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The General 'Toronto Wolfpack' Discussion Thread


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3 minutes ago, Loup said:

Among all the last-minute dithering at the end of last season, as to whether Wolfpack would be eligible for SL entry and under what terms, this is the one that had me banging my head on the wall. That the SL teams denied the tv money is one thing - it would have been palatable if that money had been earmarked for their travel & accommodation expenses to Toronto and they'd still have had the money to buy premium breakfast sausages. But that they then stuck Wolfpack with all the travel & accommodation expenses on top of denying the funding, was rock bottom behaviour.

If the pandemic has deepened Wolfpack's financial woes, the seeds were sown months earlier by the very clubs who are now stroking their chin whiskers and pondering their fate.

While I wasn't happy at Toronto not getting the central funding , and stated as such at the time , that is the past , the future is all that matters now , and ATM it's not looking like they are in a position to play anywhere next season 

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6 minutes ago, Loup said:

Among all the last-minute dithering at the end of last season, as to whether Wolfpack would be eligible for SL entry and under what terms, this is the one that had me banging my head on the wall. That the SL teams denied the tv money is one thing - it would have been palatable if that money had been earmarked for their travel & accommodation expenses to Toronto and they'd still have had the money to buy premium breakfast sausages. But that they then stuck Wolfpack with all the travel & accommodation expenses on top of denying the funding, was rock bottom behaviour.

If the pandemic has deepened Wolfpack's financial woes, the seeds were sown months earlier by the very clubs who are now stroking their chin whiskers and pondering their fate.

The travel issue also rubbed me the wrong way considerably.  Not only did each club take an extra £200k in funding, they also got a free trip out of it as well, oh and also gave Toronto a lower number of home figures.

£200k would easily cover a single game of travel and then some.  

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2 hours ago, Spidey said:

My mini licencing analysis based on the above would have clubs as follows, with probably Toulouse getting the nod (if TWP not available):

  Finance Commerce Stadium Crowd Players Score
Toulouse 5 5 3 3 3 19
Widnes 3 3 5 3 5 19
Leigh 5 3 5 3 1 17
London 3 5 1 3 5 17
Bradford 3 3 1 3 5 15
Featherstone 3 3 1 3 1 11

Can you expand that to include the current super league clubs, if we are going down that route then let’s apply it across the board.

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2 minutes ago, CanadianRugger said:

The travel issue also rubbed me the wrong way considerably.  Not only did each club take an extra £200k in funding, they also got a free trip out of it as well, oh and also gave Toronto a lower number of home figures.

£200k would easily cover a single game of travel and then some.  

I won't try to pretend that arrangement is fair but did TWP actually have to pay out anything in this regard this year? As far as I can see they flew to the UK at the start of pre-season and stayed here. No-one has travelled to Canada to play them this year.

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18 minutes ago, CanadianRugger said:

The travel issue also rubbed me the wrong way considerably.  Not only did each club take an extra £200k in funding, they also got a free trip out of it as well, oh and also gave Toronto a lower number of home figures.

£200k would easily cover a single game of travel and then some.  

Awful negotiation from Toronto, then. 

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44 minutes ago, CanadianRugger said:

The travel issue also rubbed me the wrong way considerably.  Not only did each club take an extra £200k in funding, they also got a free trip out of it as well, oh and also gave Toronto a lower number of home figures.

£200k would easily cover a single game of travel and then some.  

The trouble is that a good number of the clubs in the so-called "Super League" probably couldn't afford the trip unless Toronto was covering it or at the least wouldn't want to pay for it themselves.  As others have said, RL in the UK is a financially poor sport.  Former St Helens chief executive has stated that even the top clubs face issues which their counterparts in other sports can't even imagine.

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8 hours ago, Hela Wigmen said:

I’m not sure what the ‘promotion’ of Toulouse without a solid plan around them, actually achieves other than bringing Super League up to twelve clubs. Replacing one expansion side with another without any sort of plan around how the powers that be want Super League to grow and where they want Toulouse to go as a club. Without a plan, it’s essentially a like-for-like replacement and the vicious cycle will continue till Toulouse drop back to the Championship. 

 

Toronto Vs fev play off final 13000 fans

Toulouse play off semi final 600. 

