LeytherRob

Toronto own the north American tv rights for their games so the TV money issue is within their own control. If they can negotiate a good deal they could get more than any of the other clubs recieve in central funding which was the trade off. I think 10% dispensation in line with London would be fairer, but 5% is more likely to get the go ahead from other clubs at this late stage so I can see SL's position on this. Either way, it's a bit farcical this wasn't sorted months ago. At this point they basically have a gun to their head and some clubs are in a no win situation - either they approve the dispensation potentially at their own expense, or they risk a few injuries at Toronto derailing what is a critical season in terms of securing a new TV deal. Without any new faces Toronto are very likely to go into at least one game without 17 players due to the injuries that typically occur during the average season. If the dispensation does go through they need to make it go as far as possible and get at least 3/4 fringe players to cover.

If we're going to scrap the cap, just scrap it and make it full survival of the fittest. What's the point of releasing the financial restraints of clubs and replacing it with one that restrains the quality of player but not the finances?

It's difficult to find stats on total players used by clubs over a season, but I did find this put out by the NRL in may which covered the first couple of months of the season. https://www.nrl.com/news/2019/05/10/stat-attack-how-many-players-your-club-has-used-in-2019/ By May half of the league had used more players than TW currently have in their roster. It would be interesting to see what the lowest number a club has fielded in the SL era but I don't really have the patience to scour the net manually putting that together.

Teams can apply for salary cap exemption for an injured player like Castleford did for Luke Gale but this is for when players suffer serious injuries that rule them out for the season.

The loan of Worthington to Featherstone is starting to make sense if they think they may be over the cap. It does leave them in a perilous position in terms of depth though. Once the injuries start picking up they could be struggling for 17.

I hope that they have a few signings to announce, it looks at least 5/6 short. For a thin squad they are carrying 3 players with injury history(Wheeler, Mellor, Kay) and SBW is likely to miss a few due to age. Without some recruitment they are basically relying on the cleanest bill of health in superleague history. It's a bit worrying that the preseason update video released on twitter today seemed to focus on reducing field training to avoid injuries.

I've never understood these kind of threads, it's almost like people are surprised that anyone famous actually likes Rugby League. For a sport that constantly bangs on about being 'the greatest game' it's cringe worthy seeing people get excited because some bloke off Corrie went to a game.

If this is referring to my post, I'm not dismissing expansion, far from it actually. Also I'd like to see some figures to back up the claim that Catalans are the most commercially successful club in SL over someone like Leeds.

Aside from football which is inescapable, there is no sport in the country kids are interested in without an inherited love from their parents. If that worked, the British Ice Hockey league would be massive. This lazy, pins in a map theory that having a big city name is going to attract thousands of fans and sponsors is what gave us Paris Saint Germain. Toronto aren't a success because they have a big city name, it's because they have some very knowledgeable and driven people with deep pockets and a good strategy. David Argyle and Eric Perez could've dropped a club almost anywhere within reason and made a good go of it because they just 'get' the business of sports.

It was the correct decision but the rule needs a desperate overhaul. Not only would Whitehead likely broken downfield should it not have hit the trainer(potentially leading to a try), but the ricochet went to a raiders player too. It's bad enough watching these "water carriers" coaching teams through a game like it's under 7's without them being able to directly advantage their team. If the rule stays as is, what is to stop teams just employing them to follow kicks and clean up any charge downs for repeat sets?

Duplicate

It's been mentioned loads of times both by the press and Toronto themselves, including the stories regarding the 500k the RFL were asking for to enter the challenge cup. Same goes for Toulouse and Catalans although they take central funding. If they were full members, the challenge cup would be mandatory. Regarding the reserves, from what I remember the specific wording was that it is mandatory for all teams running a cat 1 academy, which Toronto do not.

Toronto aren't an RFL member club so wouldn't be required to run a reserves

Think you might be confusing me with someone else Harry, unless you're asking if I have a ticket. In which case i can confidently state there are at least 2 tickets sold for tonight.

I think barring a drastic upturn in for for us that Fev will win this one. Our season has been tailing off for a few weeks now with some questionable team selections and I've not seen anything to suggest that will change. Cant complain too much though, from where we were last year I'd have taken 5th in a heartbeat. Definitely need some investment on the wing for next year rather than just getting every available halfback.