Toronto Wolfpack: Can Canadian club complete journey to Super League?

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By Dave Woods
BBC soccer league correspondent
From a spot in Super League, Toronto Wolfpack are just 80 minutes from pipe-dream to the border of reality.
After three years of playing their way the Wolfpack locate themselves in a marketing decider from Featherstone Rovers.
On the back part of their bidding for a spot in the elite of rugby league, a game that has been born from the northern towns of England is beginning to find its place in one of the hottest cities of North America.
I believe theres a huge opportunity from here, explained Jon Wilkin, a multiple Challenge Cup and Grand Final winner with St Helens, that this season was serving spearhead the Wolfpacks on-field bidding for advertising.
I guess the concept is wild and whacky, but it is a very professional set-up we have out here. Its simply not a conventional heartland, Wilkin told BBC Radio 5 Lives Rugby League Podcast this week before Saturdays match.
We had 9,500 people at our game a week (against Toulouse), and so for me personally that is astonishing.
The Toronto Argonauts, in the CFL – the equal of the NFL – theyd 12,000 people go to their match and they play at a tremendous 40,000 stadium and its on TV over here.
So for the Wolfpack to receive 9,500, thats enormous. An presence like that is not something to be sniffed at.
Promotion is far from a formality.
Toronto, headed by four-time Grand Final-winning former Leeds coach Brian McDermott, were leaders of the Championship, finishing 12 points clear from second-placed 29, this season.
But that goes around Super League is decided by a set of play-off games, culminating in a decider.
The Wolfpack were in precisely the identical position last year, just to be taken down by London Broncos.
This year it and also the contrast between the two clubs couldnt be sharper.
Featherstone – who is fans rejoice beneath the nicknamethe flat-cappers – is a village that rests in the center of the league heartland.
A stones throw away from Super League clubs Castleford and Wakefield Trinity, with Leeds not far beyond, they are often cast in the shadow of the acquaintances.
But some brilliant moments are shown up by their history. Their most recent afternoon in the sun was a Challenge Cup Wembley win in 1983 and theyve an appetite to compete with the elite again.
This season despite finishing fifth in the regular season, they have defied the odds by beating Leigh, York and Toulouse – all – to claim a place in this so-calledMillion Pound Game.
And Wilkin is not surprised that they have been the competitions with this competition of Toronto.
Nonot at all, he explained. Everyone from the outside looking in would state Toulouse and York are up there, another best two teams in the competition.
But the roughest two games we have played have been against Featherstone. Theyve been the Superb League-style games that weve played in, where its very much a tussle and there is not many fractures in the game, and they seem to enjoy that as much as any team we have played this level.
We are eager to be there and so are enjoying with them.
Earlier this week the Wolfpack noted that 8,000 tickets had been sold for Saturday.
Thats marketed, they state , not given away.
And they hope to turn fans off on the day if thehouse full signs go up.
But lose or win, the Wolfpack will go on, and Wilkin says his season with Toronto has revealed evidence the French league seeds from the city are beginning to take hold.
I think that its growing, he said. The region of the city where the scene is – a place named Liberty Village – is really a type of a hipster area, Google have their own offices there. Its a trendy, bohemian work place, but theres residential areas around there as well.
Id say nearly everyone in that area knows about the Wolfpack. You stop and talk to you. They know more about the match, they state things likegood luck in the closing.
However, the battle is Caribbean, the most important region of the city. Clearly the Maple Leafs and the Blue Jays are such brands and I do not think theres as much visibility there, but that is growing.
I jumped on a road car another day, the tram, and also the tram driverhigh fived me. It turned out to be a Wolfpack. As a small bench mark, I thought that was fascinating.
The odds are stacked in the Wolfpacks favour for this last match of this season. Featherstone, a mostly part-time group, had just a turnaround before stripping off to Canada from flying back.
The Wolfpack have had off and no need to travel from their Toronto foundation.
And he is said by Wilkin and his own team-mates are concentrated.
You can build up things a great deal. It is a Grand Final and the implications people winning, we would enter Super League, he said.
However, the consequences of the matchs outcome dont impact the processes on the field, or they shouldnt do. You can get too overawed by the scale of the undertaking, by the emotion of it, but like anything in life, if you break it down to little chunks that were bite-size it possible.
Big matches and pressurised environments alter peoples behaviour. The challenge for us is that we do not need to change anything to win the match.
We are extremely respectful of Featherstone, theyve a excellent young coach as well, but if we perform at our finest I think we win the game and thats what we have to do.