Last year, I wrote that I thought there was a real stench of death around the Broncos. Pretty much every aspect of the club was in serious decline, both on and off the field. More importantly though, because all clubs go through bad times (and my signature strip is a reminder that other clubs have had worse hammerings just one stage earlier in the challenge cup), it seemed like there wasn't even an attempt to get the adrenaline shot out.

When Wigan hit the rocks, you could see they did everything (including cheating) to pull themselves back up. When Bradford hit last year the local community, fans, coach and players clearly were trying everything to steady the ship. When Huddersfield and Widnes had their respective periods of doldrums, they put the metaphorical boats out with a towline and kept rowing till they got the wind in their sails again.

But London - nothing. No new owner, no effort from the players, no sign of any significant attempt to arrest the calamitous fall in support. It's like a zombie club. Apart from a hardcore few hundred fans, there's simply no sign of passion, determination or even that anyone cares. Hughes has let it be known he's retiring. The Clubb captain has thrown in the towel publicly. The chief exec seems to write his rare announcements by using a random word-generating machine, and has precisely no plan for next year. The fans are turning black humour and despair into an art form. The players aren't even pretending to care - Dorn actually ran away from O'Loughlin today when he broke the line, and I can't watch the highlights of London games because I see "tackling" from pro players every week which is of a significantly worse standard than I see in most of the amateur games I referee around the city.

I know London is a special case - I've been actively involved in rugby league in the city now for more than 20 years - and I know it's harder than it is up north, with fewer committed fans, or local businessmen with an interest. But there's no energy. No sign that anyone, from any part of the club, is injecting any real desire to improve. The whole club feels like an ER room when a DoA case is brought in. People are going through the motions, but nobody is going to waste sweat on this one.

For the first time, I no longer believe the London club is going to survive. In fact, it would not surprise me at all if London folded at the end of this season. Everything about the club is currently pointing that way. There's no fight left. There are no strong statements about the future. There are no ambitious goals or forceful personalities. The corpse is barely twitching.

Is it dead yet ? Is there any light ? Or are we all going to have to accept the end of Fulham/Crusaders/Quins RL/Broncos ?

RH I fear you may well be correct.

It would be a tragedy to throw away 33 years of effort. When I think back to some of the effort and heart put in by players in the so called dark days at Crystal Palace and then compare that with what was on display yesterday it's sickening. Forget the club's situation for a minute but the way it looked to me yesterday most of the players had no personal pride. To me no matter how lowly or hopeless the task people should endeavour to retain their self-dignity. Yesterday it seemed to me that most had no self-respect and to me that shows as people they are not up to being successful sportsmen. They should get other jobs.

A special word must go to the coaching staff as well. The team looked wholly uncoached in every respect - fitness, defence, offence and just even how to line up. In my opinion, it takes a special level of ineptitide to produce that or perhaps to demotivate the 'players' so much that they end up producing it.

O'Callaghan at stand off was a classic, do you really expect to win games with that type of selection.

Nope, that was quite ridiculous. Is it true David Hughes so disgusted he didn't watch the second half ?

That's what has been reported in the sun, I wouldn't be surprised, he's pumped several million into the club and they come up with that rubbish.

Really feel for you "die hard" guys... You deserve more.

I will be amazed if there is a London club in Super League next season. As the Broncos were being demolished yesterday, I was ironically at the home ground of the Broncos from the good old days - The Valley.

Me and my kiwi mate are going on Thursday just for the fact we both think it'll probably be the last game of Super League we get to in London.

A real shame.

Hudds to come after Leeds get to that too!!

I'm hearing there are investors interested. From someone at the top

The top of where?

The club, where do you think the tree in my back garden!!

Even if there is, its unlikely that they'll avoid relegation next season.

Feel sorry for you guys. I love the away day to London, especially the stoop. But there comes a time when you need to look at this objectively, and it doesn't look good; both on and off the field.

No top level team can get 2-3k a game, it is not sustainable and I feel sorry for the owner who has put a lot of money into the club.

What about the best team in the league with 5K crowds

If there are where on earth will they recruit players from now. Most teams will have completed recruitment of the good available players for next season. We cant persuade quality players to move south there are restrictions on overseas players we can recruit, the money in the NRL is now a big problem and any decent players that might come will surely head North before coming here.

Maybe we have players signed up but not announced. They've not said who is leaving, equally they have not said who is coming in

Just a thought

Just worries me that Rea may have signed them up! if that is true!

I think you're clutching at straws, my friend.

