Hate to point this out but according to the AA it is 83 miles from London to Ipswich and only 55 from london to MK...

neither is London from a TV or newspaper editors' point of view, if as seems apparent QRL wont work in the lap of the Unionites then yet another flit across the metropolis is the only option other than for it to fold which would be manna from the gods for the RU writers...

Meanwhile, as the latter is only 15m from home, I would happily promote MK as another franchise; 0.3m people and a big hinterland; good train links and just off the M1 for traveling fans. Further round ball folk said they'd never make the Dons thing work, but it continues to improve.

Did any of them say how they contributed to the atmosphere?

I think the snoring they made as they fell into a sound sleep sounded a little like the usual 3 people chanting 'Harlerquins harlerquins harlerquins' over and over again for the first 15 mins

Barry can You do Us Quins fans a favour and wear a west Ham footy shirt in Bermondsey saturday Night, The locals will give You plenty of atmosphere You crave.

There are now 5 sides playing in Oxford, 4 university ones and an amateur side, the Oxford Cavaliers (amateur club of Giants prop Darrell Griffin). The game is growing there and there is scope ofr it to do so more.

That's very good news for the sport and is part of the development from the grass roots up that is happening all over the country at the moment. Those 5 clubs are a part of the development that needs to continue regardless of what the future holds for the Quins. The two or three clubs I proposed be set up would be separate from those existing ones and would be in Championship 1 (as the South Wales Scorpions are) and would draw their squads primarily from the existing clubs like those you mentioned that were near to their particular town (this is what Scorpions did taking RLC Wales and RU players on via an open trial).

I think an important part of the process I suggested is to leave the grass roots clubs to do what they are already doing, be they in the RLC or smaller scale amateur clubs as their continued presence is vital so that the whole multi level RL chain is maintained. That way there is not a need to try to form a new community club to replace one that had been bought out and made to step up. The continued existence of the local clubs at amateur, university and schools levels then gives the new semi pro club a firmer base that in the past has all too often not been present for new expansion clubs.