Halifax met the criteria, Wakefeild didn't, yet Wakefeild are in. If Leigh meet the criteria in 3 years time, will we get rejected because of some RFL bias?

Who actually wants the licensing? Is it working? Historic teams like Leigh, Halifax ect... are crumbling away in National League 1, I say we bring back promotion and relegation!

Should we really take any notice of you.?

The Co-Operative Championship*** are you mature enough to see my point though?

It says something when you can't even get the leagues name right, so no we have no chance, you yourself have proven that.

How do we know if we'll get in or not?.
If its a three year process why is the new sl tv deal for five years?.
If wakey and cas are not in new stadia by the end of 2013 will the rfl exercise there right to throw them out and replace them with a couple of other hard working clubs?.
If leigh and fax keep improving then we'll both be better clubs than them so it will be irrelevent if they are replaced.
Then youv'e got the Quins question.

Listening to Dicky Lewis in his SKY interview on Boots N All site, he used the words "liciencing" and "rules" directly after one another, when asked about wether Halifax had met the criteria and Wakefield had broken the rules of liciencing. The next part of his setence directly after those words was "could be revoked at any point". Is he being clever or stupid? Does he he mean a licience could be revoked at any point or the rules to obtain a licience could be revoked at any point? One other thing, does he always look do down in the dumps or do you think he is under severe preasure?

It would help if these licensing rules were either on line or in booklet form somewhere so people can have a look at them would it not?

Exactly Fred then everyone would be able to work out what they had done right or wrong. But as happened last time everyone went into this knowing that the RFLs decision is final and you have no right to query the outcome. Stalin ran a more open society.

If you write them down then people might actually try to hold you to them. It's much better kept in your head so you can smudge them when you need. That tends to be the RFL way.

That's not true.

Both clubs met the criteria it's just that Wakey had broken the old rules but not the new rules that no one knew about 'cause they changed the old rules to the new rules and told ...well no one it would appear, see clear as mud

Could it / would it stand up to an appeal?? or in court??

How could a court of law be involved in a sporting organisations operational rules ?

The RFL decision is final wether one agrees with it or not.

Why have criteria and rules if they don't stick to them? I prefer promotion and relegation, makes the bottom of Super League more competative whilst giving more incentives to Championship clubs to gain promotion

Is our recent "breach of the rules" (albeit a "technical breach"icon_wink.gif going to impact on the right to apply for the next round of licences?.......or will that be another one of those fuzzy areas were the RFL will apply their own interpretation - based on what SKY's demands are at the time??

I want to shot down on this so feel free, i'll ask a question to see if i'm coming at his completely wrong.

If by having franchising it makes the clubs develop their academy in a way they haven't been doing in the old P&R days and it brings through more kids, too many in fact so that we have more 'good' players than positions would this lead to more teams eventually in SL, if we could genuinely find another 2 teams worth of talent to put in to say Halifax and Leigh so that they could compete in SL and not just get smashed every week would franchising eventually lead to the improvement of the game and inable a 16 team SL?

Edited to reflect the school of thought in 1996.....

Well it is a nice thought and reminds me of why Superleague was introduced all those years ago. Well we are now a long way behind Oz and NZ and the idea that the current CARTEL would agree to an approx 11% reduction in their TV money is fanciable at the very least.

Maybe the way forward would be to limit the amount of overseas players a team is allowed to sign then home grown talent would have to fill that gap.

Look at footie. Premiership Clubs are able to sign who they like. They never have visa problems with players registrations and our National side cannot compete with Moldova.

I don't think there's enough talent to justify 14 teams to be honest, never mind 16. If kids are good enough then they will get their chance regardless of franchising, but there needs to be a much tighter quota, something that has certainly played a part in our league losing a lot of imports without any less in quality or competition.

If there is so much talent then why are SL teams still signing expensive Aussie and Kiwi's?

And kill of what would be left of the Championships , sorry but you cannot just keep increasing the number of teams in your premier competition , 14 is the optimum number , any more and you have to start messing about with the fixtures which removes credibility , you'd get away with two less , but no more

At the end of the day the closing of the gap is what is needed , then a return to P and r

Why does everyone keep saying that there is a lack of tallent in the lower leagues and in the amature game to sustain so many top flight teams. The reason that SL teams buy overseas is because SL and to some extent our leagues have grown the football fan mentality of "we need to buy in transfere window or we are knackered". This is partly to appease the fans and investors which bring money into the clubs. It is also presumed a safe bet that signing a player who has played in the NRL is going to be a super star over here. As we have seen not always true. There are only so many places in the SL academies and reserves. There is not a single person who can say who or how a player will perform under full time training and coaching. There isn't a chance or a very slim chance for any young player getting to their full potential because our leagues have been restricted with lack of investment from the top. Que the SL fans, " why should we pay for you lot to catch up?". Well I'll tell you why. Because there won't be an SL without the lower leagues thats why. Take the blinkers off.

I have said on our messageboard that I have serious doubts (I always did) that the RFL have the bottle to demote a SL club, Crusaders got Fat Controller Nigel and tennis elbow Lewis off the hook.
You need two things to oil the greasy wheels of the RFL and get into SL, one is money and lots of in the form of a sugar daddy and the other is having a face that fits.
I fear you are like us not blessed with either and even if you did get a money bags in they will still look at you as a heartland club and that will go against you.

Put it this way you may dot every i and cross every t but come judgement day they will have changed the rules to out manouevre you, so it is a waste of time.
I thought the Soviet Union was broken up years ago, this lot are just like them.

Good post.

there's a rumour going the rounds that Harry Gration has been disciplined for giving Ralph Rimmer a 'hard time' when interviewing him last week on Yorky Look North West.