in comparison Crusaders are even more ready aren't they

The RFL obviously favour the Leeds Rhinos and choose to offer them a nice comfortable start so that after round 1 they are guaranteed to be top of the table.

The thing I don't get is last year it was south wales, now in wrexham which is virtually north wales, the supporters they had at brewery field are not going to travel to wrexham every home game are they, why have they pulled out of south wales where they may have attracted some decent players.

because if they stayed in the south they would have folded, why else do you think they decided on such drastic action. Its like picking up the wire and dumping it in scarborough


it makes our game look stupid in the extreme and all for the sake of expansion which really isn't expansion anymore

Yes, Leigh have had over a hundred years and can only get 3.5k of there own fans to watch them in super league, they are nowhere near being able to survive in SL.

Why are you showing up Wire fans by constantly trolling on the Crusaders forum ?

Of course you could be from Widnes ...

Personally Widnes for 2012-14 and Wales out.

Yes - I`m sure a small town in Cheshire will really help push RL along ...

If you re-read Sally's post you'll see that the objection is to RL/SL paying the 'assistance'. If the local authority wants to step in, fine: in a way this happens at Catalans where the local government is one of the sponsors (not unusual at all in French sport ).

Exactly - there's a big difference between that and the sporting body itself giving extra funding to one team, which is unethical in sport. How would the other clubs feel, if there were 13 clubs getting a lower share of the central money, and one club getting an extra share, they then went and signed a couple of superstar Aussies with the extra money and Celtic went onto win the league.....or at least make the playoffs, at the expense of somebody else.

I am all for expansion in France because there is a culture in France of local authorities and private investors putting money into sport, and a culture in all sports in France of them spending that money well with very good junior development. Catalans have got some French players up to SL standard remarkably quickly, they've never been struggling for money. Toulouse arguably are even better placed to get money in and have the best junior system in the French league. I am pretty sure that when the next new franchise comes in, it will be Toulouse, quite possibly at the expense of Celtic.

Wales is not a great market IMO. Even rugby union has struggled there and its supposed to be their main sport - the WRU has been in big debt for a long time, they would have folded in the middle of last decade if David Moffett the ex NRL boss hadn't gone in and restructured the league, forcing their clubs to merge because they could only financially sustain 5 teams. That doesn't bode well for the prospects of rugby league there. There will be a lot of hard working individuals in Welsh RL but without the infrastructure that the French have, Celtic's Super League history is going to be one of struggling, struggling some more, the occasional on field high, and folding.