That is the talk down here.

Half of me, if we are looking at a slow death is saying give Widnes their place. They deserve it more than us after the idiots in charge of us have made a pigs ear of it all.

I really hope if it does happen though the RFL see it for the bad running of a club that it was and look at our youth development and the club we could have been if run properly.

It just goes from bad to worse. No bad feeling if Widnes do get the position though as we couldn't have done many things worse off the field to be fair.

What it will mean though is that we will no doubt have a Championship 1 club down here so will still have rugby league. I also know there is budget that would have seen us compete a lot better in Super League, but it seems to be all what if's down here.

It pains me to say it but I'd probably prefer to see this happen than the club have a slow death which will happen if we don't stay in South Wales. We also wouldn't be near the sustainable youth that would be the lifeblood of the club. If it comes off good luck to Widnes, although they won't need it as they know what it takes and won't make the huge mistakes that we did.

I'm off to the bookies and putting my mortgage on 22 pages before the day's out!

If the deal includes a framework where a new Championship club is born and nurtured by the Widnes club as part of the deal - to protect the development work and allow a path to SL for the younger players - then it may be the best thing all round - for now.

The development club would have nothing to do with Widnes.

The RFL have been approached by a consortium to start their own club off playing out of Bridgend.

I believe it might be the same consortium that wanted to keep Crusaders down here but didn't want the club with the debt so decided to approach the RFL about the new club.

Is this application for an NL1 side masterminded by the people who were the Crusaders management team beforehand?

Im confused as to what is going on.

They've got Noble, Sharpe, Harris in place, bought a hooker the other day and are supposed to be playing at Newport until Bridgend is updated.

What is actually happening?- You cant go from one SL team struggling to 2 professional teams surely or can you!!!

Smells like bull, also how can this be classed as a merger?

Crusaders are actively signing players and have players to announce apparently, so they are obviously planning for next year.

Would Noble, Sharp and Harris all move there with this much uncertainty? The bizarre situation is that the season starts in what, 8-9 weeks and we don't know where the home ground is.

A merger with Widnes? Would never happen in my opinion, and I'm sure the only suggestion as cru has indicated is to cover up the fact that Celtic weren't ready and we were. I hope Crusaders don't disappear as I actually think they bring something to the game, but it seems their off the field antics are being done by the tea lady at the moment.

That's pretty offensive to tea ladies - I'm sure that any tea lady could manage a sports team better than some of the clowns in charge at Crusaders.

exactly, there is no need for a merger at all. If they just want this to happen, put Widnes in SL - and put Crusaders in NL1.

My initial reaction was that this had to be a wind-up and then I remembered the Gateshull and Shuddersfield fiascos. If true, then it completely destroys the credibility of Messrs Lewis and Woods.

Celtic Widnes Crusader Vikings. Has a certain ring to it.

The "merger" rumour would surely be that were the above to happen (which I'm certain won't) Widnes would be able to pick up the contracts of any of the Crusaders players they wanted. The current Widnes squad would not be competitive in Super League, nor was it designed to be.

True, it'd also be easier to Hand over the franchise place without other clubs staking a claim for it.

It questions the substance of the Celtic application, without going into another licence debate but maybe Lewis and his team have done Celtic no favours by putting them in when they weren't strong enough yet.

This Wrexham talk has now been going on for 2/3 weeks with no outcome yet, how can a club plan their budgets when not knowing where the home ground is? Will season ticket holders ask for their money back? Has development been started in Wrexham to see what the interest is for rugby league? If it's not strong enough in South Wales then I doubt it will be in Wrexham.

I thought it was a bit suspicious when I saw Widnes's draft fixtures - Leeds at Wrexham first game.