Absolutely none!

Why supplant a team playing a foreign sport into Flintshire when the good folk of North Wales are wedded to the round ball game, they don't even have a strong tradition in the 15-Aside code?

2,600 for a game in any professional sport's top flight represents a failure, and they finished in the 8 last year, lord help them if they'd tanked!

I really feel for Widnes, the chemics should get that license this time around and let the Crusaders earn their next bite at the cherry or as I suspect without the RFL bankrolling this folly, wither on the vine. As for any North Wales residents who really have got the bug for the greatest game, it's only 26 miles to the Stobart

BTW, for Quins see above!

The town of Wrexham isn't in Flintshire, it's in the county of Wrexham


Considering how abysmal the standard of play was for both teams, I think Bradford and Crusaders fans have more to worry about than Widnes, who are already nailed on for a license for 2012 anyway.

What was the fan split between Crusaders and Bradford?

There were about 350 noisy ones in the builders stand. Some others dotted about in the other stands.

I must admit I shocked at the poor turnout for their first home game of the season. I'm pretty sure that Halifax get similar if not larger crowds in the NL. Still seems a bit disorganised down there too, nowhere open in the ground to buy food or a coffee until 25 mins before kick off?

You do have to feel for a team like Wakefield who look likely to be kicked out whilst the Crusaders are kept in due to being an expansion club. Have the RFL stated when the Crusaders have to abide by the same quota rules etc?

Not wanting to make to many excuses but,
Wrexham football club where playing 60 miles away,
Wales were playing a six nations in Italy game at 2.30
Then there is the political stuff regarding the football team, asset stripping etc and also the Crusaders administration.

TBH, I think Crusaders came up far too soon. It was clear that the RFL allowed themselves to be duped by the original board at Crusaders as they claimed they were more stable than they were. The step up and cost of running in SL was too much for them to deal with, as proved by them having financial trouble at the end of every year. I think Crusaders would have been better served by staying in the championship and building their brand for the last 3 years, rather than getting a fast-tracked, free pass into SL.

I understand the point of expansion clubs. But the RFL needs to get tough with them. They seem to think that they'll be protected simply due to their expansion status. If they get bonus points for their geographical location, they should get a similar number of points deducted for failing to meet the average 10k crowd that the RFL put in place.

Well I hope they do make a go of it but it is surely impossible to sustain a SL club on those sorts of crowds. I'd be surprised if the factors you highlighted account for the extra 3-4k you need to be coming through the gates. Massive amount of work to do in Wrexham to make them a strong and credible SL club. Do the new owners have the cash to support the long and promote the club?

We are relying on away fans to keep the gate above 4,000. We have a hard core fan base of 1500 plus targeted newbies. Changing our regular games to Friday night, will I feel come back to bite us on the butt


Your kit looks good this year and "the Van man" looks very useful

According to my research, the following Welsh based clubs all played professionally, and competed in the Northern Union or RFL- Aberdare, Barry, Ebbw Vale, Merthyr Tydfil, Mid-Rhondda, Treherbert, Cardiff 1951/52, Cardiff 1981-84, Bridgend 1984-85, Pontypridd and South Wales 1996.

In addition, the following Midlands, North East/West and Southern based clubs have all played professionally, yet eventually disbanded Acton & Willesden, Streatham and Mitcham, London Highfield, Kent/Southend Invicta, Carlisle, Newcastle upon Tyne, Coventry, Mansfield, Scarborough and South Shields.

Add to this the recent nomadic nature of Fulham/London Broncos/Harlequins and Celtic/Crusaders, together with their low attendances, one would have thought those powers that be, would have long since concluded that, professional RL does not work in Wales, the South or far North.

To be fair, there were some vans outside the ground selling food and hot drinks an hour (maybe a bit more) before kick off. I got some fish and chips (quite decent actually) from a van round the back of the stadium. Talking to the guy who ran the stall, he wasn't too happy about the organisation though. Though he was a regular at the football and had been there last year for the rugby, he hadn't had any communication from the club about what was happening this season and just turned up on spec. I guess the organisation fell to pot a bit in the whole mess of the financial meltdown.

Not much use when you're in the ground already though!!

You'd think that the food stalls inside would be open around an hour before kick off to be fair. One steward told me they didn't sell food in the ground, another told me about the snack shop the corner that finally opened around 5.15.

Seeing as Crusaders just advertised a whole load of jobs for marketing, admin and financial people - it appears that they currently have very few resources to do anything at the moment. Poor crowd for opening game of the season; hopefully they'll get better! Be difficult to justify them gaining a SL license though, unfortunately.

The shop was shocking. Nothing in it at all.

