What was Leigh's average attendance in there last Super League season?

I suppose thats the question...and unless they are massively supported (like Hull kr only even more..!!! ) its easy for the rfl to keep Leigh out...

I Like leigh as a rugby club plenty of History between the two teams, whether it be the Derbies of old, or the players weve signed from leigh like Dessie, or leigh born players weve had Like John Woods and Tommy Martyn Senior,

but if they are whipping boys in superleague and bring one or two thousand more spectators than Harlequins/london who have made the play offs and been to wembley and are in the capital city then they dont stand a chance and probably dont have a case against it either.

if Leigh drew large crowds and were moderately succesful they'd make the RFL sit up and take notice, they should push for a crowd of 10k just for one game give out freebies left right and centre and say eh up RFL people will watch the game in Leigh how many more times do you need stiffing in London or Wales?

but at the moment they just have the fancy stadium and a few loan players, but still its a better foundation to work on than Celtic and Quinns who to be fair are possibly the greatest example of why the franchise system is a bit $hit....

PS Im all for expanding the game BTW, Catalans are the best thing the RFL have done in years its just they keep getting it wrong elsewhere...

At the moment it is necessary to have Leigh and Widnes in the Championship to try and grow the sport by expanding with Catalan, Crusaders and Harlequins. By expanding the game it can make it more popular, and hopefully increase the money we recieve which can fund a bigger superleague. More money in the sport can then enable teams such as Leigh and Widnes to rejoin superleague.

Their Only SL season saw an average of 4,700 odd. Leigh have the potential to match HKA for fans........

On the other hand.......Halifax in their last season saw an average of 2,976........

I don't mind Leigh being mentioned in dispatches as regards potential furture SL teams...but Halifax Fans showed what they thought of their club in 2003.......a lower average gate then us for christs sake

Future thoughts?

Crusaders will end up being wound up in a few years time. They have had their highest point in Super League (making the playoffs last year). Leigh will not make it back up, or if they do, they will struggle. Widnes will get a chance to come back up but in a few years time they will be the most hated team on these forums because they are full of 'second rate Aussies' and x amount of their first team are non English.

Hopefully in time SL will take a hard approach and cut the number of teams to about 10.

I think you could be right. I would really like to see a Welsh and London side getting regular 10k crowds, it would genuinely expand the game in the UK and increase the pool of players etc. etc.

Do I think it will happen.......no, because as businesses they just don't appear to be viable and although creating a franchise, bringing in overseas players is OK for a year or two it needs to be developed into something with long term sustainability.

Maybe a second French team or Cumbria is far more viable long term than London or Wales or even clubs that are only a few miles from other SL clubs which is why Leigh, Widnes, Wire, Saints and Wigan in SL doesn't work. The same argument can be made for Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Cas, Wakey, Halifax et al.

I can see where you're coming from, but I totally disagree. The reason this idea works in Aus is for one simple reason, it's their national sport. Ours isn't. We already have a limited pool of players to choose from due to football and RU in this country, and I don't think there is enough quality around to support a 14 team league.

I would reduce the league back to 12 teams. However, I'd still like to keep Perpignan RL, Wrexham RL, and London Broncos. There's no questioning the quality of talent in RL in France and London has improved, but Rome wasn't built in a day, etc. The reason I don't say 10 is due to the amount of imports (Willie Mason not quota, 5 "Antipodeans", etc) and all we would do is make it even tougher for the youth to break through but that's a different discussion altogether...

Wakey for me have to go, not financially stable, poor support, tipped to finish bottom this year, plus they are in a already densely populated RL region so offering nothing in terms of expansion for the game. If I was the man with the guillotine, my 2nd choice would be between Salford and Cas. Poor average attendances, although Cas fans do travel reasonably well, both have new stadiums in the pipeline, on the pitch Cas were better last year but neither made the play-offs. Either way, I think if either were demoted, it would be tough for them to maintain the club with the expense of a new stadium.

It's a tough one, but I do not believe in anyway bringing in Widnes, Leigh, Fax or Fev will increase the quality in the game overall compared to the 3 expansion projects. In fact, we will only be admitting to the whole country we're not big enough to be a national and multi-national sport, and might as well return to small crowds with hardly any money in the game.

In response to the 2 tiered SL of 10 teams, what's the difference between this and the Championship now but with promotion and relegation? The problem is there's not enough money, crowds or talent for 14 teams so how would 20 teams improve the quality of the game? Until the league is truly competitive between all the teams involved so its no longer highly unlikely anyone outside Wigan, Saints, Wire, Leeds, Huddersfield and FC will be challenging for any honours (this year IMO) we cannot move to the mentioned above. If I've missed a point here, I'm open to opinions but I struggle to see how this would enhance RL on the whole...

It is within the bounds of possibility that any team can become rehabilitated and become successful (Hull, Hull KR and Huddersfield have all spent time outside SL and have managed to become viable and competitive) so maybe the factors surrounding such cases should be examined. It is also possible to start a new franchise (Catalans) and make that viable.

I honestly believe that Salford might be the next team to take that step up when they move into their new stadium and the opportunity is there for Widnes, Leigh and Halifax.

I think that the sport will really start to take off once we find our way out of this recession.

Crowd Numbers will pick up due to more disposable income.

Sponsors will be more giving, which will make grass roots rugby better.

Marketing overseas will be stepped up. In America, RL is becoming more popular by the day, as it is in Wales and France.

Schools across the country now teach Rugby League, whereas until recently its been just the North (barring 1 or 2 exceptions).

The simple factor is money. More crowds = more revenue = more marketing = more growth across the board.


To quote the wicked witch " All in good time my prettys, all in good time".

I personally am in favour of expansion - not at all costs - but I think that when and I think one day it will happen, a truly national RL competition happens then we will have a player pool to compete with the Aussies. Lets not get bogged down with crowd sizes. How many species do you think a lot of SL clubs would get if they had seasons like Leigh have had. If Leigh were consistantly at the top our stadium would see a massive increase in crowd levels. The I'm allright jack attitude of a lot of SL fans will come and bite you one day when it is your club who falls on hard times. Non relegation cannot work for many more years because there is not enough money in RL to bring through new areas without having the Championships. And at the moