7 reasons Catalans Dragons (and Toulouse) belong in Super League as future debate rages

Let’s cut straight to the chase: we are approaching a seminal moment for rugby league expansion.

That may sound hyperbolic, so to douse some of the immediate flames on a rapidly-spreading fire: there is no concrete suggestion as of yet clubs want to remove Catalans Dragons and Toulouse from the British game.

But it is categorically going to be part of the strategic review currently taking place across the sport.

Which means later this summer, when the findings are presented, rugby league – a sport which begs and pleads for expansion – could be about to throw away its two most successful expansion projects.

It should be made clear that not everyone is of the mindset to want the French clubs gone. We’ll get to that. Nor is this a moment to be beating individual club owners with a stick. This is a decision and a moment the sport as a collective will own.

How, in any sport, you get to a point where members can effectively vote out a club with more success in the last decade than over half of the competition is perhaps the perfect microcosm of where rugby league finds itself today.

A game with immense potential but with a vacuous gap where there should be autocratic, strong leadership from above.

But Catalans – and indeed Toulouse – have their place in this game. Here’s seven reasons why they emphatically belong in our eyes.

They’ve expanded a dwindling talent pool

One of British rugby league’s biggest problems for a good while has been that the number of players at grass roots sport is dwindling at a rate of knots.

In the last 20 years, Catalans have opened the door to a new talent pool which is not only useful and important in size, but in quality, too.

There are multiple French players who have signed for some of the biggest clubs in Super League. Many have won major trophies. Arguably the best club in the competition right now have just signed one in Arthur Mourgue to be their starting fullback.

Throw Catalans and Toulouse away, and you throw away a whole plethora of players that strengthen Super League.

They’ve strengthened the French national team

You may look at that and scorn, given what happened last summer. But let us be clear: without Catalans Dragons and the millions of pounds worth of investment into French rugby league, they would be in a far worse place without Les Dracs.

Anyone who felt that Catalans would arrive and France would become a force on the international scene may need to revisit their expectations. This is not an overnight thing, and there is no doubting France are stronger than they were at any point in the 40 or 50 years pre-Catalans.

There are many other nations who would crave for the option to be field a 17 full of players born in their own country. England needs France almost as much as France needs France.

Their crowds outstrip many English clubs

Pretty self-explanatory, this. If we’re looking at stone cold metrics as to success, then attendances must surely be one of them.

If Catalans aren’t deemed to be bringing anything to Super League when they’re averaging over 9,000 fans – more than half of the competition last year and within just a few hundred of the likes of Hull KR – what are the other clubs in question bringing?

They’ve built that supporter base over a number of years, defying the previous logic attached to failed expansion projects that the sport can’t lay down roots in new areas.

They’re coming at no cost

The landscape of arguments against Catalans Dragons has changed significantly this year, which we’ll get onto shortly. But one thing that has always been the case is that Les Dracs have consistently footed the bill for their own travel cost.

Granted, you could spin it the other way and suggest they’re taking a piece of the pie when there’s no French TV deal on the table. But if anyone is going to change that, it’s IMG.

Throwing them to the wolves because of that is not reason enough.

They’ve saved English clubs money this year

Here’s the other big thing. You’ll have read plenty of places that Catalans have made a significant contribution to travelling English clubs this year, paying their expenses to come out to Perpignan and stay in France.

That’s going to cost the Dragons a lot of money. But it also means their financial impact to Super League – or the cost of having them in the competition – has just reduced significantly too. It was a brush used to beat Catalans with before: we have to pay to travel there and nowhere else.

Well now, you don’t have to pay, and you get a brilliant trip for you and your supporters (whose opinions matter too, by the way).

Catalans are doing that at great expense to themselves – and this is the reaction they get. Without them doing that, there is no Challenge Cup quarter-final against Salford last weekend.

Look at who wants to keep them

IMG, for one. A global media company who have made no secret of the potential and promise they see in the French game for rugby league.

If we are not taking IMG’s opinion seriously, what is the point? Although worryingly, IMG appear to be under just as much threat as the French clubs do.

But it’s not just IMG. Clubs like Wigan and Warrington, responsible for pushing Super League’s boundaries like never before earlier this year, are emphatic Catalans Dragons supporters. Hull KR are another in that bracket.

These are clubs who have a clear long-term vision for where rugby league wants to go, and whom Sky Sports will shape their own plans around. Sky themselves are keen admirers.

But the final group of people who want Catalans are the most important stakeholders of all: the supporters. Thousands make the trip to France every single year – either to watch the Dragons or Toulouse.

If numbers were dwindling, you’d have an argument for their removal. But they’re actually going up. Nobody is bored of trips to Perpignan or Toulouse: in fact, they’re more interested than ever.

They are successful: on and off the pitch

Catalans Dragons are not some sort of bottom-feeding expansion project who have been given lifelong exemptions from relegation. It was right to do that at the beginning of their existence.

Because look at what we’ve got since then. They’ve finished top of Super League. They’ve won at Wembley and lifted the Challenge Cup. They’ve been all the way to a Grand Final (twice).

We have craved a competition that provides new winners and new elite sides. Catalans tick that box – they have a roll of honour over the past decades some clubs who want to throw them out could only dream of. Maybe that’s part of it.

But they’re not just successful on the field. They’re a comfortable Grade A club under IMG’s modelling, a clear benchmark for other sides to follow.

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