If they are only now advertising for staff then I think we can assume that pretty well zero marketing went into this game

Given those facts, plus all the uncertainty over their administration etc, it actually wasn't such a bad crowd. They clearly have a noisy and enthusiastic base of about 2000 genuine supporters, which is something to work with. They clearly need to start work on building on that to get that number up, but I see no reason why they couldn't be averaging 4 or 5 thousand in short order, which would certainly put them onto the level of clubs like Wakefield and Salford.

I've got a bit of a soft spot for Crusaders actually. I actually want to see them succeed (apart from last night of course) and hope that they can build from this point.

I wasn't having a pop at the Crusaders persay or the people trying hard to run the club on thin air! I guess I was really having a go at this obsessive need the RFL have to 'expand' the game!

After so many failed attempts why don't we just admit defeat and concentrate on the core geographical area of the game, notably Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Cumbria (who really do deserve a team in the big league), where the game is loved, understood, and part of life!

We could drop a team into Fleet Street and we still wouldn't get anymore column inches, so who cares?

I never thought I'd agree with the parochial views enjoyed by a lot of our West Yorkshire cousins, but it's time to bring this folly to an end and develop a strong regional sport giving opportunities to local lads to play a game that's in there blood, no other 'minority' sport shares this obsession or arrogance (this game is great we're going to impose it on you, and you'll bloody well like it) that Rugby League does!

As I said what is the point of the Crusaders or Quins?

The point is to expand the game, this is a vital thing, as the further afield we have professional clubs representing our sport the bigger the catchment area we have for fans as well as providing a chance to increase the player pool in this country, something which IMO is a major contributing fact to why we fail at international level as we've too few world class players where as the aussies have world class players 1-13.
A bigger fan base across the country means more income from the commercial sector. More money coming into the game means more exposure of the sport.

So, while not expanding may not kill off the game, it's foolish to remain a provincial sport.

IMO, what is needed for both Quins and Crusaders are a couple of top notch marketing teams to promote the clubs in their area. I'd hold Bradford at the beginning of SL as an example of what can be done.

Why the hell should Widnes get a licence???

The're a club stuck in the past, constantly banging on about how good they used to be. They can't even compete in NL1 so how are they going to cope with SL?

What we need is a team from Cumbria to join the ranks which will bring much more than another team based on the M62 corridor.

Plus I don't think that 4 "expansion" teams out of 14 is all that bad. Give the RFL some credit for trying!!!

A Cumbrian club, now that would make a lot more sense to me.

I'd like to see a club thrive in Wales, but I remain to be convinced that the Crusaders will manage it as things stands. I do wish the RFL would be a little more black and white about how long each individual club will play under a different set of rules too. Does anyone know?

Because the game would die, it would go from being a major professional sport to being a regional pastime and eventually would be forgotten about completely. Is that what you want? You absolute clown.

Your mad if you think that the game can stay successful whilst remaining static, the entire argument seems to be hinged on the idea that other sports will just leave us alone and not infringe on our territory. Were not living in the 1950's, Union are spending serious money trying to convince people in the North that it is the superior code and that it's the one that northerners should watch and play. In April Sale will be playing London Irish at the Reebok in front of what is likely to be a 20,000 plus crowd. Fair enough it's a one off but there are signs that they are starting to succeed, Rugby Union players are getting tonnes of coverage in the national papers, it's apparently having an effect on our best young players because some of them are opting to switch codes before they even reach their peak in Rugby League (Eastmond, Ashton). Were in serious danger of becoming 'that regional sport whose best players switch to Rugby Union when they are 21 if they can make the grade".

As for other minority sports expanding, the AFL are making serious efforts to expand into traditional League territory in Australia, because they think they have a good product that people will want to watch. But never-mind, we should just know our place and stick to Yorkshire and Lancashire, how arrogant of us to think that people outside of this geographic region might enjoy watching our sport. As someone else suggested, we should play all the games underground in a coal mine just in case anybody accidentally sees it and enjoys watching it.

As for Quins and Crusaders, it's already been stated by an RFL official that 'without London, I don't think we'd have Sky'. Crusaders actually had an average attendance of over 5,000 last year minus the two Neath games. I'm concerned about their owners, but I think the interest is there in Wrexham.

Lenegan hit the nail on the head when he stated " The only people who threaten rugby league are rugby league people. We need to give people an opportunity to take part in our game".

Love it! All the regional or provincial sports in the world must be crapping themselves that they're going to die out cos they don't have teams all over the place



The bar skittles association of Somerset are preparing to plant a half cocked poorly funded team in Leeds as we speak.

As for the international game, GB haven't beaten the Aussies since pre-expansion so that's a reyt good argument!

If the Quins can't get 10,000 in a city of 6m how are Crusaders going to do it with a county wide population of 130,000?

The arrogance of insisting our sport has a divine right to succeed wherever we plant it is staggering frankly, it isnt working people time to think again

What part of 'without London, I don't think we'd have Sky' didn't you understand?

Or do you want to go back to the 1970s when clubs were part time and even the top teams were playing in front of crowds of 5000?