Yeh i think 1 of CC and toulouse will get in, CC i think will have to move to cardiff and advertise the hell out of themselfs to get any decent crowds, i think it may be best to wait for next time to put them in. Tououse im not suure of either, catalns only get 8,000 to their games and alot of those would travel from around france, so putting in toulouse might diminish catalans corwds. Like you said druzik i think widnes, salford or leigh do need to go in.

Now this is probably rubbish but i was reading something last night that said wellington are rumoured to be putting in a bid for SL, even though they are half way around the world.

Wellington have no chance of getting into super league, they would not be able to support the travelling costs. And the rest will take care of themselves, the only way C.C can make it would be if they meet the criterior. And then they could do a melbourne and slowly grow support, this would take time, but be quicker because of the influience of millium magic .

 Any how we have our own concerns here jim, how many teams we want to let in, england will take care of itself, they are growing nicely. Wellington are at grass level now jim, they have to take it easy or they will go bang. These days even if you buy all the big names does not mean success, remember how long it took brisbane, and its harder now to make the top eight, not to mention the top 4, at least our top eight gives the titans a nice goal to acheive, could you imagine if we only had a final 4, they might take 20 years to get there.

Yeh like i said, probably rubbish, i for one wouldn't recomend it simply because it would cost way too much in travel. Keep the SL in Europe and the NRL in australia and NZ. I think wellignton will get into the NRL before too long, this school RL in wellington will help.

Titans have a good side this year and i expect them to push the 8, the NRL is in a great position where any team could make the top 8 and atleast 12 could realisticly have a shot at top 4.

oikee:

Wellington have no chance of getting into super league, they would not be able to support the travelling costs. And the rest will take care of themselves, the only way C.C can make it would be if they meet the criterior. And then they could do a melbourne and slowly grow support, this would take time, but be quicker because of the influience of millium magic .

 Any how we have our own concerns here jim, how many teams we want to let in, england will take care of itself, they are growing nicely. Wellington are at grass level now jim, they have to take it easy or they will go bang. These days even if you buy all the big names does not mean success, remember how long it took brisbane, and its harder now to make the top eight, not to mention the top 4, at least our top eight gives the titans a nice goal to acheive, could you imagine if we only had a final 4, they might take 20 years to get there.

I think one advantage that SL will have over the NRL with its franchise set up is that there still will be a promotion relegation every three years. This is similar to how the Mexiacn domestic soccer comp is done. The teams that go up and down, are chossen on results of the three yeras, their crowds, liquidity and other factors. So lets say CC or tolouse make it this round, in three years time there still is no guarantee they will eb renewed if there are better teams out there. SL will eventually expand to 16 teams and stay there... which si pretty sweet in my opinion nice number. This will also allow  say the "bottom three" teams and the "top three" in NL1 so compete very nicely and play out for franchises... but having said that even the top teams are not completely "assured of a spot". Even a successful team on the field that is in debt and has pi$$ poor crowds may not get a franchise.

NRL is stuck with what it has and has no flexibility, one way I think it could hinder it. Imagine if teams like Newtown, Norths, Central coast ASdelaide did have the chance to get in the top with strong perforamnces in their comps... if they could bring in big crowds and money. At the moment the NSW cup and QLD cup crowds are small because there is no possibility there for this, people do not care as before... but have that carrot dangled in front and watch the people come in.

The Souths thing years ago could have been avoided if there was this kind of set up, even the SL war teams could have been salvaged. But that is all in the past. I know that people here like the idea of a 20 team comp... but I really do fear such a beast. It could potentially do to RL what the s14 expansion has done to RU in Oz. The way to make sure this does not ahppen is to invest heavily into the junior ranks in ALL states, we really do need to start bringing in more WA, SA, NT, TAS and VIC juniors into the NRL ranks.

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True druzik, we have never had the relagation stucture so we dont know anything about it, but with the territory we do have a local league up there, thing about up north is the heat, hard to have teams up there, even a.f.l  are frightened of having a team there, if they did they would have to play the games maybe in alice springs, just too hot. But the talent is there and lots of players move to the a.f.l and n.r.l.

As for perth i have mentioned, league does exist and melbourne has now got pathways through the school system, so it is growing, even though nobody hears about much. Franchises are ok in a small area like england but i think you would have to much competition from other codes if you tryed that here.

Gallop has heard the calls to have teams in certain areas, but no good unless you have the sponsers. People are not the problem, they all want league, but what happens if there team is not winning and the crowds dwindle, this is what we cant afford or the other codes will pounce. Its dog eat dog at the moment druzik, the knives are out for any weakness,

 One wound could spell the downfall of any code.A.F.L are taking a major risk by expanding, it sounds great, but in league areas it will be like a sharks nest for even a toe in the water. This is why i think they are going to come undone. Even if they splash millions does not mean success.

mmm... interesting points. I see that even soccer has pulled back its expansion plans back a year to 2009/10. They were going to bring in two more QLD teams.