Without a doubt the club's will vote for Toulouse .

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So we just continue/accept to be a poor sport , lurch from one crisis to another or do we try to expand into new markets, create new fans/sponsors.

I for one am sick to the back teeth of being told we are poor, second rate sport from up north! God forbid where's the passion/foresight and ambition to take this sport to where it belongs.

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1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:

I mean this in the nicest possible way but thats unlikely to happen after 1 email. Firstly there's the fact that the RFL/SL would have to open up applications from all comers. Even then there would be the clear problem of what if the new addition didn't finish bottom come November, somehow I think Derek's opinion might have changed by then on his clubs status.

and that stops you sending an email saying thank you and stating it will be discussed on xxx date

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In a less organised way, this issue is not dissimilar to the identified predicament of the New Zealand Warriors when Covid-19 came along. The NRL took the view that the Warriors needed supporting and that there might have to be funding to support the players or by the clubs providing them with players to continue. The point is that the NRL had a plan and directed the RL community to support them. This seems to contrast with the situation involving Toronto where the league have not been willing to provide a couple of hundred thousand to see them through the season. 

I've listened to podcasts down under where the contributors are baffled and astonished that the clubs/league didn't go out of their way to support their fellow club. It's probably down to the organisational and philosophical differences, the view in Australia being that if the teams are all strong the clubs (and the game) benefit overall. In the specific case of Toronto, there is similar incredulity that the the kitchen sink isn't being thrown at Toronto, regardless of Covid, because of the perceived massive opportunity for the game.

 

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7 minutes ago, Manxmanc said:

In a less organised way, this issue is not dissimilar to the identified predicament of the New Zealand Warriors when Covid-19 came along. The NRL took the view that the Warriors needed supporting and that there might have to be funding to support the players or by the clubs providing them with players to continue. The point is that the NRL had a plan and directed the RL community to support them. This seems to contrast with the situation involving Toronto where the league have not been willing to provide a couple of hundred thousand to see them through the season. 

I've listened to podcasts down under where the contributors are baffled and astonished that the clubs/league didn't go out of their way to support their fellow club. It's probably down to the organisational and philosophical differences, the view in Australia being that if the teams are all strong the clubs (and the game) benefit overall. In the specific case of Toronto, there is similar incredulity that the the kitchen sink isn't being thrown at Toronto, regardless of Covid, because of the perceived massive opportunity for the game.

 

If Canada had thousands of top quality Rugby players then I'm sure things would have been different , but the don't , so it isn't 

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Just to clarify, I meant similar in that the league were directed to provide players based in Australia, if required, to support the NZ Warriors. The equivalent here would be UK based players being used to support TWP.

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1 hour ago, Bostik Bailey said:

Can you expand that to include the current super league clubs, if we are going down that route then let’s apply it across the board.

Nope it was a one time 5 minute analysis. What you see is what you get 😜

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3 minutes ago, Manxmanc said:

Just to clarify, I meant similar in that the league were directed to provide players based in Australia, if required, to support the NZ Warriors. The equivalent here would be UK based players being used to support TWP.

Just to clarify , I was meaning the ' massive opportunity ' bit 

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1 hour ago, CanadianRugger said:

Amen and genuinely surprised @Spidey  thinks Widnes and Leigh have a better stadium than Toulouse Olympique now that they are playing at Ernest-Wallon? 

Leigh does have a nice stadium but Ernest-Wallon most definitely has better facilities than either Stadium.  Conference Centre, Large Restaurant, Huge Fitness Facility, multiple practice pitches, far larger capacity.  The only thing it has against it is relative age but Stade Toulouse have kept it up to date.

It’s far too big for them, which is a negative. 

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Last Year I went out to Oakland to see the penultimate game of the Oakland Raiders at the Oakland Coliseum against Tennesee Titans. Imagaine my surprise and delight to see there was to be a Rugby League game between the San Francisco Savage and Los Angeles Mongrel taking place on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay on the Saturday beforehand.

I was looking forward to crashing the TRL server by posting pictures of Rugby League on Treasure Island and tickets were available but I thought I will buy on the day . A wise choice, because a week before I flew out the venue for the game changed to Balboa Park - Great I thought at least a proper stadium but then just before I got on the plane the game was cancelled and a youth camp held in the middle of nowhere  that is If it went ahead.

