bowes

Tough call, but yes unless someone rich comes along prepared to back it there are better uses of money than Ireland as it stands. Scotland has junior setups as does the midlands so they would be much better candidates than Ireland for a side if money is there (which it isn't). Wales had some juniors before Crusaders like Scotland and midlands have. Giving it to try to get juniors started where there's been no interest so far (outside of one club as I say) is ultimately rewarding failure and RLI have to put more effort into serious RL development before it becomes worth spending hundreds of thousands of pounds better spent elsewhere. Welsh Conference good point, the split between Premier and Regional has been a step in the right direction with the Premier going up to 10 games, still not enough but I'd hope they look to expand the season when more teams step up (or before with 3rd fixtures). On the Northern Ireland Conference there's only 4 games plus playoffs, so if you were playing 25-30 RU games and about 5 RL games it's a pretty clear bias. Different to say playing 30 RU games and 16 RL games, though 30 RL games is much better

The average crowds at C1 I'm not sure would guess in the 600-800 range but Blackpool, Gateshead and Skolars get about 200-300 so you're looking at that at most. I can see the case for Scotland if the RFL had money because there are youngsters there, but there is not a single youngster playing RL in Ireland and thus there's no need for a path for them to aim for, there is also no drive to set youngsters up as RL in Ireland is just RU players playing 4-6 games to keep fit (this is NOT the same as say someone playing RL for South London Storm and RU for Streatham-Croydon and being a RL player and a RU player and taking both seriously)

Why not start a pro team then? The SW division has as many teams as the Scottish league and playes more games so should be as easy to start a pro team there than Scotland? In reality of course starting amateur clubs is what we should be doing like you say in the SW. It would be reckless to start a Scottish or Irish Championship 1 side now it would be much harder than rocket science to make it work

...per year

Yeah if it's that easy to do he should be able to start one himself

As things stand yes, was more saying if there's that much desperation to stay in the Championship would be likely. As it stands Batley and Dewsbury have more more claim to be in the Championship on their own right than either of the West Cumbrian clubs and certainly far more than Doncaster. I only meant they'd be logical if mergers ever take off, not now

Rumoured by the Bramley chairman in a debate on the future of the game in the community thread. I also heard it mentioned as a future aim in an RFL document (think about the time of the franchise applications) so it appears credible. Don't know the full details though apart from it stops short of full franchising

Irish RL (West Wicklow Vikings aside, who are struggling both for fixtures and consequently numbers) is just RU clubs having a way to keep players fit in summer and Scottish RL (Edinburgh Eagles/Napier University (more or less the same thing) aside) is the same. Scotland at least have juniors and could at a stretch be a long term aim, but Ireland doesn't have a single junior team in the whole country (there are efforts to set up West Wicklow Shamrocks but again one side doesn't work) There are so many places better to get a Championship 1 side than Scotland and Ireland and given that Skolars and Gateshead are really struggling despite infinitely better local setups, the problem is the players of the right standard aren't there and nor are the supporters. Championship 1 has too many weak struggling teams as is without artificially creating more where noone wants them. Far better to look at somewhere in the midlands than Scotland or Ireland and even then I'm not convinced we're ready You really need to get a grip on reality it really isn't simple and we really aren't wasting our time not blowing lots of money for nothing.

This is rumoured to be coming in, anyone know any details? Apparently it won't be full on franchising maybe it will be like soccer in NI which basically works as follows: Top 12 applicants when it started get in to the top flight. After that all interested teams have to apply for a license annually. Any top flight team failing (guess this would be teams going into admin in RL) automatically relegated, any team wanting to go up has to receive one. If top 2 of the 2nd tier meet criteria then the top 1 goes up to replace bottom team in division above and the 2nd place plays off against 2nd bottom of the division above. Otherwise just 1 team promoted (if someone meets criteria) unless more than one top flight team fails. This would be a fair compromise and would have to be better than the current system of promoting and relegating 2 teams automatically even if they're promoting a team in administration or with a ground unsuitable for 2nd tier (also really don't see the point of letting a poorly supported side get promoted). The thorny issue is French sides of course. The alternatives would be go for the top 12-14 sides 3 year license but to me this would be too harsh on the sides that just miss out or merge the divisions and drop the unsuitable teams (could work though would have on field standards gaps).

