Who are they?

They are a huge international sports and media agency.

After 130 odd years, when you planning on realising your potential?

The point is, O snidey one, the potential is there, as has been demonstrated before albeit many years ago. I think any club that is pulling in crowds of 5000+ in a crap stadium with a seriously underfunded team without the benefit of an Uncle Ken figure to bankroll them shows that clearly. The risk is that the potential will wither and die in the face of misguided efforts to foster it elsewhere. I'm not just plugging for Wakey here, but teams like Leigh, Sheffield, Hunslet, Rochdale Hornets, maybe even Doncaster would not need half the cash the RFL have squandered on 'projects'.

London is not yet ready for SL, Crusaders are a basket case and neither club has any realistic prospect of developing a big enough fan base to justify a SL place - the big experiment should end here.

The thing is with the crusaders on the back of them there is a thriving school comp which this year had 50 schools playing. there is numerous RLC teams and the scorpions were able to set up on the back of interest generated in only 5 years.

A youth system to get up to the level of SL clubs will take about 13 years to achieve. This is based on kids starting the game at about 5 and going through the system until 18. The system in south wales atm is only 1/3 of the way through this cycle and the results are very impressive so far. As for there being no potential i suggest you dig out your history book and look at the Welsh players who went north. There is a long tradition of "potential" so i fail to see where you getting your ideas from.


Its hard enough to promote a game with the Media and the Rah-Rah brigade doing nothing to help without having to deal with narrow minded and short sighted idiots like you. If you take of your blinkers you'll see the world is much wider than the M62.

if you want to foster the game at grass roots level, relegate crusaders, release them from the sky contract and let all their games be shown on bbc wales/s4c for free
if they cant run financially stable in the championships they shouldn't be allowed in SL anyway

rlIf The Bank Account Is Frozen The Players May Struggle For Paymentrl

Hope the rumour about Sky paying the RFL directly is true or they may struggle for their reimbursement.
Shame.

So why don't they support the team at the top table? If you read what I've posted you would (possibly) see that my suggestion is that these areas be allowed to develop naturally, and at their own pace, not 'cheap and cheerful oven ready' teams but naturally reared free range teams! I would love to see 30 or more top class clubs competing for honours, but its not going to happen overnight. London and Wales (and other parts of the country) have started this process, but it should not be rushed.

As for Welsh players - I've nothing but respect for anyone who plays RL, but the fact that they had to leave Wales (and no doubt be reviled for playing professional rugby) highlights the problem - RL wasn't wanted there. As for bigoted and narrow minded - not me , there not a drop of celtic blood in my body thank god.

I think its more 'the RFL need this to work in Wales' I doubt the majority of Welsh people give a toss about RL or even know of the existence of the Crusaders.

The RL club's a completley seperate entity, so this is irrelevant.

Think you are half right but allow their Super League games to be shown free to air.

S4C happily show Glamorgan 20-20 games that Sky don't want to broadcast despite Sky being the contract holder and with fans in Wales used to Friday Night Magners League Rugby it would be interesting if a deal could be done to carry on that when the Union season ends with the remaining Crusaders home games and perhaps a few away ones too.

Whether there is the will within the Welsh TV stations to try to make it happen is another matter.

And don't forget that S4C are now effectively owned by our 'friends, the BBC.

yeah i agree wakey have a hell of a lot of potential

maybe in 100 years more they can realize it instead of promising a lot and delivering little

thanks for that 100% biased post

Never confuse realism with bias. Wakefields tenure in SL has been irritating to many, but we've NOT been relegated. Changing the rules of the game to get the result you want (Wakey out) - now THATS what I call biased!