Blind side johnny

<TROLL ALERT>

Then it must be Swinton, surely?

..................and don't get him going on scrummaging!! :P

Rumoured by whom? Someone who knows or a bloke in the pub? A de facto form of licensing is due to be adopted before long, called solvency.

I'm guessing that you don't follow any of these clubs. I continue to be amazed how many fans can come up with solutions for other clubs but would recoil in horror if anything similar were suggested for their own. Cas/Wakey seems obvious for example, or what about Leeds/Bradford and surely Warrington/Widnes makes a load of sense. Existing fans would leave a merged club in droves and new fans would only be attracted if the new club became successful - something of a long haul. Mergers may become necessities but would, in reality, simply be the closure of one club. History has many examples to study from Sydney clubs (many Warringah fans out there?) to Hull and Huddersfield; none of them provide object lessons in the success of such schemes.

Not quite. Championship play-offs precede SL by a long way and were regarded as just as important as the CC by the clubs. For the players, however, the CC was always the pinnacle.

Whoever is appointed will have to work on the same or smaller budget as SMcN, which would deter most Aussie coaches immediately. An inability to snap up a load of journeymen from the antipodes means that coaching qualities, rather than the ability to recruit, will be the major requirement.

William Hills are offering 9/4 aagainst a Batley win. Should be tempting for a few I reckon.

Do you know what contracts are?

Agreed. One of the key principles of our game that makes (made?) us proud to support it has been the respect that players show towards referees. If that is lost then the game will be much the worse for it. Another bugbear of mine (being an old codger) is players throwing the ball away. In the "good old days" there was just the match ball in use and the referee would make the culprit of such acts of petulance go and fetch it. The sight of a prop forward trudging his way down the pitch like a naughty schoolboy always brought gales of laughte r; and taught a lesson at the same time.

Clubs may get franchises but players don't. They still have new contracts to go for and any lack of effort on their part would endanger that. As far as results in any particular season are concerned the presence of franchises means that they cease to become the be all and end all every year. This means that clubs can act more strategically, maybe in looking to expose and develop young English players in one year that will hopefully put them in good stead for future years and not break the bank on imports, trying to avoid relegation etc. So my view is that what may be a strategy in operation is what may be seen by some to be complacency.

Sorry, what was that?

Great news for York and a real spur to getting their gates up in future years.

Bookmark this excellent site: http://www.rugbyleagueontv.co.uk/

Two, as stated on the RFL web site. There are rumours every year about the numebr for P&R, and they remain rumours every year. OTOH things may change if we were to get a couple of clubs winking up.

Just ever so slightly over the top there, Wendall old chap. Working class roots maybe; slums and crime - not the same thing at all.

That's odd. I could have sworn that I had seen a couple of Championship clubs on Sky too, or don't they count?

Well the original publications needed subscribers to kick them off, but you may be right, there might be a viable market today. One for Scratching Shed to look into I would have thought.

I'll leave my judgement until we actually see the structure of the leagues. However, the gates for the NRC have generally been quite poor so it will definitely be a loss-making exercise for these teams. I hope that they know that. (Also, on a more pessimistic note, this still assumes that the 20 English clubs will still be in existence next year. I am not entirely confident that this will be the case.)

Well done. It's a hard slog supporting a losing side in the lower leagues and I guess many on here have never experienced it. No matter how poor the victory (ref. Hornetto) those loyal fans will be as happy as larry today.

For next month how about a free vuvuzela with each copy? The kids would like that I reckon.

Plenty of public money knocking about in France to build sports stadiums is there? About as much as there is here I reckon.

Please explain sensibly why foul language is required to create an atmosphere? Freedom of speech is not the same as freedom to say anything you like. I trust that you understand the difference.

Do keep up! Railtrack went bust years ago and were replaced by Network Rail, hence the confusion with Northern Rail. Northern Rail will actually have very little influence on maintenance scheduling which is largely a safety issues, for which Network Rail have sole responsibility. This is not the first time this has happened by a long chalk. Anyone who regularly travels by train will tell you that Sundays are a favourite for all sorts of maintenance work on the railways (and motorways for that matter).