Once again, site contributor Ian has struck on this site with a post that divided opinion, and once again, I feel compelled to respond to his arguments with some of my own. For those that missed his article yesterday on why he thinks the experiment that is Catalans Dragons has failed, it can be read here.

As is usually the case when it comes to matters of rugby league, I disagree with Ian’s take on Catalans and the impact, positive or negative, that they have on rugby league. I do think he made some cogent points on the matter, and argued his case well, but I just think that Catalans have more to offer the Super League than some English clubs do.

Looking at this statistically, Catalans had the sixth highest attendances in the league last season. Higher than even my own club Hull KR (although I suspect that may have changed this season) averaging more than twice as much as bottom side Wakefield, and almost twice as much as Huddersfield, two sides in the sports traditional heartlands who are left in the dust by the French outfit.

This number is highly likely to be inflated by the number of away fans that Catalans attracts, and while Ian pointed to the affordability of such a trip being a factor against the team’s inclusion in the league, the sheer number of away fans who routinely flock to Catalonia show that this is a moot point. It has obviously become a highlight of the season for many, with many choosing to make a weekend, or even a week of it. Indeed, Ian’s own beloved Hull team took between 800-1,000 fans to Catalans just a few weeks ago. If people are going in such numbers, then the club must have an appeal that few others do.

In the research for this article, I did try and find the TV viewing figures for rugby league, to see how Catalans stacked up against their fellow SL teams, but such figures were difficult to source, I therefore can’t make any definitive statements on the TV drawing power of the Dragons, but their prominent position given to them by Sky must surely speak to their popularity with the viewing public.

One of the key areas of the argument set out against the club is the weakness of the French national side when put against England. I must concede that this is a good point, and given recent evidence (the past two season’s test games, for example) it is obvious that the French national side is playing catch-up. Looking at it another way though, this is only to be expected, realistically, England/Great Britain have had almost a century head-start on the French when it comes to developing international players. When you factor in the difference in infrastructure between France’s two (Catalans and Toulouse) professional clubs and academies with England’s ten or more fully professional sides, plus the myriad of part-time clubs with reputable academies, the size difference of the talent pool becomes rather stark. When you start to look at it like that, the 40-odd points England put past France starts to look rather favourable.

When it comes to developing a national side, change happens slowly and is aided by equal competition. Should we be surprised that France aren’t a competitive force when they’ve had one Super League team for almost twenty years? I’d say no. If in 10-15 years there has been little change, then I would start to worry about their development, especially with Toulouse likely to be joining the Super League next season. You could also make the argument that the small talent pool is diluted further when you consider how much more prevalent rugby union is in France, suddenly that talent pool of two professional teams has to compete with the comparatively bigger stage of RU, with more eyeballs, and more importantly, more money to play for.

For me though, the main reason why I like the idea of Catalans in Super League is it makes our game seem like a bigger entity than it would be without them. It gives us a grander scale than simply being the Northern heartlands game many people seem to be myopically chained to. They offer a sense of glamour to the league which makes the game as a whole more palatable for broadcasters. There’s a reason why Sky want expansion, and we have to lean into that and find ways to make it work to survive, and Catalans are the greatest success story in rugby league expansion in my opinion. You can measure that in the trophy they won, the finals they’ve made, the crowds they attract, or the revenue they create for Super League, but I think the league, and the sport as a whole, is better for having Catalans in it, and given a chance and a few years, the same could well be true of Toulouse.

To conclude, the subject of expansion is always a divisive one. Many, like Ian, will disagree with what I have to say, and some will agree with me, and probably have better points to make, but the fact of the matter is we have to adapt or perish. Paris Saint-Germain failed right back at the start of the Super League era, showing that the time wasn’t right, and the right people weren’t in charge, so lessons were learned and Catalans were given a chance to succeed, so they eventually did, and are now consistently competing at the top end of Super League. Truthfully, I don’t have the strongest opinions either way on Catalans as a team, but I do on expansion, and they are the prime example of expansion going right. The game simply cannot continue to exist if we just focus on the clubs from the M62 corridor. The Dragons make Super League a more commercially viable product to Sky and other partners, and therefore their continued success is crucial to the sport we all love.

Written by Nathan Major-Kershaw (Site editor & Hull KR fan)

Sources: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1457867/super-league-team-average-attendance/ (Attendance figures), https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/hull-fc-expecting-strong-catalans-9429017 (Hull FC Catalans trip)