Take Melbourne as an example of an expansion side - in 20 years how many genuine Victorians have come through & played for them?



I'm sure TWP would love to see genuine Canadians playing for them, in fact they did this year in Quinn Ngawati (plus a handful of other North Americans are in the squad). But it does take time for those grassroots structures to develop & yougsters to come through. You only have to look around at some heartland SL/Championship clubs who've been around for 100+ years and note the lack of talent they bring through.



I believe Perez said he wanted an academy within 3 years, so that's something. They also had "The Last Tackle" this year, which enabled them to trial a number of North Americans.

I admire your optimism!

In relation to the salary cap and overseas players, as I've seen this brought up a lot now, particularly amongst Leigh fans:



They adhere by the same Salary Cap as the other sides in the structure (as requested by Derek Beaumont a couple of years ago), and have the same Non-Fed player restrictions as the other clubs. Canada, France & England are all part of the same Federation, the RLEF.

They need to throw some money at Canadian Rugby Union players.

Canada have a very strong rugby union side - in 2011 they were ranked 12th in the world.

I doubt many of them would be on huge bucks, and from memory they had some very fast backs when they were doing well.

You honestly believe that? If it takes off in NA they won't need any UK clubs, although I suppose they may have token sides from the UK ie 'London' and Australia, ie 'Sydney').

Forgot about him.



Seems strange that Westerman has now managed to attract three 6 figure transfer fees, clubs must see something that I don't.

As we know it's been done once so it could be done again. The Cas fans are probably still fuming about it.

Would be great to see some Canadians come through but for me its not the most important thing. Like you said it isn't easy. I have no doubt the Storm and the NRL run all the coaching programmes and do their best to get kids playing the game in Victoria but Rugby League is so much smaller than the AFL in Victoria so the best athletes will tend to gravitate towards that sport.

Fascinating isn't it.



Joe Westerman is a gifted player and Athlete. He's also lacking a bit of ambition IMHO and has a poor attitude I'm told. Very typical of far to many British players. That said 250 SL games shows he is as you say a decent solid player.



What has made Westerman so apparently valuable especially to the gullible was his time at Cas, combined with one of Eddie and Stevo's ridiculous love ins.



Can fans made him out to be the best British player of his era whilst they were still kicking around in the Championship!. Very Cas typical but in this case it went into overdrive.



Then Eddie Hemmings (especially) did his kings new cloth act and if I recall in his first season in SL (literally only weeks into) was touting him as the future GB captain and our very own SBW!! The former was never likely with his attitude, the latter wasn't even remotely true.



Most SL teams would still take Western warts and all, can't however think of any who are still daft enough to pay for the dubious privilege.



Your' right he had two great agents, Cas fans and Sky.



You can understand the Cas fans - almost admire it but the SKY team and assorted media, shows where much of the trouble in SL lays.

Iestyn harris, 350k to lleds, 400k to union. 1 m illiion to bradford, via courts.

lol brilliant



The funny thing is it's true, Eddie and steve must have being having a relationship with Westerman



I'll add more



They also touted him as "the next Paul Shorpe "

Perfectly agree on the potential perspective front, if it takes off big style they will have there own Superleague with a salary cap far more greater that it will make ours like selling socks in Barrow. Once established they will no longer look back across the atlantic as Superleague in the UK will be insignificant.

If people think we will get enormous benefits of exposure, marketing, sponsors in the UK on the growth of the game in Canada/America thats fine..........for me its a bit La La Land with the vision of our top clubs playing in a different league in a different continent.