Many a true word and all that.

For all the risks associated with the Bridgend license there were at least some pros to go with the cons - eg. the growth of the community game there, the traditional connections between S Wales and RL, building on the foundations of the Magic weekends.

None of that applies to Wrexham, a soccer town with no significant rugby tradition.

As I see it, all that can be said in favour of the move is that they have a found a venue willing to take them and this on the strength of it being close to the RL heartlands such that the hosts can expect to attract plenty of away supporters.

But the same would have been true of a move to, say, Burnley, Barnsley or Grimsby.

Exactly.

Unfortunately, we as a sport are not wealthy enough to finance a lossmaking franchise in South Wales. Which is a shame because that's where the player pool is.

I don't see any real benefit to a north wales franchise, maybe I'm missing the point.

Hopefully a Championship 1 club on the Skolars model will be possible in S Wales.

As for a SL club and the player pool, RU manages to thrive at a community level in all sorts of corners of GB where they don't have a local Guinness Premiership team so there's no reason why South Wales can't continue to grow as a RL-playing area even without a SL Crusaders.

Perhaps the Crusaders should drop a division maybe two, stay in South Wales and generate the League game down there. South Wales is where all the Welsh players are and growth in the games lies.
Widnes to take their place in 2010 with a licence to 2015 as they will have a difficult two years if it is done at such short notice.

Good point. Defintely feel that they were put into Super League far too early.
If Crusaders were in the Championship I'd be looking at using the Welsh domestic league as a kind of springboard for players. Plenty of motivation for the amateur lads knowing that they could be chosen to make the step up to the Crusaders squad.

So basically we're all in favour of expansion so long as it is small and insignificant and doesn't ever grow bigger than or affect in any way our heartland clubs.

Celtic Crusaders in WERE small and insignificant. That's why they failed in the top flight.

If they had grown organically over a number of years and built up a core support of a couple of thousand or so they would have been better able to make the step up to Super League.

Apart from when they finished second in NL1 and averaged more than the likes of Leigh.

Dewsbury and Hunslet have both done well in playing terms in the Super League era but were never serious candidates for promotion.

I doubt that Celtic have ever had a larger core support than Leigh and even then there were plenty of Leythers prepared to admit that they weren't ready for SL based on the state of their club in 2008 (albeit that they were comfortably better suited than were Celtic).

Shame they're board, coach and Chairman weren't as sensible and gracious in defeat.
Truly embarrassing dummy spit.

Assuming you mean 2008, [url=http://championshipstats.rlfans.com/Co-operative-National-League-One-2008/index.htmlthese stats[/url, on this very site, tell a different story.

Best post on here in years.


But finished second without competing on a level playing field; success can only be measured when it is managed on the same terms as their rivals. As for your last comment, are you on glue?

Quite a few freebie tickets as well in those stats.

Were there?

Any proof of any free tickets given away other than the co-operative tickets that were given to all clubs when on TV?

Take out the two unrepresentative crowd figures, the Featherstone and Widnes games, and you get a true picture of the level of core home support.

Likewise the Widnes average for the year is distorted by the abnormal figure for the Salford match.

A look at the attendances of other clubs (eg. Leigh and Halifax) shows a more consistent range of figures.

Didn't quite a few clubs with Super League aspirations give away and/or heavily discount tickets?

Ignoring the original question then?

I can understand the Featherstone game but how was the Widnes game unrepresentative?

We were standing amongst some Newport Gwent Dragons RU supporters in the 'crowd' at Rodney Parade.

They told us they were given tickets FREE/GRATIS/NO CHARGE by the club because they were worried about a small crowd

Because it was more than double the usual average and was therefore a statistical blip (doubtless swelled by a 2,000 travelling army of Vikings fans!).

If you are looking at strategic planning it is wise not to base projections on exceptional items like that one.

The remaining figures gave a truer indication of the level of support Crusaders were likely to be able to rely on in Super League.

And what season was that again Dumb Barrie?

Widnes did not bring anywhere near 2,000 here.

Very disappointing numbers in fact for such a big club.

The one just gone.... as you well know.

Remember?

Its when Leeds gave you a tonking and most of the Celtic supporters wandered off back to Newport train station after 50 mins

So why was that game watched by 2,200 more people than the 1,400 average for Crusaders other home games?

Are Widnes are really such a huge box office attraction?

The bottom line is that the support base was nowhere near big enough to justify the step up to Super League in 2009. Many people saw the truth in that last year. Presumably everybody does now.

And that has a relevance to discussions regarding the season in National League 1 because???

Keep up Barry me old mucka, think you've got a bit of Veggiemite lodged in that brain of yours.

That supporters base was larger than Harlequins this season despite us having a dreadful season in comparison to them.

Shall we kick them out too?