The moral of this rugby leaguie is such a desperate sport that it will believe any snake oil salesman based in North America making promises of a brand new dawn.

I ask has the RFL and the NZRL received back the money they were promised for the Denver Test ?

What happened to the USA hosting the 2021 RL World Cup ?

Why does the self publicist David Argyle now want the citizens of Toronto to stump up for his club and how many Kayaks will need to be sold to keep Toronto afloat ?

I mention the sale of Kayaks because its about as credible as eveything else Argyle comes out with.

Whatever happened to the money Argyle promised London Skolars ?

In any other sport a club and an Owner who had behaved in such a disreputable manner towars its staff and other clubs would have been expelled by now.

As for the "Great and Good choosing the 12th Club for the Super League is this not backdoor franchising ? - Let the clubs playoff for the promotion spot this October / November.

This is all very unseemly and surely a lesson that fantasy Rugby League never works.

 

Quote

When the pinch comes the common people will turn out to be more intelligent than the clever ones. I certainly hope so.

George Orwell
 
image.png.5fe5424fdf31c5004e2aad945309f68e.png

You either own NFTs or women’s phone numbers but not both

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16 minutes ago, Manxmanc said:

Just to clarify, I meant similar in that the league were directed to provide players based in Australia, if required, to support the NZ Warriors. The equivalent here would be UK based players being used to support TWP.

Didn't that exact thing get offered here and TWP said no because they wanted to be competitive and not use loan fringe players? 

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32 minutes ago, Manxmanc said:

In a less organised way, this issue is not dissimilar to the identified predicament of the New Zealand Warriors when Covid-19 came along. The NRL took the view that the Warriors needed supporting and that there might have to be funding to support the players or by the clubs providing them with players to continue. The point is that the NRL had a plan and directed the RL community to support them. This seems to contrast with the situation involving Toronto where the league have not been willing to provide a couple of hundred thousand to see them through the season. 

I've listened to podcasts down under where the contributors are baffled and astonished that the clubs/league didn't go out of their way to support their fellow club. It's probably down to the organisational and philosophical differences, the view in Australia being that if the teams are all strong the clubs (and the game) benefit overall. In the specific case of Toronto, there is similar incredulity that the the kitchen sink isn't being thrown at Toronto, regardless of Covid, because of the perceived massive opportunity for the game.

 

Thing is regarding the couple of hundred thousand, would it have actually made a difference considering Toronto are going to be 2 months wages behind by Wednesday(400k+) and their CEO admits they still don't know how they're going to pay it?

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2 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Didn't that exact thing get offered here and TWP said no because they wanted to be competitive and not use loan fringe players? 

Yes, the offer was made and TWP turned it down for those reasons. Obviously the financial situation was more of a concern which led to their withdrawal but they did state that they didn't want fringe players on loan when it was offered as they wanted to compete and not make up the numbers.

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1 minute ago, LeytherRob said:

Thing is regarding the couple of hundred thousand, would it have actually made a difference considering Toronto are going to be 2 months wages behind by Wednesday(400k+) and their CEO admits they still don't know how they're going to pay it?

Has that been acknowledged? I' thought Bob Hunter has been quoted as saying that these issues have been resolved. That's not to say they have, but the quote's there. If I can dig it out, I'll post it. Perhaps, you could do likewise.

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Found it. From the i, UK newspaper, trying to locate the edition.

Toronto Wolfpack CEO Bob Hunter said: “Issues have been resolved. The transaction that had been delayed for a number of weeks has gone through. Money being transferred from Canada today. Players will be paid Monday or Tuesday [next week].”

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3 hours ago, wiganermike said:

Argyle said he would not fund them without an allocation from central funds. The general impression being reported is that Argyle is not likely to be the owner for much longer. He is reported to have not created a good impression during the meeting last Thursday. A change in ownership and focus for TWP may increase the likelihood of compromise on at least a proportion of funding. This is a poll run by TotalRL, who knows exactly what the RFL and SL are considering doing. For all we know one option being considered could be access to central funds being granted on condition of accepting demotion and a squad re-build.

Playing nice doesn't seem to have accomplished anything with SL. Time to play hardball.

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