FEATHERSTONE ROVERS have been there or thereabouts in recent seasons in terms of near the top of the Championship table.
Unfortunately for Rovers, that extra step has just been missing with the likes of Toronto Wolfpack, Toulouse Olympique and Leigh Leopards all getting the better of the West Yorkshire side towards the back end of the season.
However, 2023 really feels like it is Rovers’ turn to make it to Super League and Featherstone chief executive Martin Vickers believes his club is a Super League one ahead of the meeting with IMG on Thursday.
“I’ve seen lots of clubs professing that they are Grade A clubs and professing that they should be preserved in Super League for life,” Vickers explained on ViaPlay last night as Featherstone hosted Bradford Bulls.
“We are a very honest speaking bunch and we always know there is an improvement, but we’ve built a stadium made on our volunteers shifting three stands from a football team so we know all about hard work and we know about improvement.
“I think we would be with many clubs including some in Super League with a B license aspiring to be an A.”
Vickers also went further, declaring some impressive numbers that have come out of the club in recent weeks and months.
“This place is ready for Super League, I’ve said this ever since I’ve been here. We’re the club with the greatest support in the Championship and we are ready for the big time.
“We’ve had two pre-season friendlies against Castleford and Hull KR where we had 4000 fans in for pre-season friendlies.
“We work hard, we’ve got a 1000 kids who are in the town who are junior members, we’ve got five million people a month looking at us digitally. We are ready for the big time.”
It promises to be an interesting week with IMG releasing what will be involved in the grading criteria on Thursday.
