North American Rugby League

[RobertAM]

Attended last nights NARL match Washington Cavalry vs Toronto Wolfpack at Lamport. Was well supported with the east side stand (cap.4600) only open due to covid protocols and attendance restricted to 2000. Very enthusiastic crowd out to support their hometown Wolfpack. Sat next to folks up from DC watching their son play for Ryan Burroughs team. Blake Wallace on the sidelines coaching with Burroughs busy on the field. Simon Gelder the kit man was enjoying himself so lotsa WP alumni in evidence. Sure hope NARL makes a go of it, I for one will be going all in on season tickets and kit and I am confident I wont be alone if this turnout is anything to go by.

[idrewthehaggis]

That sounds tremendous. 

It needs gentle steps. No boosterisms, hype or silly declarations.

If within a decade it achieves a modicum of League One levels with a consistency of structure, clubs and staff, a sniffle of media exposure and an established development system of sorts, then great. Add a SL team warm training sometime. Occasional exhibition game. 

Steps, forward, learning to walk first. No need to run. 

I hope the NRL and RFL are supportive in the right ways. 

Best of luck, I'll say.

[Big Picture]

28 minutes ago, idrewthehaggis said:

That sounds tremendous. 

It needs gentle steps. No boosterisms, hype or silly declarations.

If within a decade it achieves a modicum of League One levels with a consistency of structure, clubs and staff, a sniffle of media exposure and an established development system of sorts, then great. Add a SL team warm training sometime. Occasional exhibition game. 

Steps, forward, learning to walk first. No need to run. 

I hope the NRL and RFL are supportive in the right ways. 

Best of luck, I'll say.

According to Robert Burgin of the Brazilian RL, the NRL won't even give organizers in other countries rule books because they're the NRL's intellectual property so I wouldn't anticipate them helping much.

[Damien]

Good stuff, it's great to see the Toronto Wolfpack back. Their fans didn't deserve the club to just disappear after the way they enthisiastically took to the game.

[Chanter]

Is this governing body a replacement of the USARL or will it be another country with 2 bodies running the game? Crazy if so. 

[Big Picture]

2 hours ago, RobertAM said:

Attended last nights NARL match Washington Cavalry vs Toronto Wolfpack at Lamport. Was well supported with the east side stand (cap.4600) only open due to covid protocols and attendance restricted to 2000. Very enthusiastic crowd out to support their hometown Wolfpack. Sat next to folks up from DC watching their son play for Ryan Burroughs team. Blake Wallace on the sidelines coaching with Burroughs busy on the field. Simon Gelder the kit man was enjoying himself so lotsa WP alumni in evidence. Sure hope NARL makes a go of it, I for one will be going all in on season tickets and kit and I am confident I wont be alone if this turnout is anything to go by.

The match is on Youtube now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sDI7UHjZX0.

[Whippet13]

Nice to see there was a decent crowd there for what was effectively a friendly. Good luck to the new TWP, its really great to see them back playing again.

[Futtocks]

2 hours ago, idrewthehaggis said:

I hope the NRL and RFL are supportive in the right ways.

To be honest, clubs in new territories may be better off without the kind of "help" that the established nations can offer. Because that sort of support does tend to wither away at the worst possible moment.

[OriginalMrC]

Great to see the Wolfpack back playing. I still have concerns about the viability of the NARL competition but it's clear theres still a big interest in RL in Canada 

[The Frying Scotsman]

9 hours ago, Big Picture said:

According to Robert Burgin of the Brazilian RL, the NRL won't even give organizers in other countries rule books because they're the NRL's intellectual property so I wouldn't anticipate them helping much.

Yet another example of the NRL controlling the worldwide game.  This is reality unfortunately. 

[Tex Evans Thigh]

10 hours ago, Chanter said:

Is this governing body a replacement of the USARL or will it be another country with 2 bodies running the game? Crazy if so. 

There is currently no answer to this and therein lies the problem. Hopefully there can be some kind of collaboration to get a joint competition on next year otherwise it'll be more friendlies under different banners next year. 

[Big Picture]

15 minutes ago, Tex Evans Thigh said:

There is currently no answer to this and therein lies the problem. Hopefully there can be some kind of collaboration to get a joint competition on next year otherwise it'll be more friendlies under different banners next year. 

The NARL put their hopes in a streaming outfit which was apparently focused on content for overseas viewers and had no profile to speak of in North America, a sure sign that the NARL was set up by outsiders with little or no knowledge of the North American market.  That streaming outfit has collapsed and shut down, so the answer will almost certainly be that the NARL will not go ahead and the USARL will carry on as a grassroots no-profile-to-speak-of US national governing body.

That probably explains why Ottawa didn't bother playing in the proposed Canada Cup series and Toronto ended up playing one match against DC instead.

[Tex Evans Thigh]

1 minute ago, Big Picture said:

The NARL put their hopes in a streaming outfit which was apparently focused on content for overseas viewers and had no profile to speak of in North America, a sure sign that the NARL was set up by outsiders with little or no knowledge of the North American market.  That streaming outfit has collapsed and shut down, so the answer will almost certainly be that the NARL will not go ahead and the USARL will carry on as a grassroots no-profile-to-speak-of US national governing body.