The only time Broncos have been competitive was when they had a team full of decent quality antipodeans (with the unique situation of both Edwards and Offiah wanting to live in London at the same time). Since the removal of the import exemption, it's been downhill all the way. Partly that's because many/most northern RL players seem to have what could possibly be termed "narrow horizons" when it comes to moving away from their mum's home cooking, but it's also about the fact that an RL player's wage goes an awful lot further in Bradford than in Brentford. Couple that with the problem which the whole league is now facing, which is that it is the lowest paying of all the pro rugby competitions, whether Union or League, and you have a perfect storm.

The first possible rescue here would be for the league to abandon the salary cap just at the same time as London find an Eamon McManus, Koukash or Richard Branson figure, who has bottomless pockets and a long-term commitment. It's not likely.

The second, which to be fair, London have been trying, is to develop your own players. Unfortunately, as even Saints - with all their advantages - have found, for every dozen players you develop through your academy, you'll be lucky if one becomes a genuine game-changer, as opposed to an identikit solid-but-unremarkable second-row. London have sadly run out of time for this solution.

However, I think the malaise goes deeper than just that. London did identify some decent players, and they did buy in some proven quality from Australia. But none of those players are playing remotely as well as they theoretically could. This has remained the case now from McDermott through Powell and now Rea, so I don't think it's necessarily about coaching. In fact I think it's really telling that Noble refused to take the job, even when he could have had it. Noble isn't a thick man, and he recognised that while London might - on paper - have better players than Salford, the fact was that Salford as a club have an energy and life about them which suggests that there is a future which players can be persuaded to strive for. London, on the other hand, is a walking corpse.

Rugby league is a hard game, and players have to do physically risky things which in other walks of life would be considered insane. For that, it helps a lot if there's a sense of purpose. That purpose can come from a decent-sized and passionate crowd, the fear of financial or status loss through replacement in the team, or a chance of success. IT can also come from the sense that there is a good future ahead, and the player is part of something going forward. None of those things are present at London, and haven't been for the best part of a decade now. It's all very well appealing to a player's professionalism, but the extra few percentages which win you games at the top level require more than just some innate journeyman professionalism. People need hope to throw themselves at the legs of a charging prop. They need to feel that there's a chance that sacrifice has purpose. This is the same whether the club is amateur or professional. Even the worst amateur club will find its training numbers increase and its on-field effort lift when there's a chance of some poxy shield in the losers' competition, while the strongest team will find it's short-staffed and often beaten by lesser opposition if the players perceive the game as being without meaning, or have a sense of a club winding down.

London has that sense in spades. The last games I attended at the Stoop felt like I was at a closing down sale in Blackpool in November. There was no sense that this was a place anybody actually wanted to be. There was no hope of a victory, and there was no clear indication that there would even be a future. Just lots of people, players and fans, going through the motions because they didn't really know what else to do.

I hope there's a big announcement in the next week. I hope one of those overcompensated rich s from the City remembers he was originally from Leeds or Wigan, used to enjoy a game of rugby league as a kid, and notices that he can make London the richest club in the UK with half of his annual bonus. I hope a new ground is announced, and a bunch of new players to give a sense of going forward, as opposed to decaying inertia.

However, I suspect we're still looking at the end of London Broncos in a couple of months' time.

Would agree with most of Roy Haggerty's post, except the bit about "lots of people".....,

Did just a thought not give it away?

Roy, The Academy system is starting to work at London, but the players are raw and as I said earlier, too many young London players are being bigged up by whoever is their agent or manager!

The St Helens system is not perfect, I agree we have signed some lumps from Australia but so have Saints, over the past few years! if the St Helens system was so good they would not have taken McCarthy-Scarisbrook from us, and reportedly interested in Clubb? or would need to loan a player off Warrington. The Academy system is producing far too many lightweights, but Clubs going into teams of all age groups have weakened the once strong youth leagues in the North, which supplied a lot of top players.

Rugby League currently are getting so much wrong, the changes they made to the youth system at clubs, dual registration and now Woods wants to pit the lower teams in a split league system, how are clubs still semi pro going to be able to play all of a sudden week in week out with Super League Clubs. Attendances at Challenge Cup games are in crisis! Huddersfield Giants who are doing so well and are are top of the league, struggling with attendances of 5,000 and we still can't attract major sponsors financially.

Yes we have got problems in London, which the RFL should have helped with, like they did with Bradford, but it's time also to look at the other serious problems in the game, which clubs seems to have their heads in the sand about! London is just a nicr diversion!

Not sure which thread to post in but just wanted to say all the best to London's fans.

They deserve this no more than the Bradford fans deserve this nonsense and stress.