Train cancelled, hotel cancelled, what a total cock up, not a chance of me going to the game now. The RFL must living in cuckoo land if this promotes the sport in a good light.
Usually we start these sentences with 'originally I supported the Toronto idea, however now...' but I will honestly say I've never supported the idea, because they've done it the wrong way around. You build up a structure and a local competition first, getting enough decent local players and enough local fans in different towns and cities to sustain a competition, and then as the last step you branch out internationally if the local model has been a success. It has all been done the wrong way around, with a standalone club playing in a foreign league with no support network or infrastructure around them in the rest of Ontaria, let alone Canada or N America. You cannot base an idea around the success of one club.
I'm all for RL having national leagues all over the place, and Canada is as good a place as any other. RL is a sport that could work there, but it will take years and years for it to gain any real foothold. People never learn in this sport, and continually we think that expansion means fast tracking a new big time club in an area and working from there, with no real thought as to what happens if that club doesn't succeed. It's a shame because the ideal aim for RL is for there to be big time league competitions not just in England and Australia but in Canada, USA, France, etc. But nobody wants to wait 10-20 years to slowly get there, they just want it straight away. Expansion is about getting a foothold in an area and building support from the bottom up. It isn't about taking a load of English and Australian players and coaches, plonking them somewhere in Canada and then saying we have a Canadian team, because that isn't really expansion.
People will argue with me that the best way of getting a foothold in an area is by having a club like the Wolfpack, sticking them in Super League and hoping stuff grows from that. Fair enough, but beyond the honeymoon period of interest and curiosity how viable is it to expect Canadians to want to watch a bunch of English and Antipodean players playing against clubs from places they've never heard of and have no cultural attachment to? Even in a RL area like Perpignan there is a cultural gap between the people who follow Catalans and fans in England. Even after all these years Catalans haven't got a bunch of hardcore fans who travel to big away games, because they have no real attachment to the English game beyond watching their team on a Saturday evening in Super League. They love RL, and watching Catalans gives them a chance to follow it to a high level with their area represented by top players, but playing against Saints, Wigan, Leeds etc means very little to them culturally. So, what is it going to mean to people in Toronto? The people who go to the games this season will think it's great that 1500 people from England turn up every few weeks and make 'game day' exciting, but how many will make the opposite journey? And in 5-10 years time how many will be making the journey?
I think we're blowing an opportunity because I do think that that part of the world is an area that could take to RL, but it has to happen more organically and it needs several clubs springing up at a lower level together, building up local rivalries and a local comp that people feel culturally attached to. This isn't what we are doing.
As Dave says above, on the field things will change this season as well. By the time they play their first home game they may well be in the bottom 3-4 and may well have had a few canings here and there. Maybe that won't matter as the first few home games will be events and the tickets will have been bought already. But if they're losing more than they're winning, and losing them to clubs representing (in their fans eyes) 'small towns in England we've never heard of' what happens then? I had a look at their squad this morning and it's pretty average. I can't see them getting close to the Top 5, and if they're playing catch-up from playing the first two months on the road they may have a fight on their hands to stay up. And if that happens what happens to McDermott and co? They're all talking like this is a transition year and like results don't really matter, but they can't afford to be losing games regularly this season if they want to keep peoples interest, and they certainly can't afford to finish bottom.
It all feels rushed and fast-tracked.
Haven’t Wigan had to change venues a couple of times in short notice because of a wedding and a craft fair ?.
I think you make some excellent points. To counter a few is that they haven't been fast tracked as they have gone through the leagues. Rugby League is one of the few sports that rely on away fans for income. Take most other sports Union included the home fans make up over 98% of people attending.
As for Toronto fans there will be over a hundred in attendance at Headingley on Sunday not a lot but still it's a presence. The home fans as you said have been used to winning games but Toronto people are used to watching their teams lose. Heck their most popular sport Ice Hockey has not seen them win the Stanley Cup since 1967. The event is what most fans come for not just the 80 minutes. Crowds have increased year on year and even without the 1500 visiting fans this year crowds were already at a healthy 8500.
They are making mistakes along the way and that's only natural for a club going into their 4th year.
Lets have this conversation in September and see what people think then. There maybe even some people who change their mind and think that it might actually work!
Toronto are offering “VIP hospitality”, often to a lesser value than a hotel in London, rather than refunding people. That’s not on, they should be offering that and a full refund.
St Helens Rugby League Football Club
It's Saracens who are at fault. Toronto have tried hard to get this on, but since when did the likes of Nigel Wray care a jot for us oop north and our renegade game?
Reading through the meltdown on the RFLfans Wolfs forum and came across a thread about this fixture. Someone suggested that a hologram of the challenge cup be displayed accompanied by Jim Bowens catchphrase 'look what you could have won". I think they've forgot that our season didn't finish after that game like theirs did. I got over the CC final when lifted the BIG one. The one that matters
RFL Championship / Super League (17) - 193132, 195253, 195859, 196566, 196970, 197071, 197475, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2014, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022
Challenge Cup (13) - 195556, 196061, 196566, 197172, 197576, 1996, 1997, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2021
World Club Challenge (3) - 2001, 2007, 2023
League Leader's Shield (9) - 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2022