Seriously it was announced as that , then changed to 2100 in the press

We all had a laugh

Not a problem for us next year anyway we wont be going

Told you before, beat Donny next week and do Gateshead and your up.

Simples.

Like you and Fax have done

If we play like yesterday against Donny we might get a bonus point

See the posts above. No way in the memory of mon there was more than 1,500 there, like.

RL isn't big down there.

It used to be a decent size before Rugby Union did their best to suppress it in the 1930's. It's very slowly been dying since which is why we needed to include Les Catalans and hopefully Toulouse in the future to ensure that the game starts to recover.

Yer at OUR expense, thats all Championship clubs with ambition I mean.
Why the hell should we in England prop up the French game for yet more Aussies to play RL???
We have enough problems look at the England performances down under thsi year???

There are not as many Aussies as you would like to think.

We have an obligation to ensure that the game doesn't die in France and believe me it had had its last rights. Over time this will go a long way to helping the French game to recover which will benefit the whole of RL.

Since the introduction of Les Cats player numbers are up 30% in France. But we should just forget that and let them die so Halifax can bring another 4000 English fans to Super League.

Agree but don't put Toulouse in SL just because they are in France.
Just keep the Catalans in the SL as the game will never be strong enough over there to provide enough players for more than one club in SL, it struggles to supply enough for Catalans now!
Come on look at us in England we struggle to provide enough players for SL, you may have noticed there are rather a lot of Aussies and New Zealanders playing over here.

I see what you're saying about the depth of French players but with an extra team these will come. I feel Toulouse are necessary to keep the ball rolling in France and to provide Les Cats with a derby.

They shouldn't go in just because they are in France but they are good enough in my opinion. They will be a damn sight better prepared than the Crusaders.

People forget it is a European Super League and as a sport we need to expand. A strong France would be great for Northern Hemisphere RL. We need to concentrate on our own bids and from a Widnes point of view we are far enough ahead of other existing teams without having to worry about Toulouse.

Yeah it is a European Super League, and having clubs from different countries is much more fun IMO, it is also a fantastic argument to get more TV money from SkY and from other TV from other countries.

I would like to add that France has enough licensed players to get the raw talents for TWO teams in SL (but not more for the moment). There are 9,000 licensed players in France versus 64,000 in England. The ratio is roughly 6 to 1 which means that for 6 English teams you can form 1 team. It is a very rough calculation, however the law of large numbers is a strong indication that there are enough raw talents in 9,000 licensed players to create two competitive teams. After France may be a bit short on the structure to select them and train them to the required level, but with 2 years to go before a possible inclusion in SL for Toulouse, I am pretty sure they will have the time to find and train enough players to make a reasonable start in SL (for comparison purposes, better than Celtic).