The Co-Op Championship

Quote: Mk.13 "And let's not forget 9 of the Thunder squad are from Newcastle/Gateshead, plus one southerner from County Durham. In terms of giving opportunities to genuinely local players I'd bet Thunder do as well as most clubs and better than a fair few. Isolated clubs like Thunder need a (very) few extra non-quota players simply because they have no surrounding established rugby league areas to draw from. If heartland clubs don't like it, they should have tried a bit harder in the intervening century or so to spread the greatest game past York.'"

Its not established in that area for a very good reason = no-one is interested.

And the smart alec swipe about hundred years is a bit cheap - how long have teams in the north east been playing the game? I believe that South Shields had a team in the 2nd division from 1902 and Newcastle had a team in the same division from 1936. I also believe there have been teams come and go at regular intervals since then. You can hardly blame heartlands clubs for the game not taking off in certain areas.

Obviously fans from clubs like Gateshead will say they want extra Aussies - they've all seen the Celtic model and how desperate the RFL are to get teams in from different areas.

I know a lot of people don't like football, but I just don't see what the problem is with everyone playing to the same rules and just let the teams get on with it. Same applies for the salary cap, surely the cap just restricts growth and possibly hinders development - I mean how many youngsters possibly have turned away from the game because the wage prospects are far better in other sports such as football and union (not to mention regular bog standard jobs as well). The big argument against not having a salary cap is about the same teams winning every year - doesn't seem to harm the premier league footie does it? By all means have a % of income cap to stop teams spending more than they can afford but apart from that, let teams sign who they want, pay them as much as they want and let the strongest teams take centre stage. After all, all of the nurturing and and encouragement and money ploughed into certain clubs, has the game ever really took off in Wales, the north east, possibly even London? With a level playing field we'd soon find out. Thats not to say they wouldn't do well, but at least they would have earned it playing to the same rules as everyone else.

As Wigan have shown in football, a bit of investment can go a long way. The opposite is true in rugby though - Widnes have someone who is prepared to invest heavily in the club, but with a strict quota and salary cap, how can he set Widnes aside from the rest of the clubs in the division? The lowering of the salary cap in the Championship could turn the division into a bit of a lottery, like the NRL - which is fine apart from the fact that promotion and relegation still exisits. Next year Batley could finish top and Widnes bottom - is a lottery the best way of finding out which clubs will be allowed to apply for SL next time round? Leigh are another - its quite obvious that they want to make a big push next year, surely they won't be able to keep the players they have signed if they go down with the lower salary cap in the Championship 1 - if Leigh can afford them and players want to go there, why not let them? The concept of artificially restricting teams is totally bonkers.