Born Toulouse
The new RL season started yesterday (did anybody notice the publicity?) and one of the first matches will see Toulouse entertain Dewsbury in the Northern Rail Cup. The Toulouse RL team represent a large, vibrant city in southern France while Dewsbury come from a small Yorkshire town in the traditional English RL heartlands. Throughout the season Toulouse will travel to and from similar small towns in the north of England and most of their away matches will take place in front of pitifully small crowds. The English RFL are paying the travel expenses but is this money well spent? Surely it would be much better to use this money spent subsidising travel arrangements to relaunch the French Championship. It certainly needs it because the removal of two of the strongest teams in UTC (renamed Les Catalans) and Toulouse has decimated a once strong competition. There aren't many clubs left, most are struggling...