Come off it, you were a club going nowhere when you finished bottom of the league, year after year, and having the year in the NFP breathed new life in to your club.

And I don't say that as a bitter Leyther, I saw that as someone with big family ties to the area and someone who happily ranks Fartown as their 'third team' (would be second if Leigh didn't have a reserve side

).

You'll have to excuse Wire fans. We're still a bit giddy. We know it means as much to you as it does us. We are just desperate

I often wonder if the giants are attracting new fans or just converting them from Bradford?

Either way its great to see 2 new teams in the final...hopefully we can see 2 new teams in the GF (please god Hull KR).

So say, when Ken Davy took over Huddersfield in the lower divisions in 1996, when Halifax were.... in superleague?

So how did Huddersfield get into SL ?

what if the investor was a fan of the championship club?

The majority of owners/Chairmen are fans of the clubs , but serious money investors are not going to get involved with clubs that cannot move up because of location

Do you seriously think the Shiekhs pouring money into Man City would do so if City were not allowed to compete in the Champions league because of location ?

I never really understood this - I can't understand a "big money man" getting involved in the first place unless he's a fan of the team.

I mean, why else would you spend your money on that club? You're not going to get anything back, and you'll never make money out of it.

RL clubs are not glamorous status symbols for the super rich like football teams are.

The point being made to the original poster was that without a serious investor like Mr Davy no lower league club could ever emulate what the Giants have done

And because of the removal of annual promotion to SL via on pitch performance only no lower league club will ever attract that type of investement again

Therefore making what the Giants have achieved no longer possible to those clubs the original poster was addressing

Okay with that now

I don't think that follows logically and it's actually contradicted by O'Connor taking the helm at Widnes with no annual P&R.



See above.



No, not really as there are problems with your claims.

I dissagree completely, a businessman like Ken Davy would be more likely to become involved if he can see a clear defined structure for advancing the team that is within the control of the club and no one else, and certainly not on the lottery of a good or bad playing season that might then boil down to a good or bad game.

Mr O Connor expected to be given a franchise last year and has stated he will re consider his position in 2 years time if they dont get one then

In truth they are probably the exception as they are a bigger club [ in many ways than several current SL clubs and it was a massive injustice that they did not get a SL place last year

I did notice that you didn't quote against this part of the post



So your opinion of this ?

And nontheless, he got involved with no annual P&R and has stayed involved despite there being no annual P&R.

He directly contradicts your earlier assertion.



I did, you seem not to have read my earlier posts.

Explain ?

You think I'm wrong to describe football clubs as status symbols for the wealthy?



Is this why St. Helens nearly went bust a few years back? Are they not big and prominent enough for you?



No, they're doing it because [iit's football[/i.

Football is vastly more popular than RL, and the larger number of fans means you'll have more people as fans with the money to do these things.

In some cases, they're doing it because they can make a lot of money - you can't in RL.

So we're right back to my original point;

Garbage , All sports clubs are nothing more than status symbols be they football or RL

The size of any club is no guarantee that they cannot lose money so irrelivant

' Because it's football ' means nothing

So which football teams are making money for their owners ? , considering there are 92 pro clubs and several others on a par with SL clubs income wise

Your original point is still wrong as is the original posters

And is this is true, then the money goes to the sport with the actual status - football.

RL has no status, it's an afterthought in terms of profile.



Why did you bring it up?



It means [ieverything[/i. If you think otherwise you're nuts - nothing else in this country can compete with football, and to judge RL by it is madness.



Man Utd and Liverpool - both are using the clubs's profits to pay off the loans their new owners made to buy them, which eventually leaves the owners with a very valuable sports team at next to no real outlay for themselves.



Considering you have offered absolutely no reliable proof of what you said, and indeed it is directly contradicted by the involvement of O'Connor at Widnes, I can only believe you have made your mind up and nothing will dissuade you.

, that is their main focus to improve the clubs and the competition , it shows their lack of understanding of the situation these clubs are in , as it does yours

I'm sure nothing will dissuade you from your point of view either , I dont know how involved you have been in the clubs in the lower leagues , but I get the impression it has not been much and therefore you have little understanding of why these clubs will not find the investment I have suggested is now not available to them

I have not said that. You're now making stuff up.



