and the crusaders or harlaquins are getting a licence when the attendence tonite was 1122

[JohnM]

Its attitudes like that of NFIG that has made Wakefield the place it is today.

[bowes]

Harlequins RL to merge with London Skolars and reform in the Championship

Assume this would be a team of mostly London & South East locals? Not the worst idea, they'd be competitive nowadays, though where would be suitable to play? Stoop too large and expensive and New River too small. Of course Skolars reserves and amateurs would need preserving in the Haringey area, perhaps as Haringey Hornets.

I'd like them to find a viable setup for Super League somewhere in the South East (which Milton Keynes is officially part of, as is Oxford) but failing that I'd go for this option.

[Futtocks]

Aye but decent punctuation helps make the meaning clear. Thats it purpose, innit?

Indeed. Try reading the following sentence without the commas: I helped my neighbour, Jack, off his horse yesterday.

The Crusaders are looking good for the future, from what I've seen and read. Harlequins, on the other hand, do worry me, partly for the future of the club and partly for the gloating joy that will be expressed on here by many if Rugby League fails anywhere outside the 'heartlands'.

[RP London]

Assume this would be a team of mostly London & South East locals? Not the worst idea, they'd be competitive nowadays, though where would be suitable to play? Stoop too large and expensive and New River too small. Of course Skolars reserves and amateurs would need preserving in the Haringey area, perhaps as Haringey Hornets.

I'd like them to find a viable setup for Super League somewhere in the South East (which Milton Keynes is officially part of, as is Oxford) but failing that I'd go for this option.

no stirring here but what do you mean "officially part of"? the South East is not an administrative region or anything so although i would say Oxford is i would say Milton Keynes is in the midlands to be honest so where do you get the "officially part of" bit.. i only wonder as it could make it very interesting

[bowes]

no stirring here but what do you mean "officially part of"? the South East is not an administrative region or anything so although i would say Oxford is i would say Milton Keynes is in the midlands to be honest so where do you get the "officially part of" bit.. i only wonder as it could make it very interesting

They do use them for some things, or at least Labour did not sure about the Conservatives. But Sport England and the EU are the 2 main things I can think of. Certainly it's not midlands, though it's not London either

[RP London]

They do use them for some things, or at least Labour did not sure about the Conservatives. But Sport England and the EU are the 2 main things I can think of. Certainly it's not midlands, though it's not London either

so its in the South East for Sport England?

[bowes]

so its in the South East for Sport England?

Yes, the boundaries are odd. Sport England use the standard regions. Whether that matters for funding purposes I don't know, I know there was talk they'd be keen on getting at least a semi-pro team in each region and South East has probably the fewest rugby league teams of any region (though this is much improved with the likes of Guildford, Southampton, Sussex Merlins etc being relatively new), so a boost there may help.

Either way Sport England region is irrelevent to the 3 important questions about Oxford or Milton Keynes:

1. Would a backer be found in those places or David Hughes want to stay

2. Would London players want to travel there to play

3. Would the support base be there

I believe 3 would be better than at Twickenham but no idea how much by, no idea for points 1 and 2

[The Parksider]

I will tell you now Wales gates in 100 years time will be no better they will fold without the backing and funding from the RL just like they have done before

then some idiot will try again in 20-25 years and it will fail again

don

[deluded pom?]

I've asked this one before but what exactly IS successful expansion? Is it a SLE team playing in front of 6,000 regularly with a team stacked with imports and little in the way of junior development or is it a SLE team with crowds that are nothing to write home about but a good representaion in their squad of local players and a good junior set up in place?

[MamaKangaroo]

Ditto, minus the two Neath games Crusaders have a higher average than Salford this year, and a better stadium, and a better team,

But apparenlty more debt!

http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wale...-name_page.html

[deluded pom?]

But apparenlty more debt!

http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wale...-name_page.html

Not exactly Hull KR sized debts are they?

[bowes]

I've asked this one before but what exactly IS successful expansion? Is it a SLE team playing in front of 6,000 regularly with a team stacked with imports and little in the way of junior development or is it a SLE team with crowds that are nothing to write home about but a good representaion in their squad of local players and a good junior set up in place?

If they fold due to lack of income the other features won't save them, why don't people get that? No amount of local players or junior development will pay the bills.

[sgorpioncaerdyddrob]

The majoirty of those debts were accrued down here under the Samuel administration , one of the main reasons why the club didnt stay in South Wales was that local interested parties wanted the club but not to take on the debt as well, only Wrexham were willing supposedly.

