But, what's that worth? Any promoted team changes the majority of their 1st 17 in an effort to stay up and still struggle (often because the only free agents they can get have been released by the team they're replacing).

Whilst ability on the ptich in the 2nd tier is a factor to be considered, being realistic, it is not the be all and end all when considering all the factors that determine a clubs ability to contribute to Superleague.

Widnes have a ground that is currently hosting Superleague games. They're also getting a fancy dan iGrass pitch, or something like that.
Don't their youth teams compete favourably with their Superleague equivalents? Its a proven point that the most succesful teams are the ones that can promote from within.
Since their Chairman has taken over, hasn't he given them financial security? Is that through throwing money at them or stabilising them as a business?

I'm looking forward to having them back. Mainly because its an easy away game for me to get to.

Damo and king warrior in the same thread?

Wow!

What sort of crowds are you expecting Widnes to draw? I guess they are going to struggle on the field for first couple of years but is around 8,000 avg realistic?

i reckon they will get 5-6 kbut in a few years that could grow if they are successful on the pitch.

5/6,000 HOME fans probably so with 3 bumper local derbies and hopefully a few others fancying making a fresh trip (ex Saints, lol) would be looking at 7-8,000 average hopefully (home gate will also rise with derbies).

I think we averaged about 6,800 in our last season in Super League. That was with us rooted to second bottom pretty much all season. I'm thinking more 7-8 thousand average to be honest.

And hopefully you will get it. I would say that away support from all clubs has been down in recent years. If you can get 5-6k home support you will be onto a very good start.

You don't have to worry mate they won't come near you in the league. They'll sign Brent Webb and Kylie Leuleuai off you so you can replace them with Ben Jones Bishop and Brad Singleton and you can go about your normal business trying to get as high as you can in the play offs and watch Widnes battle with the likes of Quins, Salford, Wakey ect for the beloved fourth from bottom spot.

They managed to sign Warringtons second team to win the NRC and then sat around knowing that because the RFL's rules which were set out were perfect for them to get into SL without having to be competitive.

Judging by the amount of Widnes fans which have posted on here they'll flood in numbers to slate me. Yes I'm a Barrow fan and our club has been run in an absolute shambles and we are blatant cheats. But as a fan I can't do anything about that I just support my club as I have done for the majority of my life. So you can slate me about that and use that in your argument but it's irrelevant and I couldn't care less.

Don't even know what your point is. You're having a go because we followed the rules?

And they didn't

More of a go at the rules rather than the club, they are a joke.

I wont have a Barrow fan lecture me about how my team has behaved recently. We stuck to the cap! A cap which was lowered to benefit teams like yours and Barrow cheated to gain an advantage over others. You can't for a second lecture any team about how they've performed. It's not irrelevant at all. You accuse us of "signing warrington's second team" (Kevin Penny constitutes a team, and let's not forget your loan signings and dual reg players), going in for rejects like Brent Webb and Leuleuai (neither are on the radar right now although there was talk of Webb a while back) and slating us because we wont be challenging for the super league title in our very first super league season. At least we will be there.

You're not making any sense. Worse than that, your team is likely to be in championship 1 next season as a result of gross misdeeds and bad management which threw the league into disrepute, ours is heading to super league because we got our professional side together. We're your polar opposites, in a good way, and we're being rewarded for that and you're not.

Now I don't want to appear lording it over Barrow fans, but you simply cannot snipe at us like that. I've got sympathy for decent fans who are paying the price for bad management but why are you personally having a go at us?

That's absolute BULL.

You had a go at US.

Of course, it would clearly have been right to award Barrow a Super League place for winning the Grand Final while cheating the salary cap. Call me old fashioned but....