Do Widnes deserve to be in SL; YES/NO????

It's strange that the most vocal of opponents to Widnes' promotion come from Leigh and Wakefield at the moment. I wonder what it is about a minority of fans from those particular clubs which makes them oppose our rightful ascendency?

This leads me to believe the following.

1. Any clubs undergoing similar feelings would have the same amount of bitterness from certain fans. I can certainly understand that.
2. Some people are too blinkered to see the bigger picture.

The bigger picture being, these wakefield fans want to stay in SL indefinitely, decrying the current system which has promoted us. However, they've had three years of grace in super league, and we never got that and neither did any of our rivals down here. They are not strong enough to warrant a place in the top flight forever at the expense of everyone outside it, so it's utter selfishness to demand to stay there at our expense. They'll find out soon enough they're no better than the likes of Fax when it comes down to it.

There are of course those who want a return to P & R, which brings me to the (again, few) argumentative Leigh fans. They want the system back because they'd be current favourites. But they have been so uncompetitive in recent years that their club didnt even get to apply for a license. And all of this moaning ignores the one fact about this.

This is the system we have all been working on for the last three years.

Read that last bit, digest it, let it sink in, read it again. Widnes being the beneficiaries is neither here nor there. We didn't introduce the system. We've been left out by it, and now we've benefitted from it. If wakefield are dumped out at our expense it's nothing to do with us whatsoever. And for that matter, they've had three years to sort out the fragilities of their club with super league money to do it and they haven't, so it will be entirely their own fault.

And as for my club, do we deserve to be in SL? Yes. No club has worked as hard as mine to get itself in this position. It's a pity we're uncompetitive. It is easy from the outside of the championship to throw scorn, but the salary cap is very low and the championship is therefore very competitive. Under the old system, we had a higher salary cap, so the top teams could assert a natural superiority. Now its much harder.

If we had this cap under P & R, you'd get some very small teams knocking on the door of SL before long. We almost lost Leigh the other year because of how competitive it is. It is for the good of the league of course, but it's only made viable because of licensing. I would support a licensing system in the championship under the current laws because of this.

In conclusion, get over it, forget about us because we're on our way up. Stop slinging mud and start discussing how your club can guarantee SL rugby in the future. It's the only way. Our director Steve O Connor concentrated not on how much of an injustice we all felt last time and instead on how we could guarantee it this time. Leigh's directors instead threw toys out of the pram. Wakefield's need to take the former option because if they don't their term in the championship will be very long term indeed. Fax, Leigh, Featherstone, they'll all feel like SL is in their sights in three years time and Wakefield will soon find out it is much harder to stick your head above the crowds from a championship platform.

That is of course if they're kicked out, the finances of other clubs may be in some desperate trouble none of us know about, but they're favourites for a good reason.