Thought the had fallen out of cas' venture this week, some mention about the construction company pulling out and the area chosen was prone to floodings (its in yorkshire, HELLO!)

There's a chap posting the same on lots of team's boards.

If there is anyone on this board with experience of the construction industry it would be interesting to hear their thoughts on the following projects:

Salford
Cas
Wakey

I know WOTT informed Paul Youane and Behind the Stick about the Halliwell Jones construction in the past but other than that I'm not sure where our expertise lies.

Does anyone think that having Celtic in super league would be a good idea

I believe the taking of Millenium(?) Madness to Scotland is not a coincidence.

It would be good to have an old firm game in SL.

It can't hurt. The way I see it, Celtic were brought in to;

a) Level out the number of teams in the National Leagues due to Catalan being fast tracked into SL.

b) So the RFL can have one last ditch attempt at expanding to Wales. With putting them into NL2 at the time, no one would care or lose as much money as they did with PSG or the original Gateshead club.

Fortunately, things have turned out pretty OK and the club is rich in media exposure and playing quality. If they were to be in SL, it would reward those at the club for the hard work over the past three/four years, but wouldn't be a disaster if they were to be cut in favour of Salford, Widnes or Leigh.

Is there a guarantee that Hull KR are definately in? Perhaps with a better chance that Castleford, probably wakefield but without the applications in front of me it would be hard to say.

It is my understanding that Salford are already on site, although work has stopped due to items of archaelogical interest have been found.

As fut t'other two, I would imagine the developers have had their current funding offer withdrawn due to this credit crunch nonsense. So the whole round-robin of speaking to the banks, getting the land appraised will begin. It doesn't necessarily mean it is a dead duck, just gone back a bit.

[uThe Lineup As It Should Be[/u
Warrington Wolves
Bradford Bulls
Leeds Rhinos
Wigan Warriors
Hull FC
Hull KR
Castleford Tigers
St Helens
Widnes Vikings
Salford City Reds
Huddersfield Giants
Harlequins RL
Catalan Dragons
Celtic Crusaders

Wakefield Wildcats deserve to be dropped from the franchise until they can establish a proper club. (All of the other candidates have a decent stadium planned or already in place, Wakey do not!)

[uThe Lineup As It Will Be[/u
Warrington Wolves
Bradford Bulls
Leeds Rhinos
Wigan Warriors
Hull FC
Hull KR
Castleford Tigers
St Helens
Salford City Reds
Huddersfield Giants
Harlequins RL
Catalan Dragons
Celtic Crusaders
Wakefield Wildcats

I agree with what you said about Wakefield. Although they will land on their feet with a Wembley appearance I bet!

On a personal level, I'd like to see Widnes back in SL along with Salford. Celtic Crusaders? No thanks. I've got too many doubts over whether RL can become popular in Wales. I loved the yearly Cardiff trips but lets face it, it was only really the supporters of current SL teams who showed up to watch the games.

i think futurechampions has it spot on there...i agree with his shoulds, and think what we'll get is what he thinks. i do think that it is probably a year too early for the crusaders, but if they can get a few welsh union players to go across, get harris down, cunningham might fancy it, and you never know, even briers. to be part of something new may appeal to these guys whose careers are winding down

why would Widnes deserve a place ahead of Wakefield? Wakefield have been a pretty good team for a few years now and produced some good players through their ranks, which Widnes haven't.

Widnes have a better Stadium

And a better derby team

This is true.

HJ - 13,024
Halbart - 15,000

Both will fill up quite nicely for derbies.

Jungle of broken metal - 11,000 (although some are claiming they've moved a couple of crash barriers to make it 12,000+
Belle really bad Vue - 11,000

Haven't Cas and Wakey only sold out once in the relegation decided in recent years?

Salford are in.
Celtic are in.

End of topic.

since when?

maca fill us in with your vast knowledge of the subject

Clue is in the title, not much

Longy put money on it has he?

Ask Gleeson he might tell you

not necesarily, they never did when we played em before.

Much better than BV or the Jungle do though

Franchises. Dear oh dear.

Decided to transfer this to the proper thread for this discussion...

OK - Wigan's salary cap issue while not necessarily the best thing ever to happen to SL, to call the RFL corrupt because of how they dealt with the issue is taking it too far. Naive perhaps in thinking they could punish a team under one set of rules for a transgression that took place under a previous set of rules. I'm not a lawyer, but I believe that the Pies were legally advised as to the nature of their defence & I would imagine the RFL would have received legal advice as to the appropriate nature of the punishment. Yes it was inconvenient to us, but was it fair & just to punish Wigan a season too late for an offence? Probably not & realistically the current "in-season" monitoring of the cap is the best way IMO.

Why would you have Doncaster, Featherstone, Halifax ahead of Celtic in your race for a franchise? Because they are in the M62 corridor? Are you really going to get more fans on a regular basis going to watch Fev v Widnes or Celtic v Widnes? I suspect it will be pretty similar. Developing the areas outside the heartlands of the M62 corridor is essential to the long-term future of our game in the face of challenges from RU, football & the like - players coming through from Wales, Scotland, North East, South of Widnes & Ireland all deserve an opportunity to grow & develop playing the game & that takes place better with a top flight team & that is only good for the game but takes time to come through - there are 7 overseas players in the Harlequins squad this season (including Frenchman Julien Rinaldi) against our own 6!

Catalans relegation issue was one that was known & agreed as they entered the league. I'm not saying it was the fairest thing ever to happen to Widnes, but corrupt? No.

Incidentally, attendances at the HJ this season have seen fewer at the Quins & Cas games than at the Catalans. The attendance for Catalans being within a couple of hundred of those for Huddersfield & Wakefield, within 80 of that for the Hull KR game & nearly a thousand more than that for Bradford. That kind of blows your attendance argument out of the water doesn't it?