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By Dave Woods
BBC rugby league correspondent
Out of a place in Super League, Toronto Wolfpack are only 80 minutes By pipe-dream to the edge of fact.
After three decades of playing their way through the leagues, the Wolfpack locate themselves at a marketing decider against Featherstone Rovers.
On the rear of their bidding for a place in football league’s elite, a game that was born in England’s cities is beginning to find it’s place in one of the hottest cities of North America.
“I think there’s a massive chance out here,” said Jon Wilkin, a multiple Challenge Cup and Grand Final winner together with St Helens, who this season was serving spearhead the Wolfpack’s on-field bid for promotion.
“I presume that the concept is crazy and whacky, but it’s a very professional set-up we’ve got out here. It is simply not a traditional heartland,” Wilkin told BBC Radio 5 Live’s Rugby League Podcast this week ahead of Saturday’s game.
“We had 9,500 individuals at our match a week (against Toulouse), and for me personally that’s astonishing.
“The Toronto Argonauts, by the Canadian CFL – the equivalent of the NFL – they had 12,000 individuals go to their game and they play at a substantial 40,000 stadium and it’s on TV over here.
“So for the Wolfpack to get 9,500, that’s huge. An attendance like that isn’t something to be sniffed at.”
Promotion is far from a formality.
Toronto, headed by Grand Leeds coach Brian McDermott, were leaders of this Championship, completing 12 points clear of 29, this season.
However, who moves around Super League is decided by means of a collection of matches, culminating at a decider.
The Wolfpack were at the exact identical position last year.
This year it and the comparison between the two clubs couldn’t be sharper.
Featherstone – who’s fans rejoice under the nickname’that the flat-cappers’ – is a village that rests in the middle of the rugby league heartland.
A stone’s throw away from Super League clubs Castleford and Wakefield Trinity, together with Leeds not far beyond, they are frequently cast in the shadow of the acquaintances.
But some brilliant moments are shown up by their history. Their latest afternoon in the sun was a Challenge Cup final Wembley triumph in 1983 and they have an appetite to compete with the elite.
This year, despite finishing fifth in the regular season, they’ve defied the odds away from house – by York, defeating Leigh and Toulouse – to maintain a place within this so-called’Million Pound Game’.
And Wilkin isn’t surprised they are the competitions for this winner-takes-all contest of Toronto.
“No, not at all,” he explained. “Everybody from the outside looking in would say Toulouse and York are up there, the next best two teams in the competition.
“But the toughest two games we have played have been against Featherstone. They have been the most Superb League-style games that we have played , where it’s very much a tussle and there is not many fractures in the match, and they appear to relish that as far as any team we’ve played this level.
“We are excited to be there and to be playing .”
Earlier this week that the Wolfpack reported that 8,000 tickets had been sold for Saturday.
That is sold, they state not given away.
And they expect to turn fans away on the day when the”house full” signs go up.
But win or lose, the Wolfpack will go on, and Wilkin says his season with Toronto has revealed signs the French league seeds in town are starting to take hold.
“I think that it’s growing,” he said. “The area of the city at which the scene is – an area named Liberty Village – is a sort of a hipster region, Google have their offices there. It is a cool work area, but there places around there.
“I would say pretty much everyone in that region knows about the Wolfpack. You stop in the street and chat for you. They know about the game, they say things such as’good fortune in the final’.
“But the challenge is downtown, the major portion of the town. Clearly the Blue Jays and the Maple Leafs are such brands and I do not think there is as much visibility there, but that’s growing.
“I jumped onto a street car the other day, the tram, and the tram driver’high fived’ me. It was a Wolfpack. Just as a little bench markers, I thought that was fascinating.”
The odds are stacked in the Wolfpack’s favour with this final game of the season. Featherstone, a mainly team, had a three-day turnaround before stripping off to Canada, in flying back from their victory at Toulouse.
The Wolfpack have had a week away and you don’t have to travel from their Toronto base.
And Wilkin says he and his own team-mates are focused.
“You can build up things a lot. It is a Grand Final and also the implications of us winning, we’d enter Super League,” he explained.
“But the consequences of the game’s result don’t effect the processes on the area, or else they should not do. You may become too overawed by the scale of this job, by the emotion of this, but realistically, like anything in life, when you break it down into small chunks that were bite-size it’s very possible.
“Big games and pressurised environments alter people’s behaviour. The challenge for us is we do not have to alter anything to win the match.
“We are extremely respectful of Featherstone, they’ve a excellent young coach also, but if we perform at our finest I think we win the match and that’s what we have to do.”

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