Thing is that it's very well going for the ex pat route ie British Asians following the cricket and the Polish following the football is they are brought up on it and will follow it as it's their national sports. They will not start watching League. You can try but it will be slow progress.



For me the key aspect is to get all those Fijians at Rochdale on Monday to go and watch Rochdale on a regular basis. And build on places where the world cup has been played ie Cumbria, Wrexham, Neath even London to build on club attendances. Along with building a international platform of international fixtures across the smaller countries getting them playing more often so that players don't now switch back to Aus, NZ & England for the next few years then back to the world cup playing countries when the time comes around again

I suppose you could build a Cumbria team like Catalan do. Have a join team playing in Super league while the other 3 teams are playing in the lower league.



The only issues are what happens if one of the 3 make it to super league and at present I dont think any of the grounds are super league standard?

What i was thinking was at a local community level there maybe interest in forming & promoting ethnic teams which progress or fail at there own speed ....even to the point where, for instance, an Asian Mosque might have a dozen or so lads who could be encouraged at even just seven a side level to get started. In that way the teams would have their own identities & may even influence other Asian communities to get involved.

One barrier that foreigners have to overcome is nothing more than the same aspect of human nature that influences everyone no matter what their colour,race or creed ,and that is the fear standing out in a crowd ,the fear of being different. So ,if teams can be formed within these groups it may ,in time ,bring them them to the game in general.



This could apply to an minority community who could ,if you like, fly the flag for their motherland within the RL community.

Aren't some of these Island Nations made up of players who used to play for Oz & New Zealand at times ,but because they may not be as good these days the individuals have reverted to their countries of origin & these countries have then been strong enough to field their own teams ?



May be if these teams had not been formed into their own identities ,there might not have been the same minority interest in this World Cup. The ideal would,as you say ,be to get the Fijians to watch Rochdale on a regular ,but i am sure a lot of those spectators have come from other parts of the country to watch Fiji under the

flag of their mother country.

I think this whole conversation is going the opposite way to what NineArches had intended with his thread, but I will throw in my twopenneth.



You never hear mergers proposed in this part of the world these days, but dim and distant Cumbria seems to crop up every so often. We dismiss merging Warrington and Widnes out of hand, two clubs a few minutes drive from each other yet seem to think that merging three clubs miles apart would work.



If you move the three clubs to a new home, it will fail completely. If you try to do a roundrobin those who haven't given up all together will simply just attend the games at their respective grounds, meaning there is no real improvement.



Barrow, Whitehaven and Workington are proud clubs with their own history and rivalry, leave them be.

They don't have to be disbanded, just create a team called Cumbria and set them up.

I think the RFL has missed out big time with this world cup. If every game was being shown live on BBC it would have had a huge affected on non RL watchers. I have LOVED watching the WC on Premier sports and every game has been no less than a success. Bit how many non RL fans watch Premier sports? I wouldn't say many. The commentary has been a breath of fresh air and has actually game the game seem more exciting. Cos and Noble loving the big hits and Hoff. Instead of Eddie and stevo going on for an hour afterwards about how 'it isn't needed in our game'



If the RFL had maybe not every game bit certainly the majority, with the premier sports commentary I think a wider audience could have been reached and a wider interest sparked.

The RFL don't micro manage anything but they are supposed to make club's revenue streams from Tv and major league and cup sponsorship deals and then distribute it between clubs and grass roots Sky get it for peanuts imo we don't have any sponsorship deals we have failed and flawed attempts at expansion and more than a few clubs who are in financial meltdown in Cas Wakefield Bradford and Until Loadsakash turned up Salford who will be straight back there when he spits his dummy Hull Kr aren't far off it . It's probably easier to list the well run clubs but it boils down to miss management and missed opportunities by the RFL imo

A sport like Kabbadi could be missing a trick by not taking advantage of their large ex pat populations to have a World Cup in England.



The problem is the sport is not really taken seriously in England because people think its just Pakistan, India and Iran that dominate the international competitions but could you imagine the buzz if England got a World Cup and there were teams from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales made up of the local asian populations that play Kabaddi. It would be huge in some of the communities and it would be a great way to get non asians like the English whites to watch the game and also have their England team to get behind.



I reckon it would take off in Warrington and maybe could be an important step towards cultures living in harmony and ending racism in society.

But the bottom line Sally is that, in our multi cultural island with its large population , RL as well as many other sports is failing to tap into anything other white Anglo-Saxon stereotype spectators. It is naive to think that all these supporters have travelled from the south seas just to watch their teams in RLWC2013.....most of them live & work here just as do many other nationalities.

I'd be a bit concerned that the games would be on TV with near empty stadiums and this would not be good for the sport. I think someone has done a decent marketing job to fill the grounds. It's going well and perhaps we might have to give a bit of credit. The RFL are such an easy target.