A Cumbrian club, now that would make a lot more sense to me.

I'd like to see a club thrive in Wales, but I remain to be convinced that the Crusaders will manage it as things stands. I do wish the RFL would be a little more black and white about how long each individual club will play under a different set of rules too. Does anyone know?

Because the game would die, it would go from being a major professional sport to being a regional pastime and eventually would be forgotten about completely. Is that what you want? You absolute clown.

Your mad if you think that the game can stay successful whilst remaining static, the entire argument seems to be hinged on the idea that other sports will just leave us alone and not infringe on our territory. Were not living in the 1950's, Union are spending serious money trying to convince people in the North that it is the superior code and that it's the one that northerners should watch and play. In April Sale will be playing London Irish at the Reebok in front of what is likely to be a 20,000 plus crowd. Fair enough it's a one off but there are signs that they are starting to succeed, Rugby Union players are getting tonnes of coverage in the national papers, it's apparently having an effect on our best young players because some of them are opting to switch codes before they even reach their peak in Rugby League (Eastmond, Ashton). Were in serious danger of becoming 'that regional sport whose best players switch to Rugby Union when they are 21 if they can make the grade".

As for other minority sports expanding, the AFL are making serious efforts to expand into traditional League territory in Australia, because they think they have a good product that people will want to watch. But never-mind, we should just know our place and stick to Yorkshire and Lancashire, how arrogant of us to think that people outside of this geographic region might enjoy watching our sport. As someone else suggested, we should play all the games underground in a coal mine just in case anybody accidentally sees it and enjoys watching it.

As for Quins and Crusaders, it's already been stated by an RFL official that 'without London, I don't think we'd have Sky'. Crusaders actually had an average attendance of over 5,000 last year minus the two Neath games. I'm concerned about their owners, but I think the interest is there in Wrexham.

Lenegan hit the nail on the head when he stated " The only people who threaten rugby league are rugby league people. We need to give people an opportunity to take part in our game".

Love it! All the regional or provincial sports in the world must be crapping themselves that they're going to die out cos they don't have teams all over the place

The bar skittles association of Somerset are preparing to plant a half cocked poorly funded team in Leeds as we speak.

As for the international game, GB haven't beaten the Aussies since pre-expansion so that's a reyt good argument!

If the Quins can't get 10,000 in a city of 6m how are Crusaders going to do it with a county wide population of 130,000?

The arrogance of insisting our sport has a divine right to succeed wherever we plant it is staggering frankly, it isnt working people time to think again

What utter nonsense, we have Sky because it's a relatively cheap (nothing like Football) fast, exciting sport!

Your assumption is complete tosh trawled out as fact

Nobody has yet made a compelling, cohesive reason why Rugby League needs to be played in every corner of the land, nothing wrong with ambition, but let's fix the game in it's own backyard first.

I bet you would love it if our game was as popular as bar skittles. Idiot. I can't wait till fans like you walk away from the sport.

Someone woke up Headhunter, he's angry you know

Yes great moderator is Headhunter, only resorted to personal insults twice

Anyway, heaven forfend for actually stirring some serious debate as opposed to which bus I'm catching to next weeks game, I'll see you around folks

Ralph Rimmer stated, in an interview in League Weekly a couple of months ago, that without a London Club the deal on offer from Sky would be worth around half it's current value. So direct from the RFL you can put a figure on it. Now try taking away that proportion of the Sky money from each of the Super League clubs and tell me which ones would survive as full time professional.
I'd doubt Bradford would be able to so just from a selfish point of view we need that presence in London.
Unless of course we cut the money available to players or you have an alternative suggestion for funding the current level of wages?

I have to agree with Frank...get the game sorted in the areas that do give a toss and then lets start to expand in a structured an progressive manner. Not by planting a team in a random area and expecting it to be an overnight sensation.

I've often said it's like taking an RU franchise and getting it to play in Hull and expecting the local sports fans to turn out en masse to support it.

I appreciate that there needs to be a presence in London but the current set up isn't working and needs to be looked at before it's too late.