Will NL1 help French RL...??

[Coastbloke]

I am very surprised at Frances' poor showing at the WC, and was wondering if the elevation of Toulouse to NL1 be some sort of help...

France obviously can't rely on Catalans for their players and I am - just quietly - very pleased that their 'Australian' players didn't do what they thought they would do and I hope this is a lesson to the French selectors in the future...

I think Toulouse in NL1 will be similar to the Warriors in the NYC and Vulcans in the NSW Cup..

Some great players have emerged for NZ in those comps and hopefully this will be the same for France...

 

[bowes]

If I'm honest a big NO

If Toulouse get into SL then yes it will definitely help but NL1 isn't enough higher a standard than French Elite to be worth the excess travelling. I'd far rather they'd created a Euro Cup between the top few teams each of NL1 and French Elite, as that way they'd get that few games of the higher standard without having to travel to play teams like Doncaster who are no better than the top French Elite sides.

Also I have to point out that the Lions/Vulcans entering the NSW Cup contributed to the death of the Bartercard Cup so I don't think risking the future of the French Elite just for a NL1 side is worth it (the Elite won't fold, but it could be set back massively and has only just taken a big hit in standards for Catalans entering SL, which of course was worth it).

Also it changes the French Elite from a feeder league to SL to a feeder league to NL1 which I don't like as Catalans entered SL from the French Elite and did fine, but Toulouse will need to reach a NL1 final in two years to be eligible to apply for SL in 2012 which will prove beyond them, partly due to needing those 2 years to acclimatise before a 3rd season push, and partly due to more travelling than the other sides (they'll have a good home record but poor away one IMO, like Port Moresby Vipers had in the Queensland Cup), but if they'd stayed in the French Elite then they could have applied for SL off the back of a much more realistic final there

In short I'd have built up the French Elite as equal to NL1 with a competition between the best sides of both and then tried to get Toulouse up to SL ready there like Catalans did, rather than tag 1 token French side in NL1, which smacks of short term thinking