RL expansion is alive and well : Sat Nov 16, 2019 9:40 am
Forget Canada the real current power house of Rugby League expansion is the South Sea Islands and their ‘power house’ forwards that have decimated GB’s raft of NRL and Super-league ‘stars’Some play in the NRL and are stand out players just look at the ones that come to Super-league and play well.
If ever there was a moment that British rugby league stood at a cross roads with a Canadian team shouting for more marque players and no salary cap and a stop on restricting them playing Australian and South Sea Island players instead of UK ones then this is it.
The ill judged scheme for increasing the number of overseas players and overseas teams into a British league is going to lead to the slowing of the development of our own players and lead to us becoming a fourth rate international nation.
For every English club that is replaced in Super-league by Toronto and New York etc. The academy and development of our players will reduce replaced by a false expansion created by teams that are not developing players either in their country of origin or the UK.
Expansion is alive and well in a Tonga, Fiji and PNG playing a game at high speed and with a toughness that is built on a proud heritage that we are prepared to lose to bring in a Canadian millionaire team who want to change the rules to the detriment of our game.
We seem to want to fill our team with second rate international antipodeans with dubious connection to our country.
Our playing depth is getting poorer take out a few players and we have a poor team and players that don’t want to dig in when the going gets tough.
For all of you that will call me a Neanderthal I agree with expansion as we have seen over the last few weeks but not the crazy style we are following if we change our rules to accommodate short term teams from Nth America.
The proper and long term expansion in the South Seas looks so good just imagine if Australia and NZ weren’t allowed to poach these players and use them before ‘giving them back’ RL would become a much more attractive game on the a International stage.
Our way using Catalans hasn’t worked as the French team would be playing to a much higher standard like the South Sea Island ones if it had.....