It is disgusting - but while the RFL are quite happy for SKY TV to dictate to our game then nothing will change.

Does the crusaders experiement remind anyone of the Gateshead senario a few years ago

thankyou !

Your welcome pal, why don't the RFL admit their expansion mistake that is Broncos / Quins & Celtic /Crusaders and keep traditional teams , proper teams it's a crying shame cas & wakey are in this situation , wake up RFL !!!!, that attendance tonight was shocking what does that tell you !!.

And your up to about a 5-6000 average after 100 years?

Whereas they've been at it 6 or so years

How bout we come back in another 30 years or so and compare



You could subsitute you for any number of clubs who have had 100 years or so head start on them including us.

The London club has had 30 years. In that time its had 4 names at least as many grounds and a catchment area for support a hundred times bigger than the majority of clubs yet when they played Cas at The Stoop in this season 3 sides of the ground were closed and the main stand still wasn't full.
The Welsh experiment looks to be going the same way, which is a shame. The fact that that long established clubs are being pushed out to make room for these plastic teams is a tragedy.

Will say it again when are the Muppets who run the game going to pull their heads out of their backsides and realise that rugby league is a Northern sport played Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria. Or M62 M6 North
Most clubs are losing money because the game cannot sustain full time professional status
Without a sugar daddy only Leeds, Wigan and Hull could survive

Summer RL and SL has all but wreaked the international tours because of the season clash with Oz
What is so wrong with 2 divisions with 2 up 2 down?
That is so wrong with the team who wins the league after 28 games being the champions
That was so wrong with the CC being the showpiece at the end of the season followed by the Premiership final the week after

Has franchise stopped teams signing overseas players will it stop teams doing it will it hell
Has franchise stopped clubs from losing money NO

Simple for me now kick ANY heartland club out of SL and leave Crusaders or Quins in
Replace ANY heartland club with another frog club and I am finished with the joke that is RL
Sky the bloody lot

I will spend my money at Oakwell knowing that if by some miracle they finish in the top 2 or win a playoff game they will be promoted by right
The game may not be has good but it is still sport you are rewarded for success on the field of play
It dose not matter how big the club is Leeds Utd, Sheff Wed etc Blackpool you play in the division that the on field performances deserve

I have no problem with any team coming into RL and starting in the bottom division just so long has they get no special treatment and win the right to play at the top table on the field of play.

Just over 1k is pretty bad!

If the team who finished top should be Champions, shouldn't the team who finishes 3rd in the Championship be promoted 'by right' rather than a tacked on competition to make the league more exciting. Or does the argument only work one way?

Of course, for the Rugby League Championship was decided by play-offs from 1903/4 to 1973/4 with only 4 exceptions in that time. That, and our only two Championships came under the play-off system.

I can live with the play offs in football the Champions are still the champions in all leagues

I could live with a play off in RL say 2nd bottom plays 2nd Nat league for SL place
But the champions after a full season must finish 1ST

Good job it wasn`t on Sky or the attendance might have been poor! I think that means that the total attendance for Crusaders` last 3 home games is less that 5,000. I seem to remember them saying that they needed a minimum average home gate to 2,500 to break even, not even close then.

If Wakefield played a game against Catalans in Milton Keynes, with zero local promotion and an afternoon kick-off on a weekday, how many fans do you think would turn up?

loads, so shut up!

pathetic, kick em out i say.

So, poor Crusaders were forced into it where they?
The afternoon kick off was chosen by Brian Noble wasnt it?
The Crusaders chose to do zero local promotion did they?

I haven't a problem with the Crusaders, nor thier attendances but your usual one eyed
responses are pathetic.

You know it is a terrible attendance but yet try and justify it? Nah.

I'm not trying to justify anything. Crusaders were forced into it because of the totally incompetent former chief executive who signed a contract that could not be reneged on without the club being sued. The comments about kicking both teams are just totally idiotic and ridiculous, as are the posts inferring that this sort of thing is a regular occurence. I bet half the people commenting didn't even know the game was in Neath.

Everybody knows that crusaders should not be in sl.They should have to earn the right but cos of the suits at red hall they are in,probably to stay like quins,all this at the expense of traditional teams,it is also the same for catalans.Other sports must wet themselves with laughter at the way rl is run,your ground being the main reason why you are in the top league or if you are 200 miles from any other club all in the name of expansion which clearly isn't working.IT STINKS.

Define everybody.

Everybody as in the rugby league community.Don't be picky.

When you say earn the right, when two clubs were coming up to make it a 14 team league, what position did Salford and Crusaders finish in the season before their licences started. Ahh, they both qualified for the Grand Final, so Champions and runners-up.

As for the Catalans, they were the product of a merger of St. Esteve (formed in 1965) and XIII Catalans (1935), so almost as 'traditional' a team as Castleford (1926) are.



Teams were and are stopped from being promoted in football due to their grounds, and again, that is not the only criteria used to assess licences. When you say earn the right, when two clubs were coming up to make it a 14 team league, what

I know stadiums and distance are not the only criteria but this does seem to be the things that people are obsessed with and the stadium issue seems to be the only thing which would deny wakey a licence.Do you believe that crusaders and quins deserve to be in sl instead of wakey and who were the last footy team to be denied promotion due to having a poop ground?

It's not Crusaders or Harlequins vs. Wakefield, it's teams closer to home we are competing against. Both those clubs offer a location in which there isn't a number of clubs reaching saturation point.

Stevenage were the last into the Football League a decade or so back, which was a wake up call to Conference sides. Think Frickley were denied promotion a few years back at a lower level for similar reasons.

Yes we are competing against cas but shouln't the other 2 also be in the firing line.Is it fair that wakey or cas get the boot to keep them in,cos I believe that both of us will have more ticks than them,but it always come back to grounds.I take your point on footy grounds but in the prem there is grounds such as everton,portsmouth last year but they were not told to get a new ground else you are out,regardless of results.Irrelevant now for portsmouth but you get my point.

Have you actually seen Goodison Park?

Or Fratton Park?
Now if you had mentioned Kenilworth Road you would have a hell of a lot more joy.

I regard myself as being in the RL community.

Perhaps there should be some balance between expansion and tradition in the criteria so that the history of the game is not thrown away with the bathwater.

An additional point for being an original member of the Northern Union would be a simple way to do this ( and would also, completely coincidentally, benefit Trin

)

Only 9 left from 22:
Batley 1880, Halifax 1873, Leeds 1864, Leigh 1878, St Helens 1873, Wakefield Trinity 1873, Warrington 1875, Widnes 1875, Wigan 1872.

Obviously Bradford, Hunslet, Oldham, Rochdale, Huddersfield and Hull could be excluded as they're re-formed/merged clubs. (Would also be nice to exclude Leeds after their 'merger' with Bramley, but difficult to justify as they were kept separate.)

I'm sure sky via 'Mr History' Stevo would support such a proposal.