RL tends to be the junior sporting partner in most places, and the towns tend to be quite poor. That's why you won't see the number of rich people getting involved that you see in football.

I'm amazed I have to point this out.



You've compared RL to football - you have judged them to be comparable. They are not. At all.



They actually make my point - that football is immensely more popular and glamorous than RL, and hence you get incomparably more rich people getting involved for reasons RL cannot offer; national and international status, because they are football fans or fans of those particular teams, and to actually make money in some cases.

To use football as any sort of comparison to RL in this respect is crazy - [ino sport in this country is anything like football[/i. They might as well be on a different planet.



Your understanding so far has been backed up with fallacious comparisons to football, and an assertion that is directly contradicted by O'Connors involvement at Widnes.



I made what was, by my admittedly limited standards, a significant investment in a team which has no chance of ever eating at the top table of their community in my lifetime.

I did so because I like the game, and I wanted to help out. And this is exactly what I referred to in my original post - that I see no reason why money men would get involved in a team unless they were a fan to start with. I don't see how it's a function of the SL, it's more a function of those teams having extremely limited catchment areas, and so the chances of a cashed up fan swooping in to buy them success is approaching zero.

You have based your argument here on football (irrelevent) and nobody ever again getting involved in a system with no automatic P&R (directly contradicted by O'Connor at Widnes).

So " the money goes to the sport with the status " isn't saying football gets all the money ? , so what are you saying ?

That football gets more money than RL , well yes , thats what I was saying , ie it is all relevant to the sport and town involved , ie you can invest heavily in RL but cannot afford to invest in football , a bit like mr O Connor , a self confessed football fan who has admitted he would have put his money into a football club but could not afford it

I compared 2 systems of sport , one that encourages investment as it allows that investment to provide success and another that has put barriers to that success but whose governing body then asks its members to find that investment

You use catchment area as your reason that clubs cannot get investment rather than location barriers yet every club gets its biggest attendances when they play teams from their most local areas , London having the biggest catchement area of all , and yet they get the lowest crowds and probably always will

Catchment area is good if people actually are interested

The bottom line is I was replying to the original poster , he is wrong in my opinion , in yours he is right , we should all feel positive because a club that underperforms off the pitch , that was saved by being relegated is playing fairly boring but effective RL has reached the Challenge cup final

Well done the giants , but ultimatley your success is relevant only to you and your circumstances and has nothing to bring to the clubs stuck in the lower leagues

When [ione[/i man at [ione[/i football club in [ione[/i country has pumped in what is probably an order of magnitude more money in that have the entire owners of all the SL clubs over the past 5 years, I don't think it's unreasonable to say "the money goes to football".

That someone would try to interpret that comment [iliterally[/i (which is obviously nonsense) suggests to me that they know they've lost the actual argument, and are instead being unbelievable picky in an attempt to mischaracterise another posters position and distract from that fact.



You've left an important aspect out there - you were saying that nobody would ever invest heavily in a RL club again purely due to no automatic P&R.

I think that is wrong, and so does Mr. O'Connor.



You compared two sports that are so utterly different that it makes no sense to do so.



What, like guaranteeing you 3 years to make a success of your investment at the top table?



That's not quite what my point was; I have repeatedly pointed out that football is incomparable, because you get situations like Arab sheikhs with no connections whatsoever to a football club willing to pump in what may well eventually be [ibillions[/i. RL does not have the advantage of being the global game, with huge support pretty much everywhere. It's not the lack of automatic P&R stopping RL clubs getting millionaires on board, it's the fact that we don't really have enough fans in the right circles to have many millionaires in the game in the first place.

I don't think it's a case of them being there but being put off by no automatic P&R, I think it's that they're not really there in the first place.



And not enough are to magic up these money men you're talking about. It's no about P&R, it's about the size and demographics of the sport itself.



They have steadily increased their crowds, and generally built the club. I don't think they underperform in the way you suggest.

This is partly because they were saved by relegation, and is a demonstration of the potential for licensing.

And the game I saw on Sunday did not see them playing boring rugby, they scored some cracking tries from enterprising play.



I'd be inclined to agree, beyond it showing that you can indeed go from being a basket case to CC finalists in a few years if you take a long view.

Hull KR did - with Hull FC in top form in the Superleague at the time.