Re: Who will replace Widnes: Toronto, Toulouse or London? : Tue Sep 11, 2018 9:11 pm  

herald 2 wrote:

I personally think if Toronto , Toulouse or London finish in a position to get into Superleague then it will be on merit and they deserve their place...if i am being selfish i would like Toulouse to stay down for one more season then my daughter and myself can visit them in 2019 .

It looks like one will replace Widnes ..Good luck to them all in the remaining games

Toulouse are the team I’d like to see promoted. I think it would be a really good thing for a country with a player pool already there, that isn’t that far away, that would bring a French derby to SL, to get promotion.

Re: Who will replace Widnes: Toronto, Toulouse or London? : Tue Sep 11, 2018 9:21 pm  

I agree and having teams in France is bringing good French players to Superleague and more so the Championship , as said i am being selfish because i was on holiday this year when we played Toulouse.

We dont know the league structure yet so more than one could go up anyway ...

Re: Who will replace Widnes: Toronto, Toulouse or London? : Tue Sep 11, 2018 9:44 pm  

I'd like to think that Fax could beat Widnes, Leeds and London, but it's not going to happen.

I'd vastly prefer that TO or London were promoted rather than TWP. My reason being that London built and have then had to rebuild a team, and TO have made steady but positive steps forward. TWP have just tried to buy a team to gain success, which doesn't feel like a solid and sustainable model for the future.

Re: Who will replace Widnes: Toronto, Toulouse or London? : Tue Sep 11, 2018 10:52 pm  

HXSparky wrote:

TWP have just tried to buy a team to gain success, which doesn't feel like a solid and sustainable model for the future.

And therein lies the problem.

Toronto, IIRC are owned by a group of 10 or so investors, some Australian and some Canadian. Argyle is the figurehead, but there are other people writing cheques and I suspect that a few of them are expecting not to have to bankroll the side should they make SL..........there's no sign of a TV deal that will create income, no income from their shirt sponsor and very little gate revenue (my mate who runs PJ's was given 50 tickets to hand out to his customers for this weeks coming game....he was given them by a local brewer.)....

I fear for them once the owners discover that £1.8 million in sky cash won't even cover their players wages next year, that paying punters aren't as keen as ones with free tickets and that the'll need to bankroll them to the tune of £1,000,000 a year EVEN if they have 9,600 sell outs 11 times at £15 a ticket.......that is if they want to remain in SL.

Also, after all the bluster about finding converts from college football, they've gone very quiet on player development.....so will they be raiding the player pool and signing widnes players or looking to NSW/QLND cup sides for talent......?

Re: Who will replace Widnes: Toronto, Toulouse or London? : Wed Sep 12, 2018 9:43 am  

Joff wrote:

. They are going nowhere!

There's more than one way of interpreting that sentence!

Re: Who will replace Widnes: Toronto, Toulouse or London? : Wed Sep 12, 2018 10:07 am  

I’ll believe it when they’ve been around for a decade or so I’m not so sure they’ll go up this year they blew a great chance on Saturday 20-16 down 20 mins to go Salford down to 12 men and they couldn’t see the game out it may come back to haunt them

Re: Who will replace Widnes: Toronto, Toulouse or London? : Wed Sep 12, 2018 12:23 pm  

fun time frankie wrote:

I’ll believe it when they’ve been around for a decade or so I’m not so sure they’ll go up this year they blew a great chance on Saturday 20-16 down 20 mins to go Salford down to 12 men and they couldn’t see the game out it may come back to haunt them

They'll still go up but only by default because Widnes are so bad.
A complete collapse by a SL side like this means that it's basically a shootout between two champ clubs for the fourth SL spot.
Toronto can effectively fail to beat any SL side and still get promoted.

Re: Who will replace Widnes: Toronto, Toulouse or London? : Wed Sep 12, 2018 3:56 pm  

Sir Kevin Sinfield wrote:

Challenge Cup winners Catalan are a top Super League side. They had no half backs and had a dreadful start to the year, hence the skewed percentage figure you keep referring to.

No they are not, they usually languish in the bottom half of the league. That says they are not a top side.

Fair play to them with the Challenge cup, this alone does not make them a top SL side.

Re: Who will replace Widnes: Toronto, Toulouse or London? : Wed Sep 12, 2018 5:23 pm  

Were Wigan a top premiership club when they beat Man City in the FA cup final.

Re: Who will replace Widnes: Toronto, Toulouse or London? : Wed Sep 12, 2018 6:34 pm  

RoyBoy29 wrote:

No they are not, they usually languish in the bottom half of the league. That says they are not a top side.

Fair play to them with the Challenge cup, this alone does not make them a top SL side.

Only 4 clubs have won the cup in the last 10 years, and only 6 clubs in the last 20 years.