Going back to the start of this thread, I will never forget the scenes at the end of the game yesterday. And the Hull fans were fantastic. Had me close to tears hearing them sing for Crusaders. Brilliant stuff.

That video is superb...Hull's fans have garnered a bad rep by RL standards but they tend to have their moments, mainly the Saints semi in 2005, where the team just butchered us. I'd of been there if I hadn't made the opposite journey to Hull KR.

And the usual lot just will not let it go...

Only a cynic would find 'realism' an enviable quality in sport.

Why should the RFL fund a championship 1 club? Why not a championship club? Why not a Super league club?
Which is exactly what they should be doing. The day we give up trying to expand the game is the day we give up on the game.

The money spent on Crusaders (through sky and through the RFL and WRL development work) was a much better use of our limited funds than giving it to the very small minority of northern clubs who have a massively inflated sense of their importance to the game.

Why not a SL club ? , why not indeed , I have suggested as much in the past , probably too late now , I doubt that the other SL owners would allow it now , the time to do that was 2 years ago

A Championship club ? , well possibly as long as we don't have a no relegation and huge parachute payment , we've already had that once with the Crusader name , the damage that would do to the other clubs support doesn't bare thinking about

A Championship 1 club is the most realistic and the one most likely to see them build , it all depends if the Crusader loyals are loyal enough to follow their club against low profile opposition

It's not a sport , you've told us many many times , it's a business

And yet nobody on this thread has suggested they should give up on expansion , just that it should be done differently , more successfully perhaps

Aah the Rugby League family. So caring.

Nobody has suggested it should have been given to any other such clubs , as for their importance to the game , well at least it would seem they will still be in existence next season , so I'd say yes more important than a club that might not be in existence next year

Yep

This was noted years ago by most of us!

Seems strange that you are happy to damage championship one with what you wouldn’t damage the championship. And why no relegation? Leigh’s lack of relegation didn’t damage the championship. And why no parachute payment? The RFL are funding them, it seems odd that you have a problem with that being via a parachute payment.

Especially with your reference to low profile opposition (as if Leigh or Halifax are ‘high profile) it seems as if you think that the people of Wales not being interested in following their team against towns they have never heard of in a new sport to them will prove something?