Will the world now take notice of Super League?

Toronto coach Brian McDermott says the signing of Sonny Bill Williams will help the world take notice of Super League.

Speaking at the Williams press conference at the Emirates Stadium, McDermott discussed attempts from an NRL club to lure owner David Argyle to invest.

McDermott said: “He had a phone call from a very high profile NRL club asking would you buy part of our club.

“He explained it to me three or four times and I said can I ask you why an earth anyone would ring you up, especially a leading NRL club, and ask you to buy shares in them and he said because when they’re asleep they want our people to be looking on their website and have eyeballs on their club and then when we’re asleep they do the same with us.

“It’s all about eye balls on us for 24 hours and I said I understand why they do it but I said why do they ring you and he simply said because our team name starts with Toronto.

“Leeds is a big club, Wigan and Saints are big clubs, Warrington, Hull, they’re big clubs in Super League and if anything happens for them it’s big in Super League it’s not big around the world.”

He also criticised Super League for holding back it’s biggest clubs.

“There’s been so many rules over the last 10 or 15 years that have prevented Sam Burgess from staying in Super League and James Graham. Jonathan Thurston could have signed for a Super League club, we could have had Darren Lockyer in Super League but the rules that they put in place and the reason they’ve put these rules in place is because the slowest clubs cant keep up.

“The amount of money we can spend on Super League wages is just ridiculous compared to where rugby union is.

“They turned full time around the same time as Super League started and where rugby union was to rugby league compared to where they are now is ridiculous and needs to be looked at.”