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Toulouse imploding


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18 hours ago, ShropshireBull said:

Also as clubs lock playoff spots in towards end of season others may down tools and rotate which might help. 

As Saints did with London twice, and very nearly gave them an escape route, what Saints did was nothing wrong by the book but if one of the other 3 contenders for the drop had been relegated instead of London I am very sure we would have heard a lot about it, as it turned out it didn't matter.

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30 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

As Saints did with London twice, and very nearly gave them an escape route, what Saints did was nothing wrong by the book but if one of the other 3 contenders for the drop had been relegated instead of London I am very sure we would have heard a lot about it, as it turned out it didn't matter.

Other clubs rested players during the season,London weren’t “given” anything.

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32 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

but if one of the other 3 contenders for the drop had been relegated instead of London I am very sure we would have heard a lot about it, as it turned out it didn't matter.

Mainly from you wanging on about it.

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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7 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Other than two home wins against far and way the best side’s reserves. 

And again other teams that season rested players,every season the Challenge Cup finalists do it either the week before or week after the final,teams already in the play offs do it regularly.

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23 minutes ago, Davo5 said:

Other clubs rested players during the season,London weren’t “given” anything.

Quite right London still had to win those games Dav, but with hand on heart can you tell me that Saints did not make it easier for them had they not filled the team with 'fringe's player's.

 

 

 

 

 

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10 minutes ago, Davo5 said:

And again other teams that season rested players,every season the Challenge Cup finalists do it either the week before or week after the final,teams already in the play offs do it regularly.

Is that when Saints played and sent those teams to London?

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1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:

Yes it can be interesting, but what would we be talking about now Scubby if like some people say they want TO and Catalan locked in and protected from relegation, the talk would be wondering which other club may get relegated even if they perform better throughout the season, that cannot be right.

I think Toulouse being locked in is too simplistic. You have to decide how many UK clubs you want involved in the top competition and how many non-UK (French etc.) Then any replacement is like for like.

IMO there should be a 14-team competition which includes 12 UK clubs and 2 French clubs. Given those numbers are fixed, a French club can only be replaced by another French/Other club and a UK one a UK club. How you replace those clubs (e.g. one year, two-year relegations, licensing or whatever) is up to the competition as a whole.

At the moment it is like trading places and is just a money pit, we have an opportunity at this point in time for 12 full time UK clubs with good structures. It makes sense to expand to 14.

Outside those 12 it is more complex, with part time, basket case clubs and clubs aspiring to be ready in 3-5 years. Just chucking Halifax and Batley up to completely fail because they unexpectedly won a couple of play off games is absolute nuts! They are miles and miles from being SL clubs

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London beating Saints reserves twice is an absolute myth. It is made up and repeated as truth.

Here is one of those Saints reserves teams -

Welsby, Swift, Naiqama, Percival, Grace, Fages, Richardson, Thompson, Roby, Lees, Peyroux, Paulo, Knowles: LMS, Amor, Ashworth, Costello

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1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:

Yes it can be interesting, but what would we be talking about now Scubby if like some people say they want TO and Catalan locked in and protected from relegation, the talk would be wondering which other club may get relegated even if they perform better throughout the season, that cannot be right.

So we can look forward to which part time club who will be even more ill prepared than TO to be cannon fodder next year meanwhile restricting the games footprint and growth? 

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Just now, Omott91 said:

So we can look forward to which part time club who will be even more ill prepared than TO to be cannon fodder next year meanwhile restricting the games footprint and growth? 

So the acceptance that TO are cannon fodder is OK other than another club being cannon fodder.

FWIW, in no way am I against any team whoever they are and wherever the come from being in SL, but I will say in a competitive league structure where P&R is employed firstly they need to prove their worth by winning the right to be there, and secondly by gaining enough points over the season to stay there.

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22 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

So the acceptance that TO are cannon fodder is OK other than another club being cannon fodder.

FWIW, in no way am I against any team whoever they are and wherever the come from being in SL, but I will say in a competitive league structure where P&R is employed firstly they need to prove their worth by winning the right to be there, and secondly by gaining enough points over the season to stay there.

Collectively over the last five years TO, Fev and Leigh have probably spent in the region of £10-20m and currently have zero security. Toulouse have spent millions on flights for part-time clubs - what a waste.

