It is plainly obvious that it is waaaaaaaaaaaay too late to consider a complete league restructure to put in place in 2018. Quite apart from the absurd result it would produce that the teams in the present divisions would have wasted their time.

It would also be impossible to actually bring in anything like this without the consent of the member clubs. It isn't in the gift of the three wise men or anyone. I am sure that had there been such a secret plan then the full details would 100% definitely have leaked out.

I don't discount that Nige & Co. may have a plan for 2019, coinciding with the Odsal lease requirement, but sadly we won't exist by then. A year of 1000 crowds and shorn of what young talent we do have, and no Academy (surely nobody believes a bottom league Bulls could remotely afford to run one) would mean that we would be the absolute easybeats for everyone to flog should the mistake be made of sticking us in the wrong league again. No money, no players, no crowds, it simply has no chance of working whatever form it would take.

The ONLY escape from demise, in my opinion, is the entrance of a Toronto-stylee loaded bunch of ambitious moneymen, as undoubtedly anyone suitably minted can "do a Toronto". But I haven't seen many flying pigs around Odsal of late.

I have posted more than once what I was told 3 or so years ago that the RFL plan was to kill off the Bulls. I didn't believe it then, good though my source was. I don't dismiss it now. We are, at this moment, as near to a dead club walking as makes very little difference.

For what purpose though? Attendances in the sport are dropping as it is, why would they want to kill off a heartland club with (potentially) 10k home support?

Both tales sound like tinfoil hat BS to me. We've just been mismanaged for circa ten years and we're about to go part time in league 1 (at best) as a result. It's as simple as that.

Odsal? The lease nearly expiring? All could start coming together. Some of the people who have been given fit and proper persons passes to own the club have all milked off it before jumping ship? Just trying to think of the reasons if true (which I have no reason to doubt because having met FA in person I dont think he would post anything like that without reason)

The RFl have said in the last few weeks that very little change will happen in 2018.
They also stated that 2019 will see major changes which does make sense and I would expect that to be clarified while this season is still running to give clubs a decent lead in time.
As for the RFL aiming to finish the club I just can't see this. The club was dead in February. Yes, it would have been tricky to replace them so late on but Nobby said Toronto would have done that. Why resuscitate a flat lined club just so you can kill it off in a way you choose later on?
I have tried to keep optimistic but now accept that we probably will go down unless all of a sudden the visa situation is solved and Lowe (is he still with us) turns up with 5 experiences Ausies.
Possibly our best hope is that there is a plan that in 2019 Toronto and ourselves get a SL licence along with London and Toulouse. If this is the case then being in CH or Ch1 may not matter other than as FA points out we have half the fans and no academy. What if we went down and licencing is to be brought back in 2019 and we keep the full academy structure and most of the young lads. That would fuel the "there is a plan" theory.

Anyway, we look like being relegated, losing all of the academy, most of our support and going into a death dive. So, anything better than that will be a bonus.

For what it's worth the Academy is in good shape and is improving all the time. A heck of a lot of work has gone into building from the wreckage of the Green era. Newcastle have an academy despite them being in C1. We have a great relationship with the community clubs in the area and beyond. Provided we keep John B and Mark D and team together that side of things is going to be alright.

Those disillusioned with the first team would do well to get along to some U19 games instead. Cheaper and more fulfilling!

Somebody is keeping us afloat this season. They have to be - the numbers just don't add up otherwise.
If it's the RFL then you'd have to ask why they would do such a thing if they wanted us gone.
I can't see the benefit of them owning the leasehold to a stadium with no tenant in it, so the Odsal motive doesn't work unless I'm missing something.

Chalmers and Lowe don't have the funds to do it themselves I don't think.

So what's going on? It's baffling.

We end up back at conspiracy theories.

Whatever is going on this season seems to be a write off barring some sort of miracle that exceeds all other RL related miracles I've seen in 30+ years.

So I'm sticking with the U19s for now.

I think it's the one armed man on the grassy knoll.

The man from Mongo has been a good friend to Cha-low.

This is no conspiracy theory, but a straightforward answer to your straightforward question. I don't know, and am unlikely to ever find out, but whatever else, the Bulls being in the Champ this season saved the RFL a whole shedload of grief. Fact.

Was that enough to merit helping keep us afloat? Maybe it was. What is NOT a theory but is a fact, this decision most certainly didn't do us any favours. Many peoples' worst fears about it seem to be being realised, and the likelihood of disaster was not that hard to predict. Have the RFL got form for sticking the knife in to the Bulls? Well, yes. We were on the point of folding, on the last day, OK agreed to take the club on, and at the eleventh hour the RFL suddenly moved the goalposts massively and insisted on confiscating one year's funding. Again, simple fact. And people have said OK was 'foolish' or whatever to agree to that - but another simple fact is, had he not done so, then the club would have closed down then and there. Which was essentially why he signed. The RFL would have thus signed our death warrant on that fateful evening so don;t anyone tell me they wouldn't do it, they clearly were fully ready to do it.

Add to that the farrago when OK did a deal to sell his shares to Moore & Co., but they then refused to pay. Story was that someone from the RFL had told them they didn't have to. I have no knowledge of if that's true but then again we heard recently that even this season the RFL had apparently helped themselves to was it 100K of our pittance of funding to pay the former company's "rugby debts".

And were the RFL instrumental in us ending up with owners that don't show any sign of putting in the sort of money which could have saved us?

Like I say I'm certainly no conspiracy theorist but my personal impression is that we've been getting a good kicking for a while now. And whatever else, none of this is inconsistent with what I was told.

Odsal is clearly worth a lot of money for whatever reason. I mean, if it wasn't, why would Green make persistent efforts to buy it? Why would the RFL buy the lease? Circling predators? But there would not be any predators circling or otherwise unless there was a tasty large meal in the offing so to me that just reinforces the firm belief that Odsal is a lucrative target, and all the more so when the rugby covenant shorty expires.

But the rugby 'covenant' doesn't expire, FA. All that expires is the pay-back clause under the Odsal Settlement agreement - the 'covenant', if it exists at all, is just down to the council and whatever decision they come up with. The RFL are leasing a rugby ground and, as it is, presumably have to hand back a 'rugby ground', at the end of their tenancy.

I confess to knowing little of legalities, where as I'm certain you do, but I'd have thought that, unless the terms of the lease say otherwise, the freeholder would have a pretty big say in what "permanent" changes can be made to the ground?

If Koukash is financing them and in turn the Bulls, what's the motive - altruism, a way of owning two clubs, a loan with interest or something altogether more worrying like a merger?

That's my theory if there's anything in it.

Another Shuddersfield or maybe a Gateshull?

I have two questions - my apologies if they have already being discussed -
1. If the RFL have withheld funding from a different company to pay off debts from a new one does that mean we have paid off some of our debtors and thus the 12 points for paying off creditors is a little more harsh? Surely if other creditors are being penalised and small businesses going under due to the old companies dealings is this not why we got 12 points because we did not pay our debts off? So how can they justify penalising a new company to make amends for a different one?

2. If this is the case and the administration and debtors are lodged would this be classed as an unfair advantage to creditors if some are paid differently? is this legal? surely a review may say that all creditors should have received an equal amount of this 100k windfall not just a chosen few?

May sound dumb but as per usual with the bulls and the RFL involvement in administration some things just never add up.

With Robbie Paul now involved at Salford (albeit a consultant) and the Salford staff now over at the Bulls, that's the picture emerging for me too

The Red Bulls anyone?