I'd suggest they are peeved that their best opportunity of getting the game going in their region has gone tits up.

There aren't people dancing on the coffin of the Crusaders there are people pointing out that it was a poor decision to go with them in the first place and it was. What didn't help matters is that they were ridiculed for even suggesting this for months and months. I personally find it massively frustrating that they looked to have blown an opportunity that if handled well could have worked.

Don't try and blame the doubters for this one.

Great post. We need more people like you in RL.

I know the development officers well (as you'd expect), and I know they simnply don't have the capacity to run individual school sides. The RU guy was attached to a RU club, but funded from the RFU and accessing their cash. It's a brighter story for us out in West London around Quins, where the RL development officers are based and can spend more time doing stuff (rather than travelling half a day to visit east London). That's quite a good indication of why a pro club is important for expansion. It provides a focus and a base for everything else.

The union guy said to the girls, in front of me, that he coached "proper" rugby. One of the girls asked me why we don't play RU. I said that if I wanted to be that bored, I'd teach maths.

If it rains you'll get wet. This has about as much relevance as your statement.



Brave of you to admit. I salute you.



Your devotion to RL is admirable.



However your sweeping generalisations are not.

Why make up such nonsense. No one is:

Gloating over the difficulties of the Crusaders
Salivating over the prospect of Quins following
Demanding a retreat to the M62
Dancing on the coffin of Crusaders
Jubilant that members of their own sporting family are dying

You made all that up! Because it doesn't suit your aganda that there actually may be other ways to expand that do not demand rushing clubs into SL built on foundations of sand. An opinion shared by NRL chief executive David Gallop!

You sir are a Drama queen and a hypocrite.

There may be some posters who have said I told you so, or something along those lines. The vast majority of people commenting on these threads do not jump up and down with glee at the prospect of the Crusaders or any other RL club struggling.



Choice quotes! If you don't want to be quoted, don't invent things like

Will this do?



This implies to me that you see this as an infallible blueprint for expansion. Strange then that you describe your frustration at the prospect of the RU coach about to poach the players from your school. This seems a bit of a contradiction but then my understanding of English is limited.

The NRL chief executive also seems to disagree with your position regarding the best way for RL to expand.

thats actually very funny

what, are widnes going broke again?

RLis underfunded because it is mainly full of heartland clubs who have failed to develop properly.

if the heartlands wasnt so weak expansion would have more chance of succeeding.

when clubs have been around for over 100 years and cant get crowds of more than 2000 they are a waste of space.

RL is crying out for more clubs like wigan and leeds.

unfortunately all it gets are clubs like leigh, keighley, wakey, whitehaven etc. etc. etc.

Been here before havent we , so please tell us where are these clubs like Leeds and W1g4n ?

Also the clubs like Leigh,Keighleyand Whitehaven are not realistically looking to enter SL , so your point is what ? , they should just pack in ?

their fans should stop commenting on expansion of the game then shouldnt they

if these clubs have no realistic way of adding to RL in england by being strong clubs that can add to the pool of potential SL clubs, all they are doing is taking scarce funds away from the RFL to live a comatose existence.

ill repeat if SL was full of strong heartland clubs, the base for expansion would be much stronger. so im asking why have so many heartland clubs failed to develop properly over 100 + years?

You mean me ?

Who will this [ipool of potential SL clubs [/iplay if these comatose clubs pack in then ? It'd be a pretty dull league with 3 teams in it.

If you think that sentence is an infallible blueprint for expansion, then your understanding of English really is a very long way from anyone's I've ever met.

Can you really not see the difference between wanting to expand, and the method by which one does ? I'm quite happy to stand by a statement that says that I want RL to expand as far as it can as fast as it can. But the mthod by which one does that is precisely what is for debate.

As for your last point about the RU coach, I've read it twice and I still don't have any idea what point you're making.

On the Gallop point, all you're actually doing is saying that the RFL must be wrong because they tried something you disagreed with, but Gallop must be right because he says something you do agree with. As an point of argument, it's meaningless. Why would Gallop be any more prescient than Lewis ? Does the fact that a RL administrator says something mean that it's the word of God ? Really, after a century of some of the worst administration in sport, are you really saying that the fact that a RL administrator is currently taking the view that it's best to avoid any expansion means that is in fact the case ?

In which case, you might like some more Gallop quotes on the issue of why he doesn't want new teams elsewhere ''It's highly advantageous for us in the competition for athletes that we can tell local kids they never have to leave their family and friends,'' he said.....''There is an increasing trend for youngsters to stay at home at age 18, and mothers like that."[/i

Ok, Dave, you've convinced me. The logic behind your desire to bury your head in the sand while the AFL set up shop in your back yard is flawless.

Here's another quote ''There are obviously target areas we have our eye on - Central Coast, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and perhaps another team in New Zealand,'' he said. ''I think PNG is, quite frankly, a fair way off but our timeline now is to wait until the middle of 2011 before we have a real serious look at expansion again and whether it is the right thing for our competition.''[/i

Oh, hang on. Good grief ! The man must be schizophrenic. Maybe it's a different Gallop, and the other one was abducted by aliens ? What a mystery. Yet, if as you say the fact that Gallop says something means it must be right, then which of these are we to believe ? The one about how RL should expand to every major population centre in the south seas, or the one about let's not play the game more than ten minutes from Sydney's teenage boys' bedrooms ?

You've started off on the wrong foot. I don't believe in expansion at all costs. I don't believe, for example, that plonking a team on a point in the map would work because you need sufficient population and economic activity to support any pro club. I don't believe in wasting time in Liverpool or Glasgow because they're soccer-saturated cities. I don't believe in putting teams where there is no guaranteed moneyman as a backer. But I also don't believe that what's happened at Crusaders means that we should never try anything similar again. If you really think that's such a fantastic unrealistic opinion, then I can only suggest you give up now, because we'll never agree, and I'll never think you're right. But you're currently trying to accuse me of views I don't hold, and as your rather poor failure to provide "evidence" of my apparent view that there is an infallible blueprint for expansion shows, it's rather hard to do that.