Honest assesment from Cullen and a message to any other Championship club thinking about coming up.

[urlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/17859720[/url

Is it time to shut the door once and for all? Has the Widnes experience so far this season sounded the death knell for clubs hoping to elevate? It's a tall order as SL clubs have a massive advantage having slowly strengthened their squad base to adapt to life inside SL. Never say never but any club (especially without a backer) must be off its rocker to want to try life in the fast lane. It's time for Championship clubs to stop bleating (not all of them do mind) and get on with improving their lot, rather than looking towards the land of milk and honey (or Bradford marmalade).

To be fair, Widnes were miles behind most of the clubs in the championship as well!!

You are a very naughty boy!

Go and sit in the corner and self flagellate with a wet copy of the RL Express.





It's just becoming harder and harder to make the jump. I think we can expect some of the bottom SL clubs to suggest just such a thing.

We should be trying to find ways to keep the door open ie. making the championship as competetive as possible.
Either this or change the lower league clubs into formal feeder clubs. We already have many of the younger players on dual reg. contracts and this may be the next step.

Personally, I prefered the old promotion/ relegation system but, because of the massive difference between the top 2 divisions an automatic one up/ one down doesn't work at
present.

Formal feeder clubs would be the death of the lower divisions.

"Loaning" players because you [iwant[/i to is quite different to loaning players because you [ihave[/i to.

Feeder clubs would simply be a means of reducing the wage bill of an SL club and would result in a complete lack of interest from the fans. Clubs are struggling to get fans through the door as it is without telling them they are going to watch someone else's under 21 side.

Hmmm,

It looks to me as if Paul Cullen is simply making excuses for his own failings. I really cannot see how money paid to Brad Drew years ago contributed to the hiding Widnes took at the Galpharm earlier this season.



Wakefield have made at least as substantial a squad restructure this year, whilst they may only have a couple more points, they are much more competitive. Furthermore Wakey only had from July to shape their squad.

I agree to an extent that coming up and immediatly challenging at the top of the league is a big ask, but the nature of many of Widnes defeats (thrashings) is down to poor Rugby management - Cullen & Betts

I agree. The RFL should come out and say there will be no more clubs from the CC being "promoted" to SL. They should even kick the basket case clubs out of SL. Reduce to a league of 10.

CC salary cap should be reduced further as well. If clubs want to become feeder teams to SL sides then that should be alowed as well as clubs who want to stay independant.

The Challenge Cup should be for SL sides only.

Admission fees for the CC will be able to come down as well. No one should have to pay £18 to sit down and watch part time rugby.

Either that or have the CC salary to match the higher SL one. If clubs go bust, tough. Its their own fault.

That being the case, why bother having a salary cap at all?

Well seen as Widnes got given a THREE YEAR license and not a TWELVE GAME license people need to stop expecting miracles there. Several seasons ago Catalans propped up the table and look where the club is now. Crusaders made a big leap ON FIELD AT LEAST from 1st season to 2nd. The whole point of a 3 year license is time so why don't people want to give them that time???

Good point.

But if they there were to do that and clubs in SL had one, it wouldnt be fair when SL clubs play against a CC who had an unlimited cap.

I think logic would dictate that if it was deemed there was ‘no point’ in the championships having a salary cap, it would have to be deemed there was no point in the SL having an SC

Maybe it's worth remembering that if we had the old method of promotion and relegation, Widnes wouldn't have been promoted.

Indeed. Personally I think Halifax or Fev would have made a better fist of things on the field but Fev haven't the ground at the moment and conspiracy theorists would say that 'Fax are too near Bradford to be allowed in and Bradford are a paragon of good management ....... oh, hang on a minute

split SL into 2, 10 sides leauges with P&R between them. Licensing rules still apply and if you go into administration you are put into the championship

I think all Widnes' failings in SL indicate is that they have a poor on-field set-up. Just because Widnes are failing and have lots of money doesn't mean that a team with less money wouldn't be able to do a better job.

Widnes need to start appointing the right people in the right places. Featherstone appear to have it all right at the moment.

This. The reason Widnes were given a three year license was that they were playing catch up this year. They had the opportunity to start building for this year since last March. Widnes objective this season was be as competitive as possible, continue their youth development. The problem is their performances and defence. The defence against Saints in the cup was an embarrassment and shouldn't have been anywhere near Saints in that game. Widnes were always going to get a few hammerings, but they are getting them every week and thats not good enough.

Unfortunately it's looking that this year won't be used as building block, but one Widnes need to scrap all together.

The problem is, they didn't. They were only allowed to talk to players in September, same as every other club. So unless they fielded a team of antipodeans, they were always going to struggle to raise a team of the right skill level for this season because there was no flexibility on the rules for recruitment of British players. And their coach was recruiting from a Championship perspective, which would have been harder to do (assessing what level of skill the players need to compete). Furthermore, how many top dog players want to go to the new club on the block? Relatively few I should think.

The staff will have a better idea of the players available and what standard of player they require this time around.

Thats a little naive.
They can't officially talk to players, but everyone knows that agents and clubs are in talks for months.

My point was though that they had no advantage over other clubs in spite of being told of the decision concerning their licence in the March. So that lead in time made no difference to them.

Good point.

From what I hear on Try Time SO'C - or maybe Betts, I forget - was saying that they had two main problems with recruitment: that some of the available players were wary of coming to a team that was going to struggle, when they could be paid the same or more at a club with more chance of success; and that some of the available players (Aussie journeymen, I shouldn't wonder) were asking for inflated salaries to come to a club where there was so much work to be done. So they went for players they thought would work hard to get the club up to SL speed, and would be willing to go through the struggling early days. Some of that recruitment has worked well (e.g. Ah Van) - some not so much (Moore).

They're not doing great, so far - but I think it's too early to chuck out licensing.

I'm happy widnes got back into SL because of what had gone on in previous years but after borrowing a few players for a month to win the NR cup and buy a tick in the box they did a grand total of nothing to improve on the pitch for the next two and a half seasons. They were pitiful in the championship.

They did nothing to develop their first team squad over the last year or two so anyone who saw them regularly in that period won't be overly surprised to see them getting whacked now. You can't buy a side in 4 months but you can spend a year or two investing and developing a half decent one and then strengthen it in the close season ready to hit SL running.

But, they didn't, they got the tick early doors and sat back making great strides off the pitch which are commendable, but nowt on it. Watching Leigh who were and still are miles behind them on so many fronts put 100 past them in two games after they were awarded their SL place was an embarrassment to the sport.

I agree 100% but all the above was done to tick all the boxes that the RFL required to join SL.

Yes, we all know that a RL club has to be run as a business but you also need to hang onto the basic concept that it is also a sport and part of the entertainment business and if you don't entertain then you have a failed business even if you manage to balance the books.

I don't blame Widnes, I blame the system. We all know that the old system had it's faults but so does the current system and it certainly needs a rethink.

Couldn't agree more.

I dont think it helped promoting a team who were obviously not even the best tesm in the league they were in. saying that they've got 3 years to try and improve.

I could have sworn I read that the RFL have already said a Championship club would be put into SL in 2015?