PhilCarrington

Expecting a side to play 3 games in a week, all of them involving 400 mile round trips is ridiculous. Can't believe the RFL would expect a club just off the M62 to do that these days, with their focus on player welfare. Expecting Rochdale to play Oldham at home on Sunday, Skolars at home on Wednesday and then travel down to Cornwall for Sunday is a mighty ask as well. Integrity went out of the window 2 years ago when Barrow and Workington managed to avoid re-arranging their game thus not risking either of their win percentages.

may well be true, but he's not been in charge at the Skolars for nearly 3 years now, though he is still a major sponsor

And out of that central distribution the clubs have to pay for a table at the awards night (whether or not they can attend), 100 tickets for the Challenge Cup final (great if they can sell them all, but the spaces in their area every year shows that most dont) and cog testing. So around they don't get to see around 20% of their distribution. No parachute payment for anyone getting relegated to L1, so any club going down has a massive drop in income.

Which part of the ground should they have taken a picture of that would have looked good? The Saints twitter account regularly posts 4 pics of the ground before kick-off; not their fault so little has been spent at on basics at Belle Vue in the last 50 (60?) years.

Skolars have a coach. Why would they get rid of him to bring back Coleman?

Dont they or some of the other clubs mentioned in his thread put out stories about how they were going to have lots of local players. Cornwall did and got plaudits for it. Hardly surprising that they've picked some very minor criticism for going back on that so quickly, doubt if would have been commented on if they hadn't made it part of their launch. They were very naive, surprising given the experience brought by Kelly and Perez.

The rules are very simple for club officials - dont bet on the sport at all - the RFL story refers to multiple bets so he made several mistakes not just a mistake.

only because they were forced to by the RLC. They were concurently North London Skolars in that comp and London Skolars in the NCL.

Not the only club to be struggling to find medical staff at the moment. Hardly surprising given the pressure in those people's day jobs. The RFL must have been struggling to find staff for this game as well, as there was no reserve referee appointed per the RFL's match officials' appointments page. Lucky the game was cancelled, otherwise the RFL would be needing to refer itself to it's own compliance department. Rugby League (rugby-league.com)

Wales.

Isn't that seven more locals than North Wales Crusaders fielded? Maybe RFL funding should encourage clubs to take players from their own locality rather than shipping them in.

whole game was live on BBC online and on Radio York. Far better than a twitter feed.

Only £40k down. Sounds like you've had less of a cut than many clubs. Colwyn Bay seems to be working so far, hope it continues to work. Good to have one Welsh club whose ground move has worked. Nearest pub had painted the Crusaders logo on it's side and that's seen on the main road into the town (not the A55) so great free advertising.

This is hardly news - happened two years ago and was covered in League Express

London Broncos have certainly played a lot of home game far from London. Not a good advert for the idea.

Palumbo moved from West Wales to Skolars two years ago- didn't think he'd moved back there. Yet another ex-Skolar is Rob Tuliatu

Souths and Wests in the cup just over a decade ago?

But some nice apartments if youve got a spare £m+ and probably a good view from the ones on top of the hill.

given that oldham are talking about playing at Leigh Sporting Village, maybe they could move there and we could have 4 sides playing there.

ouch

In the press release, Nigel Woods says “Just 10 years ago it would have been unthinkable that teams from Wales and London would contest a major final and the success of the Crusaders and Skolars offer compelling evidence of the burgeoning appeal of Rugby League. I seem to recall a team from London actually reached a major final just over 10 years ago. They made the Super League play-offs 10 years ago. Has Nigel Wood forgotten about Broncos when he wrote this ?

And has also played for Skolars in the Northern Rail Cup.