Leigh have a wonderful owner who has spent a fortune going round and round in circles - he must have been quietly seething that only 2-3k bother turning up for his newly assembled team.

Imagine if he could continue to invest and actually offer solid NRL players 2-3 years security rather than half-baked break-claused contracts. If Fev get away from Leigh this season, some of those players are probably busy lining up contracts elsewhere as opposed to fighting hard trying to win promotion. Players look after themselves first.

Same with Jacks and Leulia at Rovers. The more they find out about the English game the more they will want to go somewhere where they have security.

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55 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Quite right London still had to win those games Dav, but with hand on heart can you tell me that Saints did not make it easier for them had they not filled the team with 'fringe's player's.

 

 

 

 

 

And do other clubs who have rested players on numerous occasions  not make it easier for their opponents ?

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13 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

So the acceptance that TO are cannon fodder is OK other than another club being cannon fodder.

FWIW, in no way am I against any team whoever they are and wherever the come from being in SL, but I will say in a competitive league structure where P&R is employed firstly they need to prove their worth by winning the right to be there, and secondly by gaining enough points over the season to stay there.

A company expands into a new market, its` set up costs are high, and sales are low,  therefore its` profits are low. It doesn`t abandon and retreat from that market after one year because it may not be as profitable as traditional markets. To do so would be sheer folly and a waste of valuable investment dollars.

Businesses do it all the time and they`ll have a certain time frame in mind, certainly more than one year, to reap the rewards from that investment.

You have to think of it like a business, otherwise you will go around and around in ever diminishing circles while rivals chip away at your market. Consumers like choice and a variety of product, while it is natural through over familiarity and encroachment by other products to lose share in your own market, you must be willing to search out new markets to compensate for loss of sales. Enter France.

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1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:

So the acceptance that TO are cannon fodder is OK other than another club being cannon fodder.

FWIW, in no way am I against any team whoever they are and wherever the come from being in SL, but I will say in a competitive league structure where P&R is employed firstly they need to prove their worth by winning the right to be there, and secondly by gaining enough points over the season to stay there.

How does allowing a part time club into a professional comp grow the game and even make business sense?

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6 minutes ago, Omott91 said:

How does allowing a part time club into a professional comp grow the game and even make business sense?

It doesn’t,currently you have Fev & Leigh if given time could develop into a solid mid table team,the rest of the Championship are nowhere near so either promote those 2 now & have a 14 team Superleague for the next 4/5 years under licensing with strict,enforceable guidelines or sacrifice them,stick to 12 & do it now.

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8 minutes ago, Davo5 said:

It doesn’t,currently you have Fev & Leigh if given time could develop into a solid mid table team,the rest of the Championship are nowhere near so either promote those 2 now & have a 14 team Superleague for the next 4/5 years under licensing with strict,enforceable guidelines or sacrifice them,stick to 12 & do it now.

It's not even sacrificing them Davo it is pushing them back into oblivion. Once TO/Fev/Leigh have rotated around on yo yo for 2-3 years - all three will be fundamentally weaker and probably 1-2 of them will hit financial trouble and will go into administration (or just melt into a part-time also ran).

There's a reason the house always wins at the casino.

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Seems a lot people were very supportive of Toulouse until they had the cheek to actually get promoted.

It must be so gutting for those hundreds of Wigan fans enjoying a week's holiday in the South of France while watching their club play two competitive games against French SL clubs. Is there a helpline available for them?

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55 minutes ago, Scubby said:

It's not even sacrificing them Davo it is pushing them back into oblivion. Once TO/Fev/Leigh have rotated around on yo yo for 2-3 years - all three will be fundamentally weaker and probably 1-2 of them will hit financial trouble and will go into administration (or just melt into a part-time also ran).

There's a reason the house always wins at the casino.

Bang on, we have a couple of clubs chasing the dream, which in reality is an impossible to achieve one due to the set up and timings. Whoever gets promoted is immediately handicapped and going into the SL season behind every other club, both financially and timing wise. The best they can do is to pick up a couple of the decent players from the relegated club, and some expensive imports, maybe a gem or 2 from the championship. But the chances of them staying up is infinitesimal, its like promoting someone into Formula 1 racing and giving him a ford focus to race against the F1 cars, and in Toulouse's case he also has to pay for the other cars fuel. Its ridiculous and short sighted, which sums up RL and many of the fans. The sad thing is many of the players (especially the younger ones) in the promoted teams given time could flourish, but they and their clubs arent afforded that time. Its sink or swim.