That probably explains why Ottawa didn't bother playing in the proposed Canada Cup series and Toronto ended up playing one match against DC instead.

The NARL put their hopes into investors who seemingly pulled out, the streaming service was a low income part of the equation I believe. Your second sentence may be true but that relies on the teams getting back together under one banner, or carrying on with a 5 team USARL. I'm surprised any NARL team played a game after the rug got pulled, fair play to them for getting the game on.

[gingerjon]

3 hours ago, Tex Evans Thigh said:

The NARL put their hopes into investors who seemingly pulled out, the streaming service was a low income part of the equation I believe. Your second sentence may be true but that relies on the teams getting back together under one banner, or carrying on with a 5 team USARL. I'm surprised any NARL team played a game after the rug got pulled, fair play to them for getting the game on.

I thought we pretty clearly established that there were no investors. There were a couple of people hired to secure funding and the figures bandied around were the targets they'd been set.

[The Great Dane]

14 hours ago, Big Picture said:

According to Robert Burgin of the Brazilian RL, the NRL won't even give organizers in other countries rule books because they're the NRL's intellectual property so I wouldn't anticipate them helping much.

Anybody can download the rulebooks for all age groups and forms of RL here for free.

He might have been talking about the material that is part of their courses to become accredited coaches, refs, trainers, etc, they don't just give those out to anybody. But those are part of educational training courses so it wouldn't be surprising if they didn't want to hand it out to just anybody for free, and they'd be kind of useless anyway unless you are taking part in said courses.

[Mr Plow]

16 hours ago, RobertAM said:

Attended last nights NARL match Washington Cavalry vs Toronto Wolfpack at Lamport. Was well supported with the east side stand (cap.4600) only open due to covid protocols and attendance restricted to 2000. Very enthusiastic crowd out to support their hometown Wolfpack. Sat next to folks up from DC watching their son play for Ryan Burroughs team. Blake Wallace on the sidelines coaching with Burroughs busy on the field. Simon Gelder the kit man was enjoying himself so lotsa WP alumni in evidence. Sure hope NARL makes a go of it, I for one will be going all in on season tickets and kit and I am confident I wont be alone if this turnout is anything to go by.

Good to hear rl in Toronto isn’t dead. Hopefully the national team will still play games there and there will be more Toronto games in the future. Canada should definitely be looked at as a area for expansion by the IRL, ERL or maybe the RFL/SL would ever think about going back

[Omott91]

I would have laughed if anyone had said at the start of the year that Toronto would be back playing in front of a paying crowd.  

[Eddie]

Was it 2,000 cardboard cut outs? More seriously I’m still annoyed about SL’s decision to ruin TWP and this is fabulous to see, good luck to them. 

[Kayakman]

3 hours ago, Omott91 said:

I would have laughed if anyone had said at the start of the year that Toronto would be back playing in front of a paying crowd.  

THE PACK!!!!!   SHE BE BACK!!!!!!

[Harry Stottle]

21 hours ago, idrewthehaggis said:

That sounds tremendous. 

It needs gentle steps. No boosterisms, hype or silly declarations.

If within a decade it achieves a modicum of League One levels with a consistency of structure, clubs and staff, a sniffle of media exposure and an established development system of sorts, then great. Add a SL team warm training sometime. Occasional exhibition game. 

Steps, forward, learning to walk first. No need to run. 

I hope the NRL and RFL are supportive in the right ways. 

Best of luck, I'll say.

Totally agree, Softly Softly Catchee Monkey is the way to go, for mine anyway.

[tim2]

9 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Totally agree, Softly Softly Catchee Monkey is the way to go, for mine anyway.

Yes, in 100 years you too could be where Rochdale, Oldham and Hunslet are today!!

[Tex Evans Thigh]

7 hours ago, gingerjon said:

I thought we pretty clearly established that there were no investors. There were a couple of people hired to secure funding and the figures bandied around were the targets they'd been set.

There were investors initially who pulled out, the guys were hired to find new investment after that happened. Some teams actually got some funding from the initial investment

[Harry Stottle]

5 minutes ago, tim2 said:

Yes, in 100 years you too could be where Rochdale, Oldham and Hunslet are today!!

Rochdale, Oldham and Hunslet all had their heydays, just they did not keep up the momentum, it would be up to NA and the clubs to maintain that, wouldn't it?

[tim2]

1 minute ago, Harry Stottle said:

Rochdale, Oldham and Hunslet all had their heydays, just they did not keep up the momentum, it would be up to NAcand the clubs to maintain that, wouldn't it?

Let the Americans / Canadians do it at the pace and intensity that works best in their market. Theirs is a very different mentalisty, both socially and when it comes to Sports.

[idrewthehaggis]

After being educated on here how there are two organizations, investors pulling out, etc, I not sure there is any steps to walk on and as for yer monkey?