Is it just me or do sports not realise that QLD sports market will be saturated very very soon... there is only 4 million people there, 1/2 of which sits in the SunchineCoast/Brisie/GoldCoast strip.
 

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You have not been here for awhile druzik? Theres nearly two million in the brisbane and outskirts, which is ipswich and towards gold coast, there is motor ways across the coast road all the way to the coast and the coast now spreads to kingscliff. n.s.wales.

Now if you travell north, oh by the way the coast area is hitting a million people as we speak, now the sunshine coast, do you remember gold coast, yes, well then its bigger than gold coast on every beach city, so think gold coast then plant that about every 30 miles, we are talking nearly one million there, not to mention all the other towns and cities along the coast that are all million dollar mega areas.A house in mackay now costs you over one million, and 5 year ago was making 200, 000 with this you have the boom mining towns inland which has got every kiwi and pacific islander left in there country here.

You starting to get the picture now? This is why billy moore went to gallop about the sunshine coast and gallops ears pricked, we need a team or maybe 2 up that way, because league is very alive, they get crowds of over 10 thousand every week to the local comp.

And just to make it even more interesting, the mining boom has only begun. This is the problem with water, we have doubled our population but have not got any dams. The guy who created this mess now lives in america and works over there, he called us the smart state because he made a fortune outta the boom. But left us high and dry. haha

mmmmmmm

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oikee:

You have not been here for awhile druzik? Theres nearly two million in the brisbane and outskirts, which is ipswich and towards gold coast, there is motor ways across the coast road all the way to the coast and the coast now spreads to kingscliff. n.s.wales.

Now if you travell north, oh by the way the coast area is hitting a million people as we speak, now the sunshine coast, do you remember gold coast, yes, well then its bigger than gold coast on every beach city, so think gold coast then plant that about every 30 miles, we are talking nearly one million there, not to mention all the other towns and cities along the coast that are all million dollar mega areas.A house in mackay now costs you over one million, and 5 year ago was making 200, 000 with this you have the boom mining towns inland which has got every kiwi and pacific islander left in there country here.

You starting to get the picture now? This is why billy moore went to gallop about the sunshine coast and gallops ears pricked, we need a team or maybe 2 up that way, because league is very alive, they get crowds of over 10 thousand every week to the local comp.

And just to make it even more interesting, the mining boom has only begun. This is the problem with water, we have doubled our population but have not got any dams. The guy who created this mess now lives in america and works over there, he called us the smart state because he made a fortune outta the boom. But left us high and dry. haha

Yeh QLD is booming druzik, wherever you look there are housing developments and new businesses going up like wildfire. Take a small town outside rockhampton called gracemere, no more than 5/6 years ago it was a small little village with 3,000 or so and a servo, shop, butcher, hardware, postoffice, newsagent and takeway. Now it sits at about 8,000 with sh*t loads of housing developments still to be done, also they have started contrstuction on a shopping centre. It is like this all over the place, sunshine coast is booming aswell and i think the sooner we have 2 or 3 more NRL teams in QLD the better. I would say CQ, Sunny Coast and Ipswitch could all support an NRL team, 6 QLD teams, sounds good to me :)

I was going to ask you that jim?  With all the boom boom going on , is rockky getting bigger because of this. I travelled that way many years ago and know its grown , to me at the time it was bigger than toowoomba, if you include the coast, And everyone needing more beef would help rockky in this department? What i reakon they should or will do is just devolop right through to the coast and use rockky as a city like brisbane? Gee i better get up there and buy some land, hehee

Yeh contsruction is slowly but surely heading towards yepoon now oikee, not far in though, there is still about 35k of a drive between the centres without anything but road side houses. The problem is there is about 15k of up and down land on the way so it would be hard to develop all the way, still though could be done and if rockhampton and yepoon ever combine the population would easily be 1,000,000. The way it satnds now rocky is about 80/90k, Gracemere is about 8k with heaps of growth to come in the near future and yepoon is about 20k with alot of real-esate being developed. So in 5 years i would say the area would be 150k between the 3 areas plus all the surrounding country towns.

Guys I was in Brisie over Xmas... I know whats going on over there. I Lived in Brisie for 7 years and Sydney the rest and now Germany so I have a fair idea of the state of play.

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Unfortunatly Matty Peterson got a injury 2 weeks ago and could not play in the opening game at the New Stadium Robina, and this made way for the new star winger Jordon Atkins who at the age of 22 made his debut and scored a record equalling 4 try's . Jordon hails from toowoomba and was playing for the Burleigh Bears for 2 years before getting his start last night.I would not want to be the coach at the moment having to chose between these 2. Good work .

Well Petersen can come back on the other wing, poor old ben jeffery didn't got overshadowed last week and i can't see him getting picked in front of USA captain petersen. Titans looked great, a dark horse for the comp. Also what a great stadium, its like suncorp stadium jr. Glad i got tickets to the SFQ this year.