The scoring system you refer to was not used last time around. The method used was far less obvious and transparent.

Really? Is that a bolted on fact or just your opinion? Which clubs didn't get in that should have in your opinion? Widnes? They had the strongest case for being miffed but reacted with dignity and as such, their standing in RL communities went up. They will be admitted in the next round of licence applications IMO.
Or are you a fan of Leigh? When it comes to dummy spits, the reaction of leigh and their board was a disgrace. Who else do you think should have got in? Fev? Fax? 2lose?....none of these clubs were in a position that was stronger then the clubs below. Celtic got in on the expansion ticket and from the people I have spoken to who have actually visited Bridgend, they are a welcome addition to the comp and will get stronger....maybe not as quickly as Catalans but most assuredly faster than it has taken us in London.
Just to jog your memory...below are the licences that were issued:
A licences:
Leeds, Hull FC and Wire
B licences:
Bulls Saints Wigan
C Licences:
Castleford Tigers, Catalans Dragons , Celtic Crusaders, Harlequins , Hull KR , Huddersfield Giants
Salford City Reds , Wakefield Trinity Wildcats

Now, I would expect that Quins were warned about their lack of crowds and it is well documented elsewhere that some Stadiums were promised and have yet to be delivered, but I believe that the RFL will expand the league next time to 16 teams and Widnes and 2lose will get the nod. We will then be treated to another dummy spit along the lines of:

Allan Rowley, Chief Executive - "May we take this opportunity to wish Salford and Celtic all the best but we also have to say we are thoroughly disgusted with the Celtic decision. We now have a team that fielded 10 overseas players against us because they are classed as a development team and are now in our elite competition, which is a complete contradiction of terms and we feel this decision is purely a geographical one...the decision makers should hang their heads in shame"

When this numpty was waffling on about the 10 overseas players, he really must have been suffering from short term memory loss....as his clubs 1 trip to SL was with a squad with 10 overseas players and they managed a massive total of 5 points that year.....that's a real contribution to the game

It's true. The published criteria (and any mods therefof) will be used "strictly" for the next round onwards. SKY continuously mislead people into believing the points system was in place for 2009. The categories (4no. I recall) were listed but not any weighting or "points".

I heard that the criteria was from 2012 onwards too.
I can understand the chairmans frustration, I don't personally agree with him but this lark about we've got to stay tight lipped when we have an opinion or forever be ridiculed is daft.
The bloke is entitled to his opinion.

...really? Leigh bring so much to the table I suspect Leeds or Wigan will be ejected next time to make way for them


I hope they go down. A trip the the skolars will soon take the arrogant pr1ck down another few pegs

I do not think he is leigh fan to be honest, and thanks for wanting us to go down

alright...I don't want you to go down, but I tell you what, the amount of b0ll0x conspiracy theories spouted by some fans of clubs that deserve to be in SL is amazing. Facts are that apart from keighly having a grudge with us when we replaced them in 1996 and Widnes going down when the frogs finshed below them, no other team has a valid arguement. Leigh were relegated and they didn't have a strong enough bid to get in ahead of Celtic last time. Everyone knew the taffs would get the nod and it's just typical sour grapes that did the club no favours for any future bid........

Dont want to get in to a disagrement with you but i believe from what i heard we had a very good bid but not good enough for us to get in fair enough. But i think rightly or wrongly what was said was what a few others wanted to say but did not have the bottle to say all in my opinion of course good luck for the rest of the season

You do realise that he was reffering to Celtic having 10 overseas players in NL 1 , a competition with a quota of ONE

And as has also been revealed since had the owner and chairman of Celtic Crusaders openly admitting he was paying these players through his company despite this being against NL and SL salary cap rules

So his dissapointment did have a base of some facts

HTH



As for our contribution to SL , well you are right , it was not good , in fact a lot worse than Celtic , they have 1 whole point more than we had at this point in time , this despite them having 3 months longer to prepare and no relegation to be concerned about

I'm sure next season we will see less overseas players playing for Celtic as they adopt the well proven principles of crowd exapnsion demonstrated by the London club of moving where they play every few years



Now I dont have any problem with Quins or Celtic being in SL , in fact I'd rather they be there than in the Championships with us , if we could get rid of the Aussie Geordies and the expensive French to SL as well that would be ideal for me

