Can Canada be decent in 10 years?

[langpark]

6 hours ago, The Lad said:

It's not about having professional or Semi-professional teams, it's about having players coming up through the ranks and youth system which I don't think Canada has, whether its France or Canada having a top team means nothing if money or talent isn't coming through. Ten years is a long time and Canada can grow but i don't think it will be second tier.

Yes when I initially posed that question it was assuming they would have the complete pathway in place, all the way from grassroots though to professional, for an entire decade. Sadly, I don't think grassroots was ever high on their list of priorities. 

[Kelsey The Ram 97]

It is to my understanding that there are 3 leagues in Canada (Alberta Rugby League, British Columbia Rugby League and Ontario Rugby League) which are all amateur. BCRL is the largest league with 6 teams the other two have 3 teams each. The number of teams in each league would need to grow a fair bit and they would also need a pathway for young people to make it through to the first team in order to consider becoming at least semi professional IMO. If that can happen then we could potentially see the Canadian national side begin to compete at a higher level.

[Oxford]

Can Canada be decent in 10 years?

 

No, I imagine they'll fall by the wayside like everything else.......next!

 

[Yakstorm]

There is more to Canada Rugby League than just the Wolfpack, and whilst their loss is significant, the reality is it will have little impact on the CRLA clubs and participation as cooperation between the two entities up to this point was limited.

Naturally over time the Wolfpack would have helped more and more and become more important to participation activities in Canada, but we didn't quite get there.

Can Canada be decent in 10 years? It can, but it needs help. It needs things like the USARL letting Ontario join their competition to help provide players with more games and expose them to a higher standard of league, it needs people like Eric Perez to be brought back in to help promote the national teams and get the crowds & media attention back, it needs a regular schedule of matches for the Wolverines and Ravens and it needs money to hold national championships, etc.

If the Aces can join League One, that definitely won't hinder and there is an opportunity for both the Aces & CRLA to learn from what opportunities were missed with the Wolfpack, but the Pro team isn't essential.

Canada has a lot of talented athletes, including a lot of talented Rugby players, so it's not like you are drawing from a completely empty pool. The Ravens showed in the Women's World Cup they are arguably in the top four Women's national teams and even in the Commonwealth Games 9s, they competed with the Cooks and Tonga and beat Fiji.