5K from each SL club should do it, maybe not even that if the RFL dipped in two. Not much of an RL family we've got though is it? That concept is truly dead and buried.

But for how long do we keep throwing good money after bad? If Super League bails-out one badly managed club, how long before the rest come knocking with the begging bowl? Bunging Haven £60k now is all well and good, but where do we find the funding to bail them out next year, and the year after, and the year after that, because - by Haven's own admission - they aren't growing their own revenue?

It's up to the people of Whitehaven to show that they still want RL in the town. Their last home game attracted 500 people. 500. Is that really the extent of the interest that Whitehaven has in RL?

Personally, when I think of the RL family, I think about the way in which the people of this sport rallied around the Jones family or Steve Prescott, rather than whether they bail out poorly run clubs.

And let's not ignore the double standard here. If this were a club in any other part of the country, getting 500 people to watch them, the tone from certain posters on here would be very different.

You and your mate don't give a damn really. Took a story about a club potentially folding and turned it into a 'slag off expansion lovers' bashing by both your 2nd posts with the actual thread topic pushed to one side.

Well worked out expansion lover.

It's always "the RL family" when a heartlands club is in trouble - of their own making. Never hear that phrase used when an expansion club is looking to join the league, then the same people get angry about someone else enjoying 'their' game and start ranting about the game 'dying' in their backyard.

If Haven set up a fundraising account I will definitely donate. Agreed I won't lose any sleepless nights over their plight, but hope they can make it to the end of the season. if they do they can re-budget for 2019, and also hopefully get new sponsors that will actually pay them.

That's disappointing.

They haven't been given a parachute payment and haven't had the begging bowl(s) out like Leigh and Whitehaven in recent years.

It will be West Wales Raiders who provide opposition to Whitehaven,shortly.

I'll be sure to write an angry letter to the RFL.

This.

It’s not ‘expansion success’ or ‘heartland success’; it’s ‘expansion success’ or ‘heartland collapse’.

The problems of the heartland clubs are a direct result of a sport losing strength in the sports marketplace. The clubs we have don’t attract the money, the profile or the players to sustain the historical semi-pro structures. If Toronto, Toulouse, Catalans and the London and Wales clubs didn’t exist, Whitehaven would still be in trouble. Quite possibly in more trouble.

RL in this country is in serious decline on every indicator you want to look at. Our historic existing marketplace is shrinking and cannot support what we have, let alone what we want. We really are now in a situation whereby if we can’t find and develop new marketplaces, then we’re toast.

The expansion clubs aren’t hurting Whitehaven or other clubs like Whitehaven: they’re actually the only hope Whitehaven has of surviving in the long-term.

It's not a lot but I've just made a donation of £25 to the club, every little helps.

Being suggested elsewhere that the sponsor informed Whitehaven they were pulling out last season, and even paid this season's money up front. The club then spent that money last season, looking to gain promotion. If true, they've got no-one else to blame but themselves.

It's obvious that West Wales are totally out of their depth both on and off the field, they are so far off the pace that they are almost bringing the game into disrepute and I don't really see how they can ever catch up in their current guise (but I hope they can). Not that it has anything to do with Whitehaven.

What a surprise that within the first 4 posts, 2 Leigh fans have turned the thread into an anti expansion thread. They are getting absolutely tireseome now these Leigh fans. Every thread is turned into an anti France or anti canadian thread by the same posters

Regards

King James