Sky usually schedule the games before the season even starts. They would have looked at the fixtures and picked out London and Cas playing in March to be an early relegation mouth waterer. How wrong they were. The only predictable thing about the opening 5 or 10 games of Super League are their unpredictability.

Not really a surprise. Tony has done some good things as coach, albeit not for a while. However he made no real effort to build up youth development down here in his first spell. Brian Mac did that. Tony has always preferred to ship someone in tbh. I watched several Broncos youth games at Aldershot last season but didn't notice Tony there, I saw Rob Powell there once when coach. Brian Mac did turn up last season to watch London v Leeds. Very different approaches.

In his defence Tony is aware if the damage that can be done to youngsters pushed in too often, particularly in awful teams. He has referred to Olu Iowefenu and Josef Sozi as examples. I'm not sure that defence works re Mikey mind, he's not 18 any more.

The biggest worry is that games like last night do little to quieten the expansion disenters.

"Rugby League in London" is very different to "London Broncos", yet people regularly (deliberately?) confuse the two.

There is no denying that the London Broncos are extremely badly run, but don't let that hide the fact that some amazing work has been done in the capital and SE. It would be a tragedy to lose this on the basis of the cock-ups by Gus Mackay and David Hughes.

Sadly RL down here is not in a good place. The development officers have largely gone. Few amateur teams are stable. The oldest amateur team in London is only 2 or 3 years old believe it or not. Few have a good junior set up, this has definitely declined in recent years. Largely due to the loss of South London who were strong here. Broncos managed to lose Phil Jones, who did an outstanding job.

There are bright spots - outside London but Medway are an admirable club. Oxford are working on a youth set up whilst Hemel continue to build quietly and financially soundly both on and off pitch.

Truth be told my concern is that the Broncos fiasco is distracting attention from the fact RL is wobbling at all levels in London.

The RFL face some huge calls. The talent exists down here. Whether the sport has the desire and / or money to develop it remains to be seen.

It's not just a London issue but one that is at the root of RL expansion.

Try to think of who was last "new" professional/semi pro RL team in the UK that achieved a credible amount of success on/off field whilst attracting regular crowds of 5k, and then ask why the game hasn't expanded (at pro level)beyond its traditional borders ?

Sheffield Eagles

Gateshead before they were forced in to merging with Hull

Hardly a shining beacon of RL development given their chequered past (Shuddersfield etc) and nomadic status (not dissimilar to London), notwithstanding the tenacity and hard working efforts of individuals to keep them alive over the last 30 yrs.

My point is : show me where RL development in the UK has worked in the last 30 yrs (in terms of the professional game) and then why London has failed, against the success of any other "new" club* ?



*and if Gateshead and Sheffield are the benchmarks the I suggest that London haven't really faired any worse than those.

I have a lot of time for the Skolars, but they were absolutely crap until the London SL outfit started giving then players.....a great number of academy and reserve grade Broncos playing for the Skolars. When Hughes walks away, the production of younger players will dry up in the capital.

And soccer,union and cricket will also follow suit.
The future sport in London is snow boarding closely followed by royal tennis!

David Hughes is the architect of this disaster. He could have made his mind up to continue with the club last October and then some decent players could have been retained (Sarginson, Clubb, Dorn, Robertson, Bailey) and decent new ones purchased. Hughes could have fired the non-performing CEO Gus McKay two years ago. And he could have bought a good coach (e.g. John Kear) instead of the one he is so enamoured with.

Of course if the RFL was run by competent business administrators -- as is the case with the NRL -- the RFL would have found new investors with a business administration background to take a majority interest in London Broncos.

Insightful as ever.

When you have the oracle Insight like me you just have to go with the flow.
Lotto numbers are. ...............