Oh the irony.

We all know your views on Wakefield IA and your attachment to the Newmarket project. It's a little rich for you to start throwing the "biased" tag at others.

Is it possible for the OP to have gotten it anymore wrong than this?

Except for Widnes coming in (old news and already officially announced) it appears to be a hat-trick of fail.

Spectacular.

If there's one thing worse than a troll TVOC, it's a troll who falls on his !!

If I was Halifax I'd be kicking up merry hell. The decision on who was in/out was made last week, and it was only yesterday that Crusaders let the RFL know about their intentions.

So, as the guy said in a lunchtime tv report, IF, as widely accepted, Wakey were out last week, what magical improvements in their bid have been made over the past 7 days that gets them the nod over Halifax? Or were the RFL simply shocked at the turn of events and bottled it?

Perhaps the Halifax Chairman should consider halting all maintenance on the Shay for a few seasons....get a couple of winding up orders.....maybe a short spell in Administration? Should work a treat for the next round of Licenses.

The words Brewery, Piss up and Organisation could easily apply to the RFL.

Firstly, do you think that Crusaders made that call? I suspect that KMPG's report told the RFL all they needed to know and that lots of meetings have taken place over the last few weeks to try and sort things out. When it became clear that things were financially untenable, the RFL 'asked' the Crusaders to withdraw their bid.

The second thing is, is this point of view assumes that Halifax were coming in in place of either Wakey or Crusaders and I think that it was only ever between Wakey and Crusaders (in the eyes of the RFL). So, I think Halifax were never coming up because Wakefield application was better than Halifax and of course Crusaders were staying were staying in place of Wakefield, if possible, either way.

funnily enough i had a text earlier from someone in the game who said it was a game run by amateurs

There's a perfectly logical explanation as to why Wakefield are in and Halifax aren't - their application was stronger than Halifax's.

Say the clubs are listed in order of the strength of their application, we could have:

Wigan
Leeds
Hull
Warrington
Saints
Bradford
Hull KR
Huddersfield
Catalans
Castleford
Salford
Crusaders
Widnes
Harlequins
Wakefield
Halifax

Widnes were in so a club below them had to be kicked out. BUT - Crusaders withdraw their application so as it now, no current SL club applying for a licence had to be turned away. Had Halifax's application been stronger than Wakefield's (a contrast to the situation which we are lead to believe) then they would have also been promoted, at the expense of Wakefield. Judging by the decision, Wakefield's application is stronger than Halifax's. Had Crusaders not pulled out, and their application been stronger than Wakefield's then Wakefield would have got the boot. Simple

I KNOW I am biased towards Wakey, so more than happy to throw it in against you, but lets not forget, I have never wavered from my point and the argument that both Cas and Wakey should stay and Crusaders should go because I had grave doubts over both their short and long term financial stability. I am and never have been anti-Cas and never wished to see them go down... unlike you and Wakey!

You have argued that Crusaders should stay and Wakefield should go, so basically, I have been proved correct (and for the reasons I always stated) and you have been proved wrong. Is that why you are upset?

It does seem a little bit hard to imagine which boxes Wakey actually ticked, to be fair.

commerce and marketing - ??? (hard to judge from down here, as I don't think I'm in a target area)
facilities - =#FF0000FAIL
finance - =#FF0000FAIL
governance - (not actually sure what this means, if not finance-related)
playing strength and player performance - =#FF0000FAIL

I think it probably looked more like this, but of course Quins are a protected species. You also can't put Widnes in the mix, they were not judged, unlike Halifax against the SL clubs.

Salford (they only got a C licence and their new stadium DOES count as it will be ready for next season, without this they would have been under real threat to Halifax coming in their place)
Castleford
Wakefield
Harlequins
Halifax
Crusaders

My list was for illustrative purposes

Try putting Salford in that matrix and of course, lets also take away the media hype around Wakefield, which has robbed them any chance of improving their squad. Not that clear now eh?

As for Wakefield, they score well in the academy/youth set up, Community department and do ok on Commercial/Marketing (I understand the RFL were very happy with the adverts during Corrie!) and badly in the other areas.

What matrix? I asked how many boxes Wakey ticked. The answer seems to be 'not many.' Salford offering Jack Poop does not equate to Wakey offering more than Jack Poop. Salford at least have some tangible evidence of some improvement in facilities.

Wakey are unable to improve their playing squad largely due to having gone into administration (see 'Finance' adn 'Governance' sections).

I'm not saying I wanted Wakey kicked out, just that I could see why Fax might be a little perplexed.

Arghh Ok, I am still a bit on alert for the anti-Wakey brigade. Once Salford got underway with a new ground then indeed they should be 100% safe, despite poor scores in other areas, because Peel and Salford CC committed £20m to them and had they not got a licence that would have destroyed any developer assistance in the future and possibly have effected Wakefield and Castleford's future plans.

Sorry I disagree on your final point totally, Andrew Glover has publicly stated that he was able to finance spending to the full cap but why would any player want to go to Wakey (ask Keith!) when they had no certainty of future Super League. I expect Keith will get his wish and assuming that the deal Wakefield offered him is still on the table (which I assume it will be), then I think he will be their first announced signing.

It would be good to see the list of criteria that were met/not met by each club. One, it would give the process the level of transparency required in order for the conspiracy theorists to hush up and two, it would help the RFL to gain credibility in wake of what is seen as many as a dubious decision day.

Did they publish it last time? I agree that it would be nice to see some transparency. Not full details of the reasons, which probably don't need broadcasting, but at least the score in each criteria.

Indeed. At the other end of the spectrum, who do you think finished top? It would be close between all the Grade A licence holders. This talk of Leeds being let down by the quality of the stadium is baloney to me. AFAIK, the judging criteria for stadia were a capacity of 12,000(?) and 500(?) covered seats? If this is the only criteria that were used then we tick them both - even if the WT lacks a roof and any basic amenities

The halifax chairman Mr Steele not very happy with the RFL due to the licence procedure from Sky Text. And to be fair he makes some good points.

I thought it also depended on how many outlest Angela Powers could find to buy a baby from or something..............

Yes, they did a summary on each club and suspect they will do the same again. I bet Wakefield and Cas will be given the hard word (again) on Stadiums and irrespective, they will both be out if they are not building before the next round start... simple as! This is one of the factors where Cas helped Wakey, because they are in the same boat but both should be sorted in the next three years.

I also suspect it will say that they did not consider Halifax strong enough yet, but praise a good application.

An interesting video [url=http://www.therfl.co.uk/news/article/23037/richard-lewis-super-league-licensinghere[/url with Richard Lewis.

Fax can't whinge ferdy they were never in the running when the RFL confirmed it would a 14 team league he chelps about junior development and Wakey trounce them on that score ,he mentions SL history but fax were docked points for SC issues i don't think Wakey ever were.
Of corse there are questions over administration but fax have had their own ££££ problems aswell.
Fax have finally finished the new stand but they were never gonna be in SL at Wakeys exspense imo.

Before I click on that, I have to warn you that if this is p0rn I'm going to be very, very upset.....

We all know which eye you'd be crying from.

Brilliant