Interestingly enough I was in Auckland (sorry GF I would have told ya to look at the Vulcans game on telly) for our game yesterday and had conversations with three people who were all involved with London at some point and were at the ground. 2 were players, one was in the back room staff. Interesting to note that one player and the staff member both said at different times that Rob Powell was actually a good coach. The other player was Richie Barnett who was there long before Powell.

As I said at the time, we fans can only judge coaches on the match results, without knowing how good a coach is.

Boosty...hope you can watch Monday Night with Matty Johns tonight...Craig Glower is going to be on it.

I miss The Footy Show...so bad, it was really good.

I would think the majority of players in the Championship or those earning less than £25k on the outer fringes of top clubs would join us for a relatively modest £50k salary, especially as the club operates a portfolio of shared houses, which would be fine for a younger man and be sufficiently attractive.

The key would be to work out which players are better than what we have and unlikely to ever be a first team regular at their existing club. Keinhorst at Leeds, George Williams at Wigan and the Evans twins at Wire are all players with potential and talent.

There is always talent to be discovered and the next Rob Purdham to be found

Not really had any luck so far, though Mark.

We've given lots of players in the lower leagues chances (which is to our credit) but sadly, few have made the grade (in fact, can only think of Purdo at the mo).

Even Andy Ellis is back in the Championship.

Bring back Jonny G and Big Mick (actually, what's happened to Mick Nanyn? Anyone know?)

Got injured in a pre season game 18 months ago after he went to Halifax from Leigh. He played for Fax under 20's last week and kicked 5. Hope he makes it back. Great kicker and would be a better centre than some we have now.

Ah, that's good to hear (that he's playing again, I mean).

Always one of me favourites...sad he didn't make it down here.

Hiya mate, it is true we have not been good at acquiring players but it is all about recognising who is really good before it is common knowledge and clubs move to secure them. We have to get better at this. We got rid of Phil Bailey so Rea is on his own. He has discovered players in the past and he is intelligent so I think he will do well again.

I admire some of the optimism here. But for someone like GeorgeWilliams, brought up in the very professional hyper competitive Wigan youth programme, I can't see what would impress him about the Broncos set up. Just looking at some of the fat lazy slobs employed by London would put anyone off, never mind the Fred Karno set up of the club.

You really don't get it do you. Really good players are unlikely to want to join a club who are (i) struggling badly and (ii) can only offer a short term deal. Any players such as those you describe are likely to wait and see what other offers they get.

True but there appears that nearly everyone on this forum just assume the club will fold either at the end of this year or at the end of 2014. That may well be the case but we are not privy to discussions the club may have with the RFL or others.

In addition the 'we are crap no one will join us' syndrome appears to have taken over. If we do continue into the future with a decent clear out creating the financial scope in the budget there is an opportunity to change the attitude of the club for the better. Year long loans from NRL (Feliti Mateo any one?) and UK clubs could fill a number of gaps.

Plus someone at the Broncos needs to put their foot down regards the cap and stick some sort of London Weighting that wasn't included in the cap.

I suppose next year is a very big if. But if we do get another year then i have a lot of t time for what Mark says, the points i would stress/add are:

1. Keep Bailey if at all possible, one of the few players to come out with any credit this year
2. Personally i would give Dorn another year because he still scores tries and we have little else to offer
3. Use the £600k as sensibly as possible - yes one year contracts but with options for extensions
4. Please get some decent props and centres
5. get a new fitness coach

i sympathise with those who have had enough of us up North (i am from there), but i think we desrve one last chance, and a miracle wembley experience - our semi-final opponents (i know we have to beat Sheffield) succumb to food poisoning and can only field their under 16 team................................................

London Broncos have exactly the same overseas allowance as teams like Wigan, Hull and Leeds.

Crusaders had pretty much unlimited overseas players.
Catalans are allowed to play as many as they want, though choose to have half a team of French.
Gateshead Thunder had unlimited overseas players.

How are we a Heartlands club? We should be the same as Catalans.

I agree.
However without a substantial London weighting we are never going to attract players as good as the Northern clubs - who themselves are struggling to bring any decent players over now because of the bigger income in oz now and the stronger $aus.

If all we can get is young aus players who are just young reservist on small money we will continue so ship tries as we are now with these young London players who cant defend because their bodies arent fully developed yet.

I'm not against a London weighting of the SC but raising the salary cap wouldn't mean that there was more money to pay players. The club survives on the smallest crowds, by far, in the league and its investor is (reportedly) looking to scale back his investment. Where does the money come from?

I don't think it fair to compare London (30+ years in existence) to new clubs. You aren't heartlands but you aren't a new club either.

The argument might have some credibility if we spent the existing cap wisely and got the best out of the players we have.

