He said there would have. The odd young buck would have got in every three years. Say wakey makes way for leigh courtesy of better franchise plan. Under this purely cosmetic promotion system no one comes up. I understand that Bulls fans simply must not believe that to be true but I really think it is.

It won't last more than two years I don't think. Then we will be back to licensing and the Bulls will be back. I have no evidence for this, just a hunch.

I have evidence but no hunch.

Quality of players, obviously. Both have significantly better squads than Bradford & should be no lower than 7th or 8th.

you can guess next years top 6 now wigan,leeds wire,saints dragons huddersfield .(not in that order) then you have cas ,widnes wakey salford hull ,hull kr compeating for the other two places for the super 8 ,4 of the above treams will be facing a relegation battle ,some with better chances than others anybody finishing 9th or 10th will be confident they wont be dragged into the so called £1million game ,teams finishing 11th and 12th may not be so confident.

It could also go the other way and be simple P&R, but when used before, P&R was such a disaster that licensing was brought in to sort it out. Of course, licensing was no great panacea either, which is why we are where we are.

In truth, none of the ways of allowing movement up and down the leagues has been very successful but the latest hare brained, Heath Robinson effort the RFL have come up with seems the one most likely to bring all movement to a halt, which should prevent most of the problems.

Would Odsal qualify you for a licence?

It did previously and without the fuss that was kicked up over other SL club's grounds

I suppose it depends what the criteria for a new licence would be?
But based on seating: Odsal has seats for 5000 plus.
Facilities Car Parking in the ground is good.
Toilets Are perhaps adequate but not sensational
Turnstiles plenty
Capacity 27,000
Safety of terraces. Just been re concreted So passed H&S regulations
Playing surface No problems
Dressing rooms OK I assume

What else would you need for a licence?

Also: RFL denies own ground suitability licence would make a good headline.

Well, except that responsibility for upkeep is actually still [iour[/i responsibility, so they won't need to pull any fast ones to escape the rap for that one!

At my most cynical I would say its their nuclear bomb solution to micromanaging clubs. On the other hand a well run and funded club with an academy that produces SL quality players should not have a problem getting promoted.

I guess that's a qualified maybe, but like education in all walks of life, the academies in RL work on the same GIGO principle that applies everywhere. Oxbridge may well be famed for the quality of its graduates but it has the highest quality intake to form them from, and whilst we're still to find out how relegation affects the quality of young rugby players entering the academy, I think we can be pretty certain it won't be improved. Nor will being in Div 2 help in securing the the best players from our academy into contracts at the Bulls when they reach 19.

I won't say it's impossible, but for all the reasons gone into previously, it will be damned hard and, after the initial season, when hopefully we'll still have quite few SL hardened players on board, it will become more and more unlikely, imo.