problem for Super League. It is not as lucrative for rugby league in the UK as it is in Australia. It is another reason why a national profile and hence expansion is so important for the game's financial health.

30 years is an unnecessarily pessimistic prediction. Right now we have several amateur teams in Spanish Catalonia, mostly comprised of university students. It is all these teams, not only the FC Barcelona team, which will provide the first generation of semi-pro players and coaches for a semi pro- Barcelona FC club --- as soon as Barcelona FC and the French Elite management feel they want Barcelona FC to begin playing in the French Elite. Once that semi pro club is set up, it could be less than ten years before a Barcelona FC club is ready for Super League. They have the money and organisation. All they need is players. Ten years is enough to have a core of Spanish players ready, to be joined for sure at the start by eight or so Antipodean players for the first few years. That allowance of imports is standard for new SL expansion clubs, and would not raise an eyebrow with the Barcelona FC management, who love buying their imports for their soccer team. Thus while 2021 may seem very soon, it is not impossible to imagine that Barcelona FC joins Super League for that new round of licenses. I wouldn't even count out 2018. Since Paris SF reportedly is preparing for a French Elite team already, I have no doubt that the conceivable arrival of Barcelona to Super League in 2021 would at that time be strongly applauded by the then well established Stade Francais Super League management and their many thousands of Paris based fans.

Catalans lost again and sit at the bottom of the table, below even sorry old Salford. The crowd today for Les Catalans Dragons vs Harlequins RL was 6,152. One can assume that Harlequins brought less than 152 fans. So there has to be a devoted core of 6,000 fans in Perpignan and the region who are sticking by their club regardless. Clubs like Harlequins, Crusaders, and Salford would love to have such a strong core fan base. One must note that the ground has a reduced capacity of around 8,500 because of reconstruction work. What this tells us is that rugby league has a deep base in Perpignan and French Catalonia, which should be well augmented once the team improves under its new coach, and after the new stand is completed in 2011. So it is definitely time to conclude under these conditions of real adversity (which also include the early season loss of playmaker Adam Mogg, and injuries to other key players), that licensing Les Catalans Dragons by the RFL has been a smashing success. Bravo!

Robinson is a gamble for sure, as is any new coach who has not been tested as head coach at the professional level. But whether it is huge or not I don't know because I don't know who recommended him. Robinson apparently has some special technical skills. The issue though is whether he can inspire the team psychologically, as well as train them in the technical sense. Few coaches are good at both. Obviously Tony Smith, Michael McGuire and Justin Morgan are exemplars. Robinson's advantage over not only Walters but also Potter is that he speaks French and has lived in France for several years. He should have a good impact on the French players. But we will have to wait and see. As for Scott Dureau I have not seen him play so I know nothing about him.

I don't think Walters has set them back two years in the sense that it will take them two years to return to their best potential. Walters certainly lost them two years. In 2009 they only made the finals because of Greg Bird and the anger of the Chairman one afternoon. M. Guasch needs to think long and hard about who advised him to hire Walters in the first place. Then he needs to tell that fool or those fools never to call him again. A good coach can restore and maximise the team's potential. But it will take at least the retention of Clint Greenshields, along with the French pack, Dimitri Pelo, and Thomas Bosc, to bring them back to their rightful place -- in the playoffs at a minimum, and probably in the top five (alongside Leeds, Wigan, Warrington and St Helens).

You were half right. Harlequins won but they did not win well. They won 16-12.

Maybe I can. I hear that many of Les Catalans French players are being massively underpaid (e.g. Remy Casty). The management of the club knows that the French players don't want to move from France to England, so they pay them less than their market value and get away with it. It is worse at Toulouse because Toulouse has much less money to spend. So some good French players prefer to play for a better salary with the Elite clubs (as will Toulouse's current best import, half back Nathan Wynn, in 2011).

Olivier Elima, David Ferriol, Jamal Fakir, Dimitri Pelo, Greg Mounis, Remy Casty and Sebastien Raguin are better than average SL players. Like Thomas Bosc, Pelo, Elima, Ferriol and Fakir would walk into most Super League sides.

No, just Greg Inglis apparently. Perhaps he knew he was going up north, and so he may decide to sail it from Melbourne to Brisbane in the summer time.

Reading between the lines, I suspect that Menzies has a firm offer from another club. Clearly, he is also ###### off with Bradford not making a commitment to him. If he didn't want to stay in the UK he would have said so. I suspect that he has no decent offer from Australia. So I think he has been made an offer by another SL club and he is telling Bradford to go stuff themselves. This rebuff of Menzies by Bradford is surely Mick Potter's decision since he is the confrmed coach for 2011. Potter may not have seen all the good games that Menzies put in during this year. Potter is probably just basing his decision on Menzies' age -- which is really dumb, because Menzies is a renowned fitness fanatic and has not an ounce of fat on his body.

Bravo!