The time has come

[East Coast Tiger]

for Catalans to have their import quota cut back. I thought that with Menzies probably retiring and maybe one or two others moving on the number of overseas players might start to finally fall away and the Frenchmen might get a chance. But instead they've brought in Fisher and kept Manzies for another year and now they've signed Zeb Taia. When are the locals going to start making the first team and therefore gaining the experience that will make the French team stronger, as per the original point of them playing SL? When are the good French juniors who have been competitive at under 16, 17 and 19 levels over the past five or mroe years going to start filtering into first grade? At the moment we're lucky if one or two Frenchmen are debuting in SL per year. It's not enough to make a difference to the Test team. By the World Cup next year we still won't have a squad of fulltime French players, especially not born and bred French players. If another French SL club is not going to happen Catalans needs to be producing more elite French players and it is clear that the only way to do it is to force them to play more French players. They should play by the same rules as the northern clubs.

 

[ParraEelsNRL]

Quite frustrating actually because as you said, where are these youngsters that have played and beaten the best (internationals) of their age groups over the last couple of years?

Also, the other SL clubs should be looking harder at the French juniors, there's bound to be a few over there waiting to have a crack.

It's not as if any team has to worry about being relegated for a few seasons as well, the new license for clubs started this season.

 

[adamkungl]

Surely they're successful enough to be playing by the same rules as everyone else. They're sitting top 4 again last I checked and are consistently above the cellar dwellars