Salford are the other club whose crowds are a real concern, hopefully the new ground will increase the crowds but they are still very poorly supported especially for an M62 team. The other thing is they're more vulnerable than most as A. there's less local RL fans to buy them if Hughes leaves and perhaps more significantly B. they're at the mercy of the RU club who may well decide a club getting very few fans with their name is bad for the image or may up the rent even further

It's the combined influence of France, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa I'd have thought. NZ alone wouldn't have that much influence

I was responding to ParisSutroll bringing it up. But even if their entire squad were from London it would be for nothing if they folded due to crowds of 3000

I want them to move to sonewhere in the south where they get more than pathetic 3000ish crowds to matches, but where they still provide a pathway to SL for London players. I'm far from the only person to believe that Harlequins RL has been a huge failure as an experiment, doesn't mean I want a north only SL. Somewhere like Oxford would be preferable, if they do stay in London then East London where they'd be the biggest rugby club is the best bet When London rugby union clubs were all folding or close to it, 2 dropped out and 3 left London and have had far more success outside London than they ever had in lettig Harlequins RU be the pro rugby club for London or at least West London. Competing head to head in the same ground and with the same name as the only other tip flight rugby club is not attracting many fan at all, burI know you want SL crowd averages down to 3000 just so we can say we have teams in places like London and Paris and about 6 French sides, 4 in places RL is small and where the talent is this far just enough for 1 side, hopefully 2 by 2015. Your trolling is getting boring now just go back to supporting Huddersfield and moderate your expansionism to at most Parksider's level (though you don't want to expand within England outside of London)

Agree with the exception of the mention of Doncaster who certainly can't support a team at that level. Better Batley or Dewsbury (or a combined club of the two if mergers take off), OldhamRochdale would be a possible joint side, but as it stands Rochdale would have a better bid due to Oldham's small ground capacity

Unfortunately the current 2-up-2-down promotion and relegation massively reduce the chance of York becoming an established Championship club. Bring in Championship franchising (with more teams than now) and they will have a chance to achieve their potential

Well neither of them will be in the Championship next year and the Championship will have to go to franchise at some point.

They might need to merge to play in the Championship, never mind SL

On other forums the mode view pushing the report button grassing never mind the posters. Rare I see a problem on here, had much worse elsewhere

The 20 was including those games. Not really enough without the extra NRC cup games

No I agree. I think we should have one bigger franchised Championship division (restricted by criteria not a fixed number of teams) and have everyone else in a proper pyramid setup.

They only play 20 leagues games plus cup and playoffs so shouldn't be too hard to fit 4 more fixtures (over 5 weeks) as they don't really play enough games

He did say social club not RLC club. But some RLC clubs are the equivalent of pub teams, some are very well run amateur clubs, some are somewhere between. At Coventry we run: 1sts 2nds Under 16s Under 14s Under 12s Women's Girls Under 12 Plus have a schools competition and this is about average for the big clubs in the midlands. However, in the deep South West (i.e. not Gloucestershire and Bristol) every club is just one team of RU players. Also in the midlands we had one club Burntwood who were just a team of RU players wanting a summer keep fit and a few fights

Yeah it really is that bad, but they only offer 4-6 games plus playoffs so not surprising. An extra 4 games of being hammered's not enough to change that. There was a suggestion of an Irish winter league for off season Gaelic footballers, not sure if it is still happening Scotland could get something together but would basically be Edinburgh Eagles/Napier University with maybe some of the forces players from Moray. They'd still ship 100-150

Yeah Blackpool and Gateshead seem very shaky. Skolars won't fold ever but wouldn't be surprised if they end up in the NCL some time after it switches to summer

No because you'd still struggle to get 17 players from the Irish league to enter even between all the clubs. Still seems a bad idea to me