We're all doomed, then!

Well they say it's only what they hear, but it wouldn't surprise me to be honest.

Did they directly qoute the ministry of the bleedin obvious?

Should all three have guaranteed immunity like this though

Why not just bring back P&R like proper Sports have.

Because half the clubs in the Championship would go bust.

Jeez, I'm a York fan too and I want P&R to be scrapped from Champ & Champ 1.

Hey is it true you guys are looking at building a new stadium though?

It's undoubtedly true that Quins, Crusaders and Catalans are all thought to be safe. And I can think of no reason why Catalans should be anything else.

However, as me owd mam allus used to tell us:

"Tha knaws wot Thought did? Thought thought his feet were stickin outa ' bed - so e got out to tek a look".

Come again?

I'll believe it when I'm sat in it mate...

Ah right, well best of luck bud, would be great for the city (presumably it would be shared with the football club?), always had soft spot for York, some great afternoons/days there with Rovers.

That kind of tactic is lifted straight out of the RFL's operational manual.

Related to this argument, I think one of the major things we have going for us in any license application is the crowd factor. With us in the league, there will instantly be six derbies (v wigan/wire/saints) where the grounds will look pretty damn chocka and will belt out some real noise for the telly-watching public to be impressed by. The overall round-by-round attendance totals for the league will rise a fair bit too. At present, there are FAR too many games in SL where the grounds look awfully empty on the telly. That tumbleweed at the Willows and the Racecourse needs cutting down badly.

Couldn't agree more - our series in NL1 against you guys in 2006 was fantastic. The atmosphere & crowds were superb, in SL it'll be even better.

+ considering the travelling support Widnes will take for the derbies like you said, the Vikings will work this time without a doubt.











Widnes! Widnes! Widnes!

sorry mate but all this is irrelevant SLE exists to expand the game far beyond the northern territories.

But it's simply unrealistic - Paris didn't work, Broncos/Quins didn't work, Crusaders hasn't worked. Cats has (in a way), but overall that's failure IMO.

If Widnes don't get in this time round it's the biggest injustic in the history of RL IMO.

sorry mate but there should be no teams entering from the north,northern team should only be exiting the league.the only teams entering should come from other parts of the uk and mainland europe.

Why though? Basically you're saying Widnes should be discriminated against because of geographical location?

Without the fact BSkyB giving your club 1.2 million a year for being in SL, would HKR have worked so hard to get to SL? How would HKR cope without that 1.2 million a year? Would the club still exist as a professional entity? Would you be able to afford all those aussies you employ? The same question can be asked of pretty much every club in SL.......take away the BSkyB money and they would fold pretty quickly. And..in case you missed it earlier, BSkyB wanted a london team..........

Like it or not, on a purely business basis, London Broncos are the reason that Rugby League in the UK has remained as a professional sport......regardless of the financial mire the club itself is in. As for the other areas of your assessment of failure......please scroll back and read the stuff on London RL in general...the youth, the cockney internationals etc....don't keep falling back on crowds...and especially the number of away fans....it just continues to show your argument as baseless and 1 dimensional.

....on that we can agree.

So if SL hadn't fast-tracked London in 1995 then Sky would have pulled the plug?

If so they're insane.

"All those aussies..." Ffs, it's ridiculous (and hugely hypocritical) for you to keep having a go at us for having several Aussies in the team, have you completely forgotten London Broncos in the 1990's/early 2000's then?

im not saying that.what im saying is,SLE was setup to expand the game out of the heartlands.at the moment eleven of the fourteen clubs in SLE are northern,that cant be right.everytime a heartland club loses its franchise it should be replaced with a expantion club.thats what im saying.

No, they are a business and like it or not, London audiences matter to advertisers and advertisers are worth more to BSkyB than all the dishes along the M62. Don't question the economics of Rupert Murdoch....he knows how to turn coin!

...did I hit a nerve





No, not at all. London Pro RL didn't exist....so we were allowed to field as many Aussies as we wanted for the first 10 years......but I belive HKR have been around a tad longer than London RL....or have I missed something? 125+ years of history and you can't find 30 local lads....outstanding. Regardless of you not being in SL, the fact you allowed your youth system to decay is the reason you need special treatment from the RFL.........and the 5k extra fans that you have added since you arrived at the top table shows how fickle and fragile your support was........glory hunters aren't fans...they will turn on the team or even worse, turn their backs on the team once the going gets tough.

I'd love to stay and chat but it's Semi-final day here in Wellington RL.....need to get stuff done before I can go and watch some grass roots RL in another "expansion" region.....

Do you think the attendance may break the 1122 barrier?

I'll let you know

2,500 turned up for the colleges final last year......I expect at least 1k at Fraser park today.....but the NRL, like SL/RFL aren't too concerned by attendences...it's advertisers coin that interests them. Wellington isn't as "wealthy" as say, Perth as far as advertisers are concerned....so it will be a while before we see a second NZ NRL franchise....that and the fact that if there were a second NZ franchise, the crims would have to look elsewhere to nick all their young stars

But we already have 2 expansion clubs in SL who are not up to the so called standards expected, so it would be insane to bring more in when the ones we have are struggling.

I am not against expansion, but why should it be at the expense of clubs who have been around for 100 years +. The RFL/SL treatment of some of the "smaller" heartlands clubs is bordering on criminal when you consider what they are doing to help the expansion clubs out.

Any new club in an expansion area wanting to join should be made to play in the lower leagues and meet the criteria that the RFL has set for Clubs in the Championship to be able to apply for a licence first - there should be none of this fast tracking clubs that aren't ready in and damaging established clubs who at least have the foundations to build from.

To anybody not involved in the game, the way RL is run must be classed as a joke, bordering on downright dishonest.

No P&R, constant changing of criteria to manipulate who is likely to be successful in obtaining a licence, a blind eye turned to the failings of certain clubs cos they happen to be in an area marked down for expansion.

They might as well just cut the pretence and say that the only clubs who need to apply for a licence this time around are :

Wakey
Cas
Salford

plus Widnes and any other Championship club that meets the criteria.

Lets face it, we all know it is one of the above three who is definite to be replaced (maybe two if the RFL can find a way to justify Toulouse being included).