You have made several very good points why we need these clubs in SL , so if you can see it , do you seriously think we cannot see it , and if that is the case why dont the RFL just admit what they are doing instead of trying to wrap it all up in tinfoil to somehow make it look ' real '

The licence system if not balanced , I know , you know it , everybody knows it , fine no problem so why lie about it

Maybe you lot down in the smoke are used to bull5**t , but it doesn't sit well with us northerners , we know that this time next year we are not going to be ' Millionaires '

, you lot on the other hand believe any old crap you are fed , or so it seems

When are you off to Aotearoa ? , when you get there if you bump into Aaron Heremaia , tell him Steve and Lynda from leigh hope he is well and wish him and Enrica all the best

it wouldn't be a new arguement


Facts are simple...in that the taffs were always going to get in and the competitor you should have been looking to beat was Salford. Leigh, fax fev widnes and 2lose all had valid arguements against Salford getting a place but even if you had the entire England U18 team in your accademy, a stadium the size of wembley and £20,000,000 on the bank, celtic would have still got in ahead of you.
You won't go down BTW........

Exactly , so why waste 10, s of 1,000 s of pounds putting applications together , does RL and its member clubs have surplus money to throw away ?

All we are saying is cut the BULL

Ok matey point taken, i have no axe to grind with anyone and hope you are right about not going down

again good luck for the rest of the season.

Yes we will , and if we do we will deserve it , and to tell the truth I am enjoying the fact that we have ' real ' meaningful matches ahead of us , unlike the clubs above us and the clubs at the bottom of SL , who are basically just treading water at the moment

Because that is what sport is about , real emotions '

Playing devils advocate here and knowing your liking for club communications...............how do you think we would have dealt with the same situation if we had been in Leighs shoes?.......personally I would have loved our chairman to have come out all guns blazing and not merely accepted the decision with a whimper.

Appreciate your honesty , are you originally from up north

:4893bw7c





I cannot understand where ya coming from

In all honesty, I never thought about how I or the other fan (s) in London or the club would have reacted to not being granted a licence. The reason being is that you know as well as I do that we are the b'stard son of Richard Lewis and Rupert Murdoch and therefore were bolted on from the start.
I do feel for the fans of clubs that didn't get in, but on the plus side, the Championship is a very entertaining league and it will have done no harm to clubs like Leigh, Fax and Widnes to have spent 3 more years getting their houses in order, whilst the spotlight sits firmly on the origami stadium clubs.
Believe me, if the clubs that were warned still have'nt laid foundation stones in 2 years, but are left in SL at the expense of clubs with better bids, I will probably fly back from New Zealand and help you give Lewis a good (verbal) kicking!

You mean like slowly losing their fan base because many see it as having nothing to play for ?

The clubs in the championship are similar in many ways to Quins , they lack the same things at their matches , fans and atmosphere , and nobody seems to have a clue how to improve it , especially the RFL

oh...OK. So the prospect of winning the railaway mug or the grand final, to use as part of your application isn't exciting? OK.
Fans drifting away....so glory hunters then, not fans. As it is, I have been to the Skolars on a few occassions to watch them. I am a fan of the game firstly, then my club and if I can see a win, then all the better. I would never stop following my club just because they were in a lower division.

As for the atmosphere at the stoop......I have many ideas on how to improve gates........it's just the men with the money would rather spend time and resource on the community projects and to be fair to them, if I had been in charge since 1996 we probably wouldn't have young cockney RL internationsl.....but I can assure you, we would be averaging over 10,000 for home games.

so hardly could be classed as ' glory hunters ' , as for the lower division bit , well yes but we have been there a long time so it's not like it is something new is it

The point about the atmosphere is that is what brings in and keeps new fans interested , and as we are losing old'existing ones we need to replace them , but with what as incentive ?

Hang around: weren't you just saying yesterday how your exciting relegation battle provided all the interest … ?

For me , yes in a masochistic way

I find the games at the moment more interesting than I did at the start of the season

Then again

" its so nice to be ins...... "

aha....we agree.
The average age of your regular fan at most RL games, regardless of division, is far too old. The 40+ lot (that's me) are good for now, but we need the ankle biters to start watching the game. As a working class sport, RL used to survive on 3 generations of fans at games...stood together, with grandpa telling the others how soft the modern game is!
We need to get that back!

I know you are right.

You know you are right

99.99% of British rugby League fans know you are right.

Yet if you tell them over on the Harlequins board you will end up getting banned