Easy to say we've been around for thirty years but its only since Super League that any structure to player development of local players has started to take place. Even then we spent most of the first 10 years as many people liked to point out as an Aussie outpost. Really development work only really started to become apparent from 2006 onwards. In addition the club started before the Conference was created which ensured amateur teams had a junior network. Crusaders and Gateshead started after that so there was already some concerted amateur work going on in those areas. So yes as a comparison we should still be classed as a new club. Should we have unlimited overseas imports - probably not but a little extra might enable us to bring the younger players into a more positive winning environment.

XIII Catalan were founded in 1935 and have a good catchment area for players with the French National competition having many clubs around them and the ability to only pick players through want rather than to fulfill the rules.

We have no choice but to persist with players who come through the system but the likes of St Helens and Wigan are now cherry picking leaving us with the dross who we must play anyway. I'm not aware of a good young player being snared from Catalans?

Although the Crusaders were newer, they were based in Wrexham only around 30 miles from the likes of Widnes, Warrington, St Helens, Wigan, Salford and the many Championship Northern clubs. They needed help in Bridgend because they were geographically isolated like us and Gateshaed.

The nearest Super League club to London Broncos is 187 miles away in Wakefield, which is a four hour round trip via rail and which would cost £125 a day if someone was prepared to make this trip daily.

There are no Championship clubs in the south either.

We are geographically isolated from the rest with no accessible player pool.

Our only realistic chance of signing good proven players is to be allowed to tap the non international Australian market as we used to be and/or extending the salary cap with a London weighting.

We could then have a similar ruling to Catalans.

But the trolls from the North would rather we fold I think than have any reasonable concessions.

I agree with much of what you say but I'll quibble about development work. There was more development work in London when Broncos started up than in Gateshead when they began. The RLC hadn't started but there was a London League; for Gateshead there was basically nothing.

My first reply disappeared into the ether so this one will be short.

Clearly London are not a heartlands side and yes you've been in a difficult situation most of your existence. But I think rules have to be considered on a merit basis rather than "If Catalans / Crusaders / Gateshead had this right then we should have it too".

There are no championship clubs on your doorstep but there are three in championship 1. There are lots of good youngsters in the area but the club don't have the finances to keep them. I agree that London is a special case with respect to the salary cap but I don't think an extension would help you keep those players - the club has rarely been able to spend the full salary cap.

I think the days when semi-decent Australasian players would come over here are over. With or without an extension, you won't be able to recruit origin players but tbf I don't think the northern clubs can either.

If the half decent overseas players aren't coming any more due to the NRL salary cap rise and the best local juniors are being picked up by other clubs/union then it leaves London with the scraps which is clearly unsustainable.

It seems to me that there are four options:

1. If the owner can afford it allow a London weighting to the salary cap in order to keep homegrown players and compete for others.
2. If the money isn't there relax the overseas quota to allow a bit more leeway for overseas signings (such as they are) but this is less likely to have much effect.
3.Get some sort of finance from elsewhere RFL/SKY/SL/A new backer. Can't see much chance of this happening.
4. Do nothing and see club go to the wall or come back as a national league team like Skolars and lose a top flight club in the capital.

I suspect the problem comes down to money. If the owner can't or won't invest what's needed to keep/recruit a better squad and to properly market the club then you're doomed to limp on until it goes tits up. Having been in this situation at the Bulls I know what a pi55er it is.

Get the RFL or SKY to help - what a joke. The RFL refused to grant us London Weighting which would have been fairer to the salary caps and the amount if costs to live in LONDON. SKY are an even bigger joke, how can you say we have a fair playing field with them, we have been on SKY once this season plus the magic weekend. Teams up north get a massive amount of free advertising their games are always on TV and advertised as the game next weekend is leeds v wigan etc. We are never on there, we get no free advertising because of this and it certianly doesnt help to let people know we are around when we never get mentioned. Some would say it is a blessing in disguise this season but this is every season with the RFL and SKY it is not a one off. Fair play with these two outlets is a joke. We are on our own always have been and I cannot see it changing. I wish outsiders would see and relaise LONDON get no free rides from anyone.

Yes, there seems still to be general acceptance that we're in SL because Sky insisted on it. Well, that may have been the case in the early days but it obviously isn't now. They do their little features about London's quirkinesses - Two Albanians and such like but there's never any analysis of our situation.

Plenty of injuries to some of our higher-profile (albeit not very effective) imports but seldom mentioned. Everybody was repeatedly told that Saints were missing 8 or 9 first choice players when we beat them, but we were missing an almost unmentioned half a dozen or so, on top which, three of Saints absentees were self-inflicted due to suspensions. Grrrr ... Rant over, but I think it shows that there's no special Sky interest in London now, if there were, the commentators would be directed to lay it on about our difficulties.