And therein lies the real problem. Year on year, there is less to work with.

I believe the RL's powers that be have two choices; they either decide that they want a top-flight team in the Capital and either back it financially or find someone else to back it financially, or they just terminate the Club at the licence announcement.

It sounds harsh, but I seriously don't think that seeing a poor team watched by poor crowds does the sport any favours. I speak as someone who went through those days at Crystal Palace, Chiswick etc buoyed by the hope that if we were in the top division and sufficiently funded to be competing for honours then it would be to the benefit of the sport as a whole. Unfortunately watching this club go through a slow decline makes me less optimistic now than I was then.

I'd like to emphasise that I don't mean this as critical in any way of anyone connected with club, it's just too big a job.

Or is David Hughes the Arsene Wenger of the rugby league world, refusing to pay big money for transfers, sign established players or break the wage structure at the club. All admirable stances but one that everyone in football can see is noble but wrong in 2011, and if the noises that Gus Mackay has been making, we are moving towards throwing a few pound notes around. With Kear a free agent I say we give him another shot at an expansion club and our first genuine career coach since John Monie, I only discount Tony Rea as the Broncos was his first coaching role.

Kear is a free agent, English and a genuine career coach with bags of experience and at 56 he has a good few years ahead of him.

Sounds like he's already earmarked for Castleford:

[iKear, who guided both Sheffield Eagles and Hull to surprise Challenge Cup final victories, has ambitions to remain in Super League and only recently spoke of his interest in the coaching vacancy looming at neighbouring Castleford, where Australian Terry Matterson is leaving at the end of the season.

Castleford-born Kear played as a winger for the club and was assistant coach when they lifted the Challenge Cup in 1986.

"It's a club I've got connections with and I've spent a lot of my life there so I've obviously got feelings for it," said Kear when asked about the possibility of succeeding Matterson.[/i

Hello Wire Quin,

My view is that to be successful you need to have high quality in the five main ball playing positions (Fullback, Stand Off, Scrum Half, Hooker and Loose Forward) with a selection of Props whom are genuinely difficult to stop and whom seldom miss tackles. You can then surround them with a series of genetically gifted players whom have two of pace, size and power in the backs and players whom will work hard at marker, tackle continually and with the supreme players also having a quality offload.

In my view Warrington has many significant advantages versus a London club. They are the only club whom has continually been in the top-flight throughout its history, have almost 200,000 residents few of whom support e.g. Warrington Wolverines whom are also playing top-flight Rugby and whose colours are the most recognized in club rugby in the world.

The demographic is also good, most of the population have British heritage, rather than Asian heritage which makes it unlikely they would be introduced to the game and in a place with little or no sporting alternative people are sure to know of the only show in town with the stadium likely to be a prominent landmark.

They also have opened a new stadium within the last decade, which is something known to bring in interest from new supporters, think of the first game for Quins RL, Fulham etc.

However, despite all these advantages they were 10th in the early 2000s and 10th again in 2009, when the club had a nice run to the final and unexpectedly won the cup against the odds; this suddenly introduced a host of benefits.

I would simply state that the owner has just lavished cash in the past 24 months. He has brought in the best manager possible for acquisition and development (Tony Smith), the Man of Steel (Hodgson), a first choice Australian outside back sacked for off-field demeanours (J.Monaghan) and lavished several hundred thousand on buying both a scrum-half (Myler) and centre (Atkins). In the forwards he also signed internationals Carvell and Solomona.

There's also been talent come through in the backs, in line with my theories... Blythe, Evans, Williams etc whilst the forwards are mainly out on loan, proving that SL is not the place to throw in youngsters into your first team.

The first cup win has managed to attract support in a province whose support fell to as little as 5,000 for three games in 2002 but the Challenge Cup is not only the most profitable cup to win (as the Grand Final money is split amongst all the SL clubs) but has proved to be a great marketing exercise.

Imagine if your first game was seeing your small unheralded region winning at Wembley? That certainly helped take up crowds from below 10k to over 10k every week.

Having Hodgson, Briers, Myler, M Monaghan and Grix/Solomona with two GB internationals in Morley and Carvell with the under-rated Wood and Cooper is a decent foundation. It won't win Super League. It is not as good as the genuinely great SL teams, such as when you had Saints in their prime with Wellens, Pryce, Long, Cunningham and Sculthorpe whilst Leeds had Webb, McGuire, Burrow, Diskin and Sinfield.

Wigan's crop is S Tomkins, Deacon, Finch, Leuluai, O'Loughlin. Warrington are not far from this but lack the same quality in the forwards.

In terms of Wigan, again this is a team that has been more-or-less continually successful for decades, especially when they spent £3.1 million a season and the opposition was part-time - only when they refused to develop their own players did they become unstuck - whilst Saints have again been successful in modern history, but are now in decline, so not much point making a comparison with a London club.

Cheers
Mark

how long is RPs contract?

Two year contract that ends and the conclusion of the 2012 season. A move back to assistant would need no major alteration to the terms of his contract, if he goes altogether at the clubs choice we would need to pay him a years salary.