And the club having done so was never going to do exactly the same next year.

And if you found that ludicrous then what's your take on LS being responsible for the Crusaders latest debacle having sold the club a year ago.

I'm not arguing about whether the applications will be judged on their merits. There will be some debate over whether various merits are valid, but that's a debate thats been done over and over and over...

I was asking YOUR OPINION. While I respect the fact that you will not see full applications, you must have an opinion of who you'd prefer to get a license or not?

So, in your opinion, do you think it was right to refuse widnes a franchise in 2008? and do you think Crusaders should be granted a license next time round?

My opinion of applications I've not seen? You can ask till you're blue in the face.

The only answer you'll get is the only sensible oneI agree that each application should be judged on its merits. I've no reason to think that wasn't the case in 2008. I've no reason to think that won't be the case in 2011.*

* with the obvious exception that one club (from the championship) will be judged separately and early, giving it a clear advantage. But that's the RFL, hey, always going out of their way to give advantages to non traditional clubs.'"

How can you form an opinion (or at least one worth anything at all) on whether a decision was "right" without knowing all the details? You'd need to have seen the Vikings franchise bid in its entireity, judged it against the criteria at the time and then done the same with every other bid to be able to make that call.

It's the equivalent of reading a newspaper report of a fraud trial and deciding someone must have been guilty off the back of a couple of paragraphs.

Unless you're really not interested in facts and just want to go off on a witch hunt that is...

Fair enough, I suppose it's like anyone who bothers to pay attention knew that Widnes never went into liquidation in 2007.

Any links I can use so I could get an an actual answer?

Just read this thread.

I can't judge Crusaders' licence application (which isn't even written yet) against the 13 others from current Super League clubs (which also don't exist yet) and reach a conclusion. No. I don't have super powers.


tbh, my primary concern for next summer is that Cas's application is strong enough.

There's more to this than meets the eye. Although Vaughan had stepped down from the board at Widnes he was still the major shareholder and was reported to be violently* opposed to the decision to put the club into administration.

I'm told that the non-rugby related debts would have been sufficient to have put the club out of business in 2007 even if player costs had been pared to the bone - the one hope of rescue was to achieve promotion to Super League.

So you could even argue that by funding the promotion push from their own pockets the remaining directors were pursuing the only course of action that might have resulted in creditors receiving their money.

The one big criticism of course is the club getting involved with SV in the first place, but then the RFL did get into bed with Leighton Samuel, metaphorically speaking, so I'm sure they understand.

* I hope you'll forgive me if I don't go into more detail. Anyway there's no hard evidence linking certain people to certain events which occurred in the months following the administration.

Oh come on. Let's not be coy. The formal pretty documents may not have been drawn up but we know how each side have done in the league over the last two years and a good idea of how they will do next season, we know what kinds of crowds they attract and the stadium they will play at....oh hang on....I see your point.....who knows where Crusaders will be playing by then?

Administration leads to a statutory investigation into director conduct, so if something dodgy was going on - it's no surprise formal insolvency wasn't desired. Not just limited to current directors either.

p.s. I know nothing of the circumstances surrounding Widnes' insolvency at all, but a desire to avoid scrutiny can often at the heart of efforts to avoid administration.

Isn't there a substantial difference in that Vaughan is a fraudster, whereas (whatever one may think of him) Samuel has never been charged with any criminal offence.

A friend of mine was talking to a (then) RFL official who had been closely involved in the licensing process. The RFL man, who had had his tongue loosened by a few beers, stated that the point scoring system was set up in such a way that many clubs would be classed as category 'C', leaving Red Hall with the chance to cherry pick their preferred options whereas a more finely tuned gradation would have left them with no such freedom.

Whether or not this was 'in vino veritas' or whether he was winding up my friend I don't know. But it does fit the conspiracy theorists' view that the RFL were following an agenda not a process, in which case 'merits' becomes a very elastic term.

But if so, why not say so, instead of risk the discrediting of the licensing system from the get-go.

The RFL have given other leg-ups (legs-up?) to expansion clubs in the past - why not make clear in this instance that Crusaders were outwith the licensing project and were being granted a place in SL in much the same way that London, Paris, Gateshead and Catalans were before them?

Has Mr Vaughan ever been convicted of fraud?

The only problem with that theory though is that licences were only graded A, B or C [iafter[/i they were awarded – ie: licence applications were judged against the five areas spelled out in the RFL's publications and only those clubs awarded a licence were then graded according to the 10pt system made famous by Sky's prelicensing shows.