Re: Toronto : Sat Nov 09, 2019 11:50 pm  

Budgiezilla wrote:

:lol: You are something else...

I wish he was somewhere else.

Re: Toronto : Sun Nov 10, 2019 8:47 am  

Steph Curry wrote:

Catalans brought more than the 8 fans you brought to St. Helens last February

How would you know

Re: Toronto : Sun Nov 10, 2019 9:36 am  

There is a strong Melbourne Storm vibe about Toronto, and they have slowly developed a following in their home city, but very quickly developed a following amongst bandwagon jumping league fans across the comp.
I can see Toronto having a bigger UK following than Canadian following for a few years at least.

Re: Toronto : Sun Nov 10, 2019 10:18 am  

roopy wrote:

There is a strong Melbourne Storm vibe about Toronto, and they have slowly developed a following in their home city, but very quickly developed a following amongst bandwagon jumping league fans across the comp.
I can see Toronto having a bigger UK following than Canadian following for a few years at least.

But even if that is true, they are still likely to have a large Canadian following, including a match day attendance at home that is larger than all Super League clubs other than those of Leeds, St Helens, and Wigan.

Re: Toronto : Sun Nov 10, 2019 11:26 am  

JEAN CAPDOUZE wrote:

But even if that is true, they are still likely to have a large Canadian following, including a match day attendance at home that is larger than all Super League clubs other than those of Leeds, St Helens, and Wigan.

How can that be mon ami if the stadium according to Wikipedia only holds 9.600?

Re: Toronto : Sun Nov 10, 2019 3:14 pm  

JEAN CAPDOUZE wrote:

But even if that is true, they are still likely to have a large Canadian following, including a match day attendance at home that is larger than all Super League clubs other than those of Leeds, St Helens, and Wigan.

It's just a pity that they wont have any Canadian players for the foreseeable future, if ever and will have to rely on "Aussie" imports and players taken from the lower end of SL, maybe from the clubs that you hold in such low regard - the irony is quite strange isn't it.

Therefore as London, a side that has worked damned hard on junior development, are consigned to the Championship, Toronto, just spend their way to success.
On this basis, you could certainly argue that London are more deserving of their SL place.

Re: Toronto : Sun Nov 10, 2019 5:28 pm  

wrencat1873 wrote:

It's just a pity that they wont have any Canadian players for the foreseeable future, if ever and will have to rely on "Aussie" imports and players taken from the lower end of SL, maybe from the clubs that you hold in such low regard - the irony is quite strange isn't it.

Therefore as London, a side that has worked damned hard on junior development, are consigned to the Championship, Toronto, just spend their way to success.
On this basis, you could certainly argue that London are more deserving of their SL place.

It's a club that is three years old. The first batch of Super League-quality Canadians aren't even born yet or are, at best, still in pampers. It took the Broncos the fat-end of two decades and a lot of development officer cash to get to where they are now. It's going to take time, even if everything goes their way (and that is itself a big if).

Meanwhile, we've got people talking about "hotbeds" like Cumbria that haven't produced an England / GB representative since Ade Gardner and Rob Purdham.

Re: Toronto : Sun Nov 10, 2019 7:33 pm  

Canada has traditionally been a much stronger Rugby Union playing country than USA.
We all know Union numbers are pretty dodgy, but they claim to have nearly 30k senior players and about 50k junior players in Canada, and have a tradition going back to the 1860s.
Canadian football is also different to American gridiron, and is seen to be more like the original Rugby roots (although I've never seen a game and don't know if that means skills are more transferable).
In short, it will be much easier to develop players in Canada than in many countries because they have a base to work on.
In America we have seen many guys raised on gridiron make a reasonably successful transition to Rugby League, with many examples of guys playing in semi pro comps in Australia and England.
If the Wolfpack make the effort to develop Canadian players from Union and Canadian football, they should be able to develop a few players of ESL standard within a reasonable time frame.

Re: Toronto : Sun Nov 10, 2019 8:39 pm  

Does anyone have any figures on how many Melbourne Storm players are from Victoria, NSW, Queensland, NZ & the PI's. The Storm are the #5 club in terms of attendances and have 5 finals wins and 3 titles to their names in 20 years and as far as I can see they are still reliant on imported players, which doesn't seem to bother them, their 18,000 fans or the rest of the NRL.

Re: Toronto : Sun Nov 10, 2019 8:43 pm  

bramleyrhino wrote:

It's a club that is three years old. The first batch of Super League-quality Canadians aren't even born yet or are, at best, still in pampers. It took the Broncos the fat-end of two decades and a lot of development officer cash to get to where they are now. It's going to take time, even if everything goes their way (and that is itself a big if).

Meanwhile, we've got people talking about "hotbeds" like Cumbria that haven't produced an England / GB representative since Ade Gardner and Rob Purdham.

Tbf they do produce SL talent of good quality; do they produce enough, who knows, but it's also worth remembering that the whole of Cumbria is about the size of Bradford but spread over an area 20 times the size of it.

Also Shaun Lunt's from Cumbria played for England against the Aussies if I remember right & Lee Mossop's played a couple of times for England, you can argue who it was against if you want. No doubt Morgan Knowles would have been on tour if not for injury and will play for England sooner or later.