Heard sammut is done and herbert is leaving. REALLY hope its not true. would prefer witt or hanbury over sammut and if we did that, id shift on briggs rather than herbert. difficult choice but herbert has showed good glimses and im worried briggs wont get enough game time either way next year and end up moving.

We seem to be going down route of playing 2 standoffs in the halves roles. Worked for Leeds for years but they had benefit of sinfield taking organising role at loose forward and playing a bit like a third half. Can't see anyone in our team who can do similar at the moment.

[url=http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/sport/9160730.Crusaders____loss_could_be_Bradford_Bulls____gain/urlSeems we are keeping our eyes open[/url

Would it be worth considering bringing in Harris into the coaching set up? Not a fan of his But he seems like an intelligent man who could help Potter deliver his plans

Maybe so, he must know the game inside out. Having said that he does have one of the dullest voices ever. Might we run the risk of him boring everyone to death?

Could send him into the opposition dressing room before kick off, melt their brains just prior to kick off.

That being said, it wouldn't hurt us to have someone like Harris on the coaching staff. Especially for players like Briggs and Southernwood

How many times can players put up with him saying "This Wigan sard", "This Saints sard", "This Leeds sard", "This Warrington sard" etc etc.?

I can't help wondering if the demise of the Crusaders (at least as a SL outfit) has changed what might have happened.

The question is whether Sammut is a 'done deal' as some on here are claiming. If it is signed already, then we are going to have to pass on Witt and Hanbury (even assuming they'd want to come) because we'd have Sammut, Gale, Jeffries and Briggs already for the halves.

But if Sammut isn't yet finalised, then presumably we can switch attention to Witt or Hanbury. I'd personally like to see Witt in our team , he looks a class act whenever I've watched the Crusaders.

In general terms, I suspect a whole bunch of the Crusaders teams are going to end up at Widnes. You might almost say it was planned that way, but perhaps that's being too cynical

From no halves to four.

Isn't there some adage about generals always starting the next war by preparing to fight the last one?

Disgusted at the whole farce. I didn't think anything could make me feel sorry for Keith Senior, an individual I have a punchbag named after, but no-one deserves to be treated like he was yesterday.

Feel more sorry for the Halifax club and Fans, and the Crusaders players and fans. On a rare day Rugby League gets the sporting spotlight, the RFL embarrased us.

i know keith senior and he is nothing like people see him in a game, i would sign him straight away if we had chance, hes a winner,simple as

senior and lulia in centres, keep chev walker if fit and move him into 2nd row with elliot,elima loose,unless we get a ball playing loose

Sounds like McNamara to me

I don't see this as an embarrassment at all. No-one outside the sport gives a flying feck. The RFL were dropped in it at the last minute by Crusaders. Wakey or Fax? 2 M62 teams who offer nothing much more than each other & will have little or no impact on the spread of the game, which should be the RFL's priority. Fax used to be my favourite ground to visit but their exclusion in favour of Wakey matters not a jot to me. If Fax had been successful there would still be as many people crying disgrace, joke, embarrassment. The RFL have a virtually impossible task spreading the game, not helped by large numbers of myopic fans.

Perhaps like all of us Harris is a Hull wannabee. Just listen to him next time he is summarising, he talks a lot of sense but his use of that expression is becoming obsessive with me.

I disagree. I think that the Wakey fans expected to go down, and are mightily relieved that they have a club.

The way I read the news yesterday was that the Crusaders took the decision out the RFL's hands by rescinding their application which, to me, looks like the RFL were only ever going to 'relegate' one team from the Super League, regardless of what the opponents applications offered.

Without looking through Fax's proposition, it's hard to comment but they couldn't have done more on the field, and their stadia is looking pretty good for a SL side.

RFL looked embarrassing yesterday, the least they could have done is explain how they made their decision. Without doing so, indicates they didn't score the teams fairly IMO

The only other thing the RFL could have done was to postpone the whole affair. With more howls of disgrace, joke, embarrassment. I would have put my house on Wakey being evicted & would have had no complaints if so. I don't think Fax were ever in the running as soon as Widnes were accepted & I doubt the RFL seriously contemplated them after this. When Crusaders pulled out the RFL had to make an instant decision. The RFL will publish the reasoning behind their decision when they no doubt have worked out what they are going to say. I am all for the RFL having criteria for choosing teams, there is no other alternative, I also accept that at times it is not possible to stick rigidly by that criteria for their perceived good of the game.

Tigertot, bare in mind that up here RL is a minority sport. For casual followers I'm a port of call and I've had so many questions asked abou the process that neither myself or any RL fan could answer. Amongst them "weren't Halifax told their bid was good enough?" In April is the one where "yes" is the most baffling answer. I'm here at work and a mate just came over and said he didnt understand what happened yesterday.

Wakefield knew they didn't meet the criteria and Elston himself said they didn't expect the green light.

As Daveyz said above the fact the announcement raised more questions then it answered, coupled with the fact the ensuing questions havent been answered, mean the RFL embarrased us yesterday in my opinion.

In the RL heartland of Leeds no-one has said a word to me about it. Apart from the tigress who said "A team beginning with C from Wales have been kicked out of rugby league, I heard on the radio." Of course it's your opinion, as 99% of the stuff on here is. As long as we do it with a modicum of respect for others it's what makes it interesting.

In my opinion everything I say is fact



Don't think the RFL could do much else and I actually think its fair play on Crusaders for pulling their application when they did. They've not done well by their players and could clearly have handled it better. I'm annoyed that they've made me feel sorry for Keith Senior!

However, I think it would have been worse if they'd let their application go through, Wakefield got relegated as anticipated and then Crusaders folded in April next year as they are clearly financially unsustainable. That wouldn't have been fair on Wakefield.

Either Wakefield's bid was good enough or it was not. If it was not good enouigh on Monday, how come it was good enough yesterday?

Is it not more a case of "compared to everyone else"? So Wakefields bid was not as good as Crusaders and therefore they would go down. With Crusaders out the comparison is then Wakefield to Halifax and they are judged to be better than Fax?

Someone has stated in a Wakey thread that they were told that apparently they were not even in the bottom 3 !!

Turning out to be a big deal 'down under' also....

[urlhttp://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/league-news/crusaders-crash-could-keep-players-in-nrl-20110727-1i0ba.html[/url

Interesting reading

some interesting comments coming from the Crusaders players on twitter in the last twenty four hours!

the likes of the Board KNEW all the time that the "illegal" imports were here illegally but they offered "hush" money to the said players to keep quiet!

players wages not being paid ...

interestingly Mark Bryant has said he has signed for a superleague club .. and its not salford?

Not Bradford either.