It seems everybody has discounted both of us getting the boot & Fax coming up. After Chase's 2 match ban nothing would surprise me on the 26th.

Well said - I totally agree.

Before Bonzo gets here, i'll throw my $0.02 in,


Altogether now ; "Going down, going down, going down...."

Back to the original question, if our big city rivals get the boot will i miss them ?


A little bit.













For Approximately 2 seconds

If the RFL actually follow their criteria then the Quins should certainly be out as they just do not get the crowds to sustain a Superleague business. Being able to sustain a franchise has to be an over riding factor.

The crusaders seem to change their name/location on an annual basis and again I do not feel that they are ready for SL. They should really be building towards a franchise in the championship leagues, they shouldn't just automatically have one.

Wakey are not in as strong a position as we are at the moment but I feel that they certainly should be chosen above the quins and crusaders for another SL contract. It would be great if we are both still in for 2012 when we meet at Belle Vue later this season, but this is the RFL we are talking about so I would be surprised if we had both managed to secure a franchise by then and I wouldn't even be surprised if we had both lost our franchises for 2012 onwards.

One question. How do you work out that Wakefield have the capacity to become a "Wigan, Warrington, Leeds kind of club" but Cas don't?

Is this the basis that:
You have more fans than we do?
You have a better youth development system than we do?
You're in a better financial position than we are?
You have a stadium built and ready and we don't?
You're in a better league position than we are?
You have better quality players than we do?

No, thought not.....

Meh - it's about on par with bren2k's post in yet another bickering thread.

I honestly don't have a clue what's going to happen now. I know a lot of people who've simply fallen out with the game for various reasons and like them, fail to be surprised by anything that happens. The RFL seem to believe that all the Super League clubs exist in little bubbles, protected from the economic climate and have ploughed their agenda forward showing little concern for the wellbeing of member clubs. That concerns me because whilst we might ace a lot of the other criteria and have a strong application, we don't yet have a new stadium.

I think we've benefitted quite significantly not only as a club, but for the game itself from licensing and to take that away now does seem rather pointless. However the suggestion that Cas' continued presence in SL is holding Wakefield back is laughable for so many reasons, as casman2 points out. Nor do I believe the WTW brand would be the one looked upon more favourably of the three from the Wakefield District given recent indiscretions.

Wakefield's fans seem to believe that going into administration won't count against them in the franchise application, however they seem to have misinterpreted the change in the rules. The rule change didn't omit financial insolvency from the licensing process, it merely allowed clubs to apply for a license after going into administration where previously this wasn't the case.

Wow!

You try telling them that on the Wakey forum!!

Better still - don't bother!

"For my money, your continued SL existence stunts our growth - we've got the capacity to develop into a Wigan, Warrington, Leeds kind of club - you haven't, and the sooner everyone accepts that, the better"

Looking forward to a week on Tuesday even more now. Time approaching to ram this back down his throat.

If that's the case, why has WTWRLFC failed to capture the imagination of Wakefield residents over the years of its residency in Super League. We're constantly told that Castleford is a small town with little to offer in terms of expanding the club's spectator base. However, here are some telling statistics: average crowds at Wakefield compared with crowds at Cas in the same season. I've included a few rather telling seasons in this list. The number in brackets after the average attendance is the finishing position of each club in the table that season. NL1 stands for National League 1 and R denotes that the team was relegated from Super League that season.

2004: Wakefield: 4806 (6); Castleford: 7034 (12R)
2005: Wakefield: 5100 (10); Castleford: 5469 (NL1, 2)
2006: Wakefield: 5447 (10); Castleford: 7096 (11R)
2007: Wakefield: 6781 (icon_cool.gif; Castleford: 5108 (NL1, 1)
2008: Wakefield: 6962 (icon_cool.gif; Castleford: 7501 (12)
2009: Wakefield: 5892 (5); Castleford: 7489 (7)
2010: Wakefield: 5983 (11); Castleford 6616 (9)

Even if you exclude the relegation match at the Jungle in 2004, where the Tigers pulled 11055, Castleford's season average would have been 6725. So, over all those years when Castleford haven't been as good as their supporters would have liked, and where they only finished above Wakefield in the final standings once, the question remains: what have the Wildcats done to capitalise on their on-field advantage over their neighbours?

How can anyone blame Castleford for Wakefield's failure to pull an average crowd of more than 7000 in any of those seasons? What capacity is being developed by WTWRLFC? Why can't a team that has had playoff qualifications under its belt pull in larger crowds? From finishing 6th in 2004 and having success in the playoffs, there was a lot to build on. However, the crowds stayed away in their thousands (on a comparison with Wigan, Warrington and Leeds, anyway). In fact, in a successful playoff season, Wakefield couldn't get more through the gate each week than Castleford did in two seasons in NL1. This isn't really the sort of statistic that backs up your argument.

So my question is why should people accept that Castleford hasn't got the capacity to develop and that Wakefield has? It's got absolutely no foundation in terms of how the clubs have cultivated their support over the past few years.

Over to you...

Still waiting for a reply I see Georgie!

*BUMP*

A good sound argument, very well made. I worry a little about people who boost their own ego by sniping and bitching about others. I have never, and would never, argue that Cas aren't a very well supported team who have a bigger (slightly, but demonstrably) following than Wakey do. I for one think that either team has the potential to achieve much better crowds in the future, and the major factor behind that would be playing good rugby with a degree of success - much more of an influence than stadia, although new stadia will improve attendances.

I look at the relative success that Hudds have had over the past few years, and firmly believe that if either Cas or Wakey had been lucky enough to match their level of investment in the team in a modern stadium we'd be looking at crowds of 9 or 10,000.

So my answer to your question is that people should't accept that Cas or Wakey can't develop. We can and, hopefully, will. Quins, though.................?