Think the reason given was it was too late to change the fixtures and unfair to penalise a club that was relegated and already planned for life in C1.

Bigger travelling support wasn't a reason given, officially anyway.

I just hope Catalans go down so I can sit back and enjoy the fixture fiasco in next year's 8s.

I really wish people like Billy Bullsheet would stop banging on about bloody restructures. All he's doing is getting people's hopes up constantly. He has a worse track record than Nosey Parker for incorrect news stories, but for some reason people listen to him. It MAY happen, but there's also a bloody big chance it won't. Whilst he continues to prattle on about it over social media and his personal radio station, all he does is feed fans' hope, which will inevitably be dashed once again if/when it doesn't happen.

Technically they don't even need to go down for that to still be an issue next year, if they end up in the bottom 4 of SL again. Irrespective of this year's results we could still quite easily see Catalans, Toulouse and Toronto all in the middle 8s next season.

Good point Nothus. Probably a more likely scenario too come to think of it. On the subject of re-structures etc it's very boring now. We should plan for C1. There will be no stay of execution I guarantee.

Was it that?

Or was it changing the international travel arrangements of an entire league full of part timers with one week's notice?

International travel arrangements? Whitehaven were quoted as saying they could take the Bulls place. I want Toronto to succeed but fast tracking them would have been wrong.

I listened to their commentary and to be fair it was Mick piling all the praise on Joe. John picked Caro as man of the match (apart from his try's Mick was saying he was always out of position on defence nothing new there) and gave high praise to Sironen. He rarely mentioned Joe which I think was fairly professional of him. Totally agree though if it would have been that way

Fair play to him, that's exactly the way someone should do it if they have a natural bias towards something. Good on him.

Definitely. He is very knowledgeable too just got to get past the accent! haha

I'm certainly not after any reprieve, but saying "what's right is right" is plain wrong. Being forced to start in the Champ without a pot to in, no players, no money and minus twelve points six days before kickoff meant our fate was sealed before a pass was thrown. It is what it is, but there was nothing right about it, everything wrong about it, and I seriously worry that that mad decree may even prove the death of the club.


Yeah that's about where I am at the moment too

I hear it's not set in stone yet that we are relegated, that's from a bulls player

I would say to him don't get your hopes up.

Well the conspiracy theories are out that the RFL are trying to save Catalans through the referees. Although i've just seen a still of a spear tackle The Catalans were involved in and i've every sympathy with Fax's frustrations. Remember Johnny Campbells red for going slightly over horizontal. Well if you see the still of Catalans spear (which you won't be surprised didn't get a red) you can see why fans get so frustrated. If Campbell got 2 for his then Bird should be minimum of 5. I very much doubt the RFL will ban their best player for the remainder of the season. They really don't help repel the conspiracy theorists sometimes.

I agree. Still a hybrid squad even if they stay up for whatever reason the RFL might come up with

I think you already know my views on what was done to us this year, as I've said it often enough, I guess and now we're finally where we should have been at the start of the season so no, I don't think that is fair - it's been gerrymandered, imo.

In truth, I'm at the stage where I'm not even sure I'm too fussed about what league we're in next year; if they decide to leave us up, that is what they'll do and nothing we (or flatcappers the world over) can say or do that will change it. Truth is though, we've been relegated now according to their rules so should go down, two wrongs wouldn't make a right, much as there might be some sort of justice in it.

From a practical point of view I wonder if we're in any position to stay up anyway? We've been told we're down and have already done planning on that assumption so we'd be the one (again) not in any kind of position to play at the higher level. We've already lost fans - are we sure they're coming back if we're reprieved? cos, if not, there's a gaping hole in our finances in putting a team together. If, as we've been told, we're wait for licensing to come back and get back via our academy then so be it, however long it takes, qué sea sera and all that.