In my opinion there's an easy fix around this whole thing, base the league on cycles of 3 years, each team promoted gets 2 seasons free from relegation, then must fight openly on the 3rd. They can build during those 3 off seasons, promote youth and allow players to get up to speed with SL rugby, rather than filling their squad with journeymen and overly expensive imports to boost their chances of staying up from 1% to 5%.

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1 hour ago, Davo5 said:

It doesn’t,currently you have Fev & Leigh if given time could develop into a solid mid table team,the rest of the Championship are nowhere near so either promote those 2 now & have a 14 team Superleague for the next 4/5 years under licensing with strict,enforceable guidelines or sacrifice them,stick to 12 & do it now.

I think there is more chance of Putin running bare bholloked with a bullseye on his back through the streets of Kyiv than SL clubs voting for a further reduced funding following on from the lower value TV contract by inviting in two more teams and sharing the pot out further.

Also if they take away the ambition of the reward of promotion from the Championship, I consider lots of fans and a few owners would walk away from the game, so your choice of word 'sacrifice' I think will be telling for more than just a couple of clubs, even saying that along with Toulouse removing Fev and Leigh for 4/5 years will decimate the division, I also doubt it will do any good in this expanded SL if there is no relegation to keep interest going after half the season is reached for a number of teams, when results will mean diddly squat.

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If Toulouse is imploding, it is on the way to becoming SuperLeague's first  Supernova! Wow! That's great!

"Once a star's core surpasses a certain mass (called the Chandrasekhar limit), it begins to implode. For this reason, these Type-II supernovae are also known as core-collapse supernovae."

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2 hours ago, Harry Stottle said:

I think there is more chance of Putin running bare bholloked with a bullseye on his back through the streets of Kyiv than SL clubs voting for a further reduced funding following on from the lower value TV contract by inviting in two more teams and sharing the pot out further.

Also if they take away the ambition of the reward of promotion from the Championship, I consider lots of fans and a few owners would walk away from the game, so your choice of word 'sacrifice' I think will be telling for more than just a couple of clubs, even saying that along with Toulouse removing Fev and Leigh for 4/5 years will decimate the division, I also doubt it will do any good in this expanded SL if there is no relegation to keep interest going after half the season is reached for a number of teams, when results will mean diddly squat.

Come on there’s currently very few owners with genuine ambition or the money to reach Superleague,hence the reason I suggested promoting the 2 obvious ones,of the rest you maybe have York/Newcastle who still need time to develop,having 4 yr license’s will allow them to develop in a competitive league without the s##t or bust merchants massively outspending them & also gives Superleague clubs notice that continued pish poor performance on & off the field will result in them being replaced.

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2 hours ago, dkw said:

...

In my opinion there's an easy fix around this whole thing, base the league on cycles of 3 years, each team promoted gets 2 seasons free from relegation, then must fight openly on the 3rd. They can build during those 3 off seasons, promote youth and allow players to get up to speed with SL rugby, rather than filling their squad with journeymen and overly expensive imports to boost their chances of staying up from 1% to 5%.

That sounds like licensing, albeit with short, 3-year terms. Unless I have misunderstood, these licences would be removed / renewed / given out based on on-field performance. I can imagine that losing your 3-year licence would be more damaging for a club than relegation as we currently have it.

If we're moving clubs between a top division and a second division - and we want some stability and an opportunity to invest - there doesn't seem to be a solution that doesn't involve bringing the two divisions closer together in terms of quality. 

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21 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

That sounds like licensing, albeit with short, 3-year terms. Unless I have misunderstood, these licences would be removed / renewed / given out based on on-field performance. I can imagine that losing your 3-year licence would be more damaging for a club than relegation as we currently have it.

If we're moving clubs between a top division and a second division - and we want some stability and an opportunity to invest - there doesn't seem to be a solution that doesn't involve bringing the two divisions closer together in terms of quality. 

3 years is a long enough time to build a squad capable of competing in SL, its also a long enough time to build contingency in case you do get relegated. 

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