They'll be about as keen to help SL clubs as SL clubs are to help those in the championship - probably less so with it being the other side of the world.

They're already 'helping' our international team by paying the wages of some our best players - Burgess, Graham etc. That is the only subsidy we can realistically expect. Would we really want to become reliant on Aussie largesse, even if we could persuade them?

I think looking for a pot of gold at the end of a Sky or NRL rainbow is pretty much futile, our budget is what it is, it isn't likely to grow dramatically in the forseeable, so it is just how best to divide it.

We've got options, none of them ideal, but we just have to adapt.

The only way that any kind of contribution from the NRL/ARL would work is in the form of a contribution to the RLIF. I’d have no problem with every league contributing 10% of their revenues to the RLIF, which would take independent control of the international game, the rules and any expanded WCC. But I cant see either the RFL or ARL/NRL agreeing to give up any funding or more importantly (to them) control.

I totally agree Smokey and the comment was made, very much, tongue in cheek.
However, the disparity in valuation of the 2 very similar competitions is quite staggering.

Some clubs (including mine) have already started putting together their licencing bids for the next period (2015-2017). How can they do this when they don't know the criteria ?

In the build up to the last round of licencing perhaps they should have attended fact finding days out at SL clubs, such as Crusaders, Wakefield, Salford and Bradford. There was much to learn from these beacon of lights.

Indeed there was !
I hope Fax submit more that 2 sides of A4 for their next application

Better that than a catalogue full of lies

Totally agree.
In the modern world style is deemed to be far more important than substance.

obviously in the last round of licences the old adage ran true..." bullsh*t baffles brains"

Or, more likely Wakefield, Salfords and Bradfords bid is decent and they possibly could be sustainable but it isn’t guaranteed, but Fax’s bid is written in crayon over 2 pages of A4 with one of those pages taken up with colouring in, and it is titled Halyfacks Rugbee bid, whereas Fev and Barrow are definitely not sustainable, they don’t even have a stadium capable of containing the level of attendance they would need to be sustainable.

The present Sky deal expires in 2017, and I don't see them re-negociating it so we're probably stuck with the current set-up until then - although I'm in full agreement that things need to change I haven't joined in this thread because I don't think there will be any. To make a wild prediction for the next round of licencing it's Cas' out with Halifax or possibly Fev in and London out (Nigel Woods is making 'we can't put up with this much longer' noises, which he wouldn't be doing if he thought that Sky would object) with Toulouse in.

Bet those creditors loved the glossy applications you half wit. Super? Really?

That was for Smokey by the way

I bet they did considering both Wakefield and Bradford paid additional monies to creditors so they could stay in SL and minimse their punishment whilst in SL. IN BRadfords case they likely wouldnt have paid anything at all as the club would have simply disappeared had they been relegated.

Bet the Halifax creditors, the numerous times they had the begging bucket out, loved the fact we had P+R to further destabilise them, you silly monkey