[petero]

Can I ask how you come to the conclusion that Wales and London don't want Rugby League? Have you asked anyone in those places, maybe done some research? Or are you simply basing it on last nights attendance?

The Crusaders club has only been going for 5 seasons, during which time they have had to change location. Last nights game was played, for whatever reason, in Neath some 130 miles away from their home. The attendance was always going to be low. Lets judge them on next season when, I assume, they'll play all their games at Wrexham.

Harlequins are a victim of short-term management and under funding, not lack of interest. The London club moving grounds all over the capital, coupled with the adaption of a Rugby Union linked identity have not helped either. And of course, they are running bottom of the table.

The development of the game at junior level in both London and Wales has been astounding. Wales can now match England at junior level, and success will attract more youngsters into the game. The potential for development in London is endless, as shown in the young lads coming through the ranks at the Quins. How many local lads play for Wakefield?

You mention heartland clubs, but surely by your own criteria Salford are a joke. They've had over 120 years to build interest in RL, and yet they struggle on crowds of 4,000 or so. Wakefield themselves have only recently started to build attendance. In 2006 they were getting gates as low as 3,000. Was that because there was a lack of interest in RL in the city?

I suspect, as with so many people on here who are quick to point the finger at expansion teams, this is all boils down to self-interest. Let's throw out the interlopers so we can keep RL a 'northern' sport so it can remain like it's always been. So long as my club can get into SL, I'm alright. Never mind the consequences for the long term future of the sport. Small clubs who have had over a century of support, money and most importantly time, to build a strong business but who, for the most part, have failed.

And then there's this notion of the 'heartland county's'. That'll be West Yorkshire, Hull, West Cumbria and parts of South Lancashire. The rest of Lancashire couldn't care less about the sport.

But people choose to overlook all that, and decide to pick on the newcomers. The easy targets. If people had spent more time over the years questioning the failings of the 'heartland' clubs, the sport might just of progressed a bit further at professional level than it has.

Have YOU asked anyone in London or S/Wales if they want R/L, that is apart from a few enthusiasts that obviously do?

I would also keep mum on attendances, last nights or otherwise.

Neath was until the unexpected move to Wrexham a hell of a lot closer to their ' home?' and where the support was initially intended to be from, rather than Wrexham I would have imagined, wouldn't you?

I would love to see Harlequins succeed, but to claim that all the outer elements are the root cause of their totally inadequate attendences is stretching incredulity a mite. That they have been successful at development of juniors is unarguable, but they are seemingly going to be a long term prospect before a S/L quality is attainable and quite honestly, can the R/L afford to give that much leeway whilst waiting for the standard to be attained?

The question appertaining to heartland clubs and their respective attendences is not entirely comparable. Wakefield whom you name were once the BEST supported club in R/L as for a period in the seventies were Salford, so both have proven that with success comes support, Wrexham and Harlequins have as yet to attain both and which incidentally neither one or the other can guarantee.

I agree that many of the long standing clubs have never really flourished at least not in the long term and probably never will do so. However without that tradition of R/L being continuous the sport will fail so a denigration of its traditional areas does as much damage as that of expansionist ones also.

It may surprise you but I do want to see the game expand into new areas also but not at the expense of losing what is a heritage that ought to be held onto.

I would suggest that until ( if ever) R/L gets fair coverage in the media and the TV channels such as SKY can care to give it a mention along with Football R/U and Cricket ( ignored today completely in a 4 page advert for their sports coverage) then no matter what the sport and its participants achieve as a spectacle were going nowhere fast, that is the key and it is not being found, 125 years later or not!

[tonyXIII]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Until we, as a game, are prepared to risk no television coverage at all, we are doomed to live off the scraps the broadcasters throw us. Like dogs under the table, we are. We need to grow some balls, tell Sky to shove it where the sun don't shine and retrench back to the M62 and semi-professional if we must. It's not a great scenario, but we were only ever a sideshow for Sky. They wanted pay TV control of Australia. They used us. We owe them nothing!

[westlondonfan]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Until we, as a game, are prepared to risk no television coverage at all, we are doomed to live off the scraps the broadcasters throw us. Like dogs under the table, we are. We need to grow some balls, tell Sky to shove it where the sun don't shine and retrench back to the M62 and semi-professional if we must. It's not a great scenario, but we were only ever a sideshow for Sky. They wanted pay TV control of Australia. They used us. We owe them nothing!

What would be the advantage of that?

Edited August 10, 2010 by westlondonfan

[The Parksider]

I've asked this one before but what exactly IS successful expansion? Is it a SLE team playing in front of 6,000 regularly with a team stacked with imports and little in the way of junior development or is it a SLE team with crowds that are nothing to write home about but a good representaion in their squad of local players and a good junior set up in place?

I would suggest that if the game expands at amateur level at a decent rate and achieves a situation where teams can get decent fixtures without having to travel miles then that's successful expansion at the grass roots level.

If the game expands at fully pro level and achieves a situation where it can bring local players up to play at fully pro level that is successful expansion at the professional players level.

If the pro/semi pro game expands into new areas and can get a decent crowd/investment to underpin the financial stability of the club that's succesful expansion.

So we see half decent average crowds at Wrexham (OK it may not pay all the bills but nor do the crowds at HKR or Bradford or Wakey) so we may have something.

So we see London lads feeding into Harlequins first team (OK there may not be a Quins first team as the financial position is becoming untenable) so again we have something.

To get a strong junior set up feeding SL quality players to an SL club and to have that club financially viable would be FULLY succesful expansion.

But let's not play the hypocracy game of treating clubs as either M62 or expansion.

We want success for all of our clubs.

And on my expansion model I think we have it at Leeds, Wigan and Hull.

Warrington and Fartown are getting there.........

Er that's it

so far......

[The Parksider]

I suspect, as with so many people on here who are quick to point the finger at expansion teams, this is all boils down to self-interest. Let's throw out the interlopers so we can keep RL a 'northern' sport so it can remain like it's always been. So long as my club can get into SL, I'm alright. Never mind the consequences for the long term future of the sport. Small clubs who have had over a century of support, money and most importantly time, to build a strong business but who, for the most part, have failed.

And then there's this notion of the 'heartland county's'. That'll be West Yorkshire, Hull, West Cumbria and parts of South Lancashire. The rest of Lancashire couldn't care less about the sport.

But people choose to overlook all that, and decide to pick on the newcomers. The easy targets. If people had spent more time over the years questioning the failings of the 'heartland' clubs, the sport might just of progressed a bit further at professional level than it has.

Kerching and for me the boy wins a ceegar........

History shows that the Northern Union created a form of Rugby that could appeal to paying fans, at a time when Soccer was on the up. The game faltered badly in the face of soccers rise, and it's expectations in terms of expansion fell away after the attempt to link up with Wales faltered, and Union ruled the "rugby" roost outside the traditional counties for the next 90 years.

Despite such tremendous pressure from two rivals who have gone from strength to strength we are still here and I believe we are still admired and still viable as a sport.

But many of those who want to play the handling code have their home, and it is in the fabulous network of socially inclined RU clubs all over the British Isles.

Many of those who want to follow a "football" team have their home too whether at Manchester City or Leicester Tigers, Newcastle United or Harlequins RU.

Against that backdrop expanding Rugby League is a massive massive challenge fraught with endless difficulties, and it doesn't help when so called RL supporters show such great animosity and lack of understanding.

The shame is that RU and soccer fans are mainly ambivolent to our games efforts to grow.

Yet many so called supporters of the our game are downright hostile, unfair and intolerant.

The expectation that when Celtic C enetred SL they could have played Welsh players, and the expectation that in non RL areas thousands should turn up at the gate by habit almost straight away, was either born of ignorance or suggested in order to instantly knock down expansion clubs. Shame

I think to survive the game has to try to expand.

I think that to resist expansion will not see the game stand still.

You cannot stand still in life or in business you just cannot.

Put your flat hat on and tell the expansion clubs to "eff off you load of rubbish" if you like, but it will do the game no good at all.....

[RP London]

If they fold due to lack of income the other features won't save them, why don't people get that? No amount of local players or junior development will pay the bills.

but the question is what makes succesful expansion... does a failed SL team mean failed exapnsion of the game.. i am not sure it does, it makes it a failed team totally or failed club but failed expansion? if Harleqiuns goes under and disapears then it doesnt mean expansion to London has failed.. look at it.. if all that then disapeared then yes it will have failed but if that can be kept going then it did a very very good job even if in the end this super league club failed

[The Parksider]

but the question is what makes succesful expansion... does a failed SL team mean failed exapnsion of the game.. i am not sure it does, it makes it a failed team totally or failed club but failed expansion? if Harleqiuns goes under and disapears then it doesnt mean expansion to London has failed.. look at it.. if all that then disapeared then yes it will have failed but if that can be kept going then it did a very very good job even if in the end this super league club failed

Absolutely correct, but you know the drill on here, as many amateur and juniors clubs can have sprung up as you like in London, or Wales, in fact the numbers could surpass most M62 areas, but a delighted section on here will be happy to forget all that and announce expansion dead.

Once cornered they will announce that any decent players in London and Wales can sign for an M62 club.

The argument is often that expansion as accomodated by the RFL is killing the game, wait and see what happens if expansion at pro level dies....

[the man]

Is it possible that franchising could actually have hindered Harlequins? Are they forced to budget at a Super League level to try to compete when clearly their income through crowds and sponsorship cannot sustain them. In the absence of a rich backer would they not be better off in the Championship where crowds around the 2000 mark would allow them to be competitive. I don't buy in to the argument that suddenly all the youth development would grind to a halt without a SL presence, surely the infrastructure is stronger than that. My own town of Barrow has not had top flight rugby for over twenty years but we still churn out Super League players. We currently have Gardner (Saints), Harrison (Wire), Lupton (Crusaders), Wilkes (Quins) and over twenty players in the Championship leagues.

[mick wilson]

Not forgetting several Barrow kids in the various SL academys & several more in other clubs academys.

[The Parksider]

I don't buy in to the argument that suddenly all the youth development would grind to a halt without a SL presence, surely the infrastructure is stronger than that. My own town of Barrow has not had top flight rugby for over twenty years but we still churn out Super League players. We currently have Gardner (Saints), Harrison (Wire), Lupton (Crusaders), Wilkes (Quins)

Yes Mick and all your best players bu&&er off to the M62.

At least you are close enough to M62 land to bring up players to Barrow to compete for the NL honours you need to get in SL.

London Crusaders last attendance average was 734, playing out of barnet.

Funnily enough they were on a level with Hunslet, Bramley and Swinton at the time.

You think they could go back to that and underpin a sucessful junior structure in London???

Where every decent London RL kid will be getting trials at all the rich London RU clubs????

[skep155]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Until we, as a game, are prepared to risk no television coverage at all, we are doomed to live off the scraps the broadcasters throw us. Like dogs under the table, we are. We need to grow some balls, tell Sky to shove it where the sun don't shine and retrench back to the M62 and semi-professional if we must. It's not a great scenario, but we were only ever a sideshow for Sky. They wanted pay TV control of Australia. They used us. We owe them nothing!

What people advocating this idea don't seem to understand is that we currently don't deserve more than scraps. Let's see it from Sky's perspective, they are essentially an entertainment industry, they are going to hand out the most money to the sports that entertain (or have the potential to entertain) the largest number of people and sell the most number of Sky dishes. They aren't going to give 50 million to the World Curling Federation because people wouldn't subscribe to their channels to watch it, and hence they would lose a lot of money. They have to operate this way or there is no Sky at all because they go bankrupt.

No where in the real world would you demand to be paid significantly more than you are, but offer nothing knew to the company and insist that your job should remain exactly the same. You can ask for a promotion but you have to be willing to do something that makes it worth the company's money. There's a limit to how many terms you can dictate to your employer, you can't turn up to a job interview and say "well I don't think you need an investment banker, I think you need a mortgage advisor, so you should pay me to do that instead".

What you are advocating, is essentially dictating to Sky what they should want from us, retreating to the M62 (From Sky's perspective this means the potential for a decrease in subscriptions to their sports channels, and hence a loss of money), yet at the same time asking to be paid more money, and given more promotion than we get currently. Then if they refuse we should tell them to stuff it and go live on the dole. Get real, we wouldn't even have time to tell them to stuff it, they would metaphorically say "clear your desk, your fired, get the f*ck out of my office and don't come back tomorrow".

[Pen-Y-Bont Crusader]

Yes Mick and all your best players bu&&er off to the M62.

At least you are close enough to M62 land to bring up players to Barrow to compete for the NL honours you need to get in SL.

London Crusaders last attendance average was 734, playing out of barnet.

Funnily enough they were on a level with Hunslet, Bramley and Swinton at the time.

You think they could go back to that and underpin a sucessful junior structure in London???

Where every decent London RL kid will be getting trials at all the rich London RU clubs????

Exactly what would happen if Crusaders finished - although some would still have a go with the Scorpions.

Down here we need to exploit the massive corruption of representative rugby that everyone in Wales knows still goes on and sees so many young players dropping out of the game at 19/20 years of age or just not giving adamn and ending up in the pubs. To do that we need to be able to offer a viable WELSH alternative at SL level.