Guest Blog: West Wales Raiders vs the Toronto Wolfpack

This week, London-based SLP listener David Cantrell sent in an email that neatly covers where we are and where we want to get to with Rugby League expansion. In the wake of West Wales suffering a record loss and ahead of the Wolfpack's first game on Canadian soil this year, it was as pertinent a time as any to take a look at expansion, so we're sharing his email for you all in this post:

Now we've got a really good view of the whole spectrum of models for growing rugby league in non-traditional markets! Most of the expansion clubs are working with a combination of local and imported players. Toronto are working entirely with imported players, and can spend enough money on imports to do well. The West Wales Raiders are working entirely with local players and getting twatted every week.

There's been some criticism online for the Wolfpack for doing it like they are, which I think is misguided. In Canada, rugby league is basically starting from zero, and there isn't all that much of an existing rugby union market either. They need to convince people who already have plenty of other sports available to them that rugby league - indeed, rugby in general - is worth paying attention to. And to do that they need a marketable product that is fun to watch. Only once they've got that can they hope to convince enough people to actually take the game up in the local amateur clubs (there are a few), so that they can then in a few years start bringing through local talent in to the professional team.

West Wales Raiders have a much easier job of drawing on local talent as there are so many thousands of union players in their area who are at least aware that League exists, who will have heard of some of the great Welsh players, that can code-switch, and who already know that playing rugby is a good fun way to spend your Saturday afternoon. In fact, they've said that they're looking to recruit lads who have found that they can't make the grade with the Scarlets and Ospreys. I expect that provided the club owners don't give up earlier than this happens, West Wales will start to produce good local players, and get good results using them, at about the same time that the Wolfpack start to bring through Canadian players in significant numbers. Different local market conditions just mean that they have to get there by different routes.

It's also worth taking a look at the Wolfpack's marketing, I'm going to be looking out for it when I'm over there for the Broncos away fixture. Much of it is of course invisible to us over here, but one thing did catch my eye on their website. Rugby Ontario - the provincial rugby union organisation - are running a big promotional event in Toronto on the 8th of June. The Wolfpack are the headline sponsor: http://www.rugbyontario.com/news-detail/10038569/

So the Wolfpack are eyeing up local union talent and fans as well, something that I've always said they should do - the Canadian national union side is really quite good, and they have no local professional competition so players all have to emigrate if they want to make their living from the game they love. They're ripe for the picking, and it appears that the local union authorities are ok with that. Both league and union are very minor sports in Canada, and they'd both be happy with more rugby balls in kids' hands, no matter which code they play. They'd both prefer you to play rugby than CFL or ice hockey.