Quote ="jaybs"I get sick of all this that Wrexham is too close to Widnes, rubbish! no one in Wrexham think of themselves as anything but Welsh!'"
I was at this game, and I wouldn't have said the atmosphere was "superb". In fact it was one of the quietest 10,000 strong crowds I've been in for a long time. Not surprising as almost everyone present was either an away fan, a neutral, or someone watching their first RL game. If it sounded "better" on Sky that's probably down to their sound engineers trying to make the whole event appear more sexy and exciting.
The ground at Wrexham is very good and I had an excellent view from a modern cantilever-roofed stand. Despite one end being closed pending redevelopment it's certainly much better than the Brewery Field at Bridgend. Which begs the question of why the RFL, in its visionary far-sightedness, didn't award a licence to a Wrexham-based club instead of a South Wales-based one at the outset.
I was never especially in favour of or against the licence system in the first place; my main gripe over the whole thing is that the RFL set out a very clear (and controversial) plan for how it wanted to develop the club game at the highest level in Britain and Europe, but now seems to have backtracked with remarkable speed when it's "pet project" flopped spectacularly within the first few months. As I understood it, the licence system was supposed to promote steady development at a sensible pace and allow clubs who fulfilled most of an array of criteria to remain in Superleague indefinitely as long as they demonstrated a commitment to long-term progress. Crusaders - who accrued the lowest points total on the pitch of any Superleague team since Leigh in 2005 - appeared the ideal case to benefit from this commitment, yet it went spectacularly pear-shaped off the field and the RFL has bent over backwards to throw them a lifeline when it's clear they themselves are at fault for not vetting the club properly in the first place.
All this stuff about "expansion areas" and grass roots RL in those areas has been exposed as a load of old ballcocks, as it's clear than anyone putting up a load of money and offering a decent stadium in which to base a team can get in regardless of whether or not there's any history of RL being played in the area at any level. Let's take it a step further - suppose Wakefield's new stadium falls through - will they be allowed to relocate southwards to, say, Notts County's ground and abbreviate their name to "Trinity Wildcats" with a snazzy new black & white striped kit? It's like going back to the post-Fulham days of the 80's when all sorts of clubs sprang up beyond the heartlands. Alright if that's going to be acceptable fair enough, but the RFL should be straight about it instead of persisting with their now discredited licencing system.