Hello

Exactly the point I made a week ago but got a quite negative response. I've felt for some time that Toulouse will have been strongly demotivated by seeing Catalan suddenly forced to pay travel for away teams and London knowing that they were relegated before a ball was touched this season. It signposts loudly that Toulouse will not be let in and expansion is not welcome, and that the idea of IMG doing a job to improve the image of and expand the game is an utter farce. Well done to Wakefield though, decent effort in all aspects.

Sad to see those stands that were so full of thousands of enthusiastic fans attending games in the second tier just a few short years ago now virtually empty, but completely understandable under the circumstances. For me this provides a nice summary of the issues that are particular to RL in terms of the relevance of the sport in the modern world in which nearly all other sports are serious about pushing expansion.

Bulls for me. I think that Toulouse will be de-motivated by seeing what has happened with London and Catalan this season and the attitude shown towards attempts at expansion

No chance. If anything that call would be to another small town by the M62 (in effect replacing a city of 9 mill population)

I've just found out about this. I have to say that I'm surprised at RL for making such a brave and exciting choice of new team, but credit where it's due. Should do wonders for the publicity of the sport nationally and be a real shot in the arm in the fight to arrest the decline of RL. Good to have a large new population in a new area to tap into. Take that, other sports!!

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/sep/14/the-point-of-no-return-no-capital-gains-for-broncos-as-exit-looms

M62 closure wouldn't have much impact on RL I'd have thought....

Can anyone name me one other major sport played in the UK, or aspiring to do so (in which case they hold regular games in London, NFL, baseball etc) that doesn't have or want a team in its top tier from Greater London? (Yes I am aware that not all of the ten million population of greater London live five minutes from the Broncos stadium). RL appears to be the exception (shock, horror!!!!!)

I now live most of the time and work in Spain, but have spent more than half of my life living in the Aberystwyth area where I still spend my summers. I considered going down to this event today but couldn't make it, but I hope to do so next year, looks like great entertainment

All things considered that's a decent base to work from in what has always been a union heartland if we're honest. I've gone back to watching it again and it's great to see the enthusiasm of the players when scoring and hear the passion in the crowd, some real competitive attitude there and that's what makes sport tick. Seems to be some real positivity in Wales, let's hope it builds. I'm going back to watching more.....

Any idea about the attendance? I just watched a bit of the video of the final game and it sounded like a reasonable number, but as so often seems to be the case in games in general the fans mainly seemed to be on the side with the cameras, so it's hard to judge.

Does anybody know when the announcement will be made as to which team has won the application to be entered to League 1? Thanks in advance and apologies if this has already been posted, can't remember seeing it.

Ok so Wakefield are sorted for SL and Toulouse are miles off it even though they recently won comfortably against the afore-mentioned Wakefield, because Hull beat Wigan. Glad to have that clarification, thanks.

"Leigh and now Wakefield have changed that, presumably Toulouse will ride it out getting thrashed each week offering no opposition". Can I respectfully remind you that Toulouse hammered Wakefield recently.....

Exactly what I've been thinking. Yes, it's true that in the past several other clubs have failed and dropped down levels or out of existence altogether, yes it's true that these three clubs may also fail if they are given the chance (it won't be easy), but they're all aware of the situation including how little finance they will receive from the RL but still want to join L1 so they must have reason to believe that they can make a go of it, and who are we to say that they have zero chance. One thing that is for sure is that if you automatically rule out all clubs who are not geographically close to the majority of the others then you will only serve to stifle further potential interest and development in a sport. Of course, expansion for expansion's sake is not a good idea but I don't accept that succesful expansion is beyond the realms of possibility.

You misspelt Bramalll ane, pedant (can't be bothered to count which number word it was that you wrote, got better things to do with my time)

Add all three and aim towards SL of 14 with Championship and League 1 12 teams medium term, possible further expansion long term

Okay, so they managed to convince thousands of people to go to a sport that they had no interest in watching but were interested in taking time and effort in their leisure time to go and watch the away fans at a game of that sport that they weren't interested in.......lol , that sounds like a convincing argument

We haven't got the evidence because they've never had that chance. Catalan are a case in point with increased crowds. Maybe they wouldn't gain decent crowds over time, maybe they would. They certainly have a seed and a decent population. I would say it's got be worth a go.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=894259367884230 Toulouse crowd at this game was reported at a good few thousand from what I remember, and this wasn't even in the top tier. The population of Toulouse is about half a million. Is it ridiculous to say that their crowds could be comparable to Leigh if they were to get back up to the top level? There's a lot of ridiculous things said on this forum but maybe with some ambition to expand the sport we could all recognise potential.

In my opinion Toulouse came out of the blocks slowly this season after a downer mentally over what happened to them over the previous couple of seasons, and were underperforming massively. They have now started to show their potential. Wakefield have obviously improved significantly due to solid investment and sensible promotion of their team, and have been very consistent. I think that for the good of the game both teams should be part of an expanded 14 team SL which would benefit all in the medium to long term, but I doubt that common sense will prevail.

As first language French speakers maybe not so many of them on this particular board to be fair to them........

I strongly dislike it. I assume that it was brought in to add "drama" but somehow it gives totally the wrong message for me, this is not an American origin sport. There's nothing wrong with a draw when it happens. The only time that I agree with extra time is in knock out games

What about not allowing any teams fron new areas to try and participate? And then continue to watch many traditional arras decline? Yeah, that sounds like a solid plan. That seems to be the plan that other sports are going for.when we observe the worldwide decline of football, union, cricket, basketball, ice hockey etc in recent decades.... Rock on RL with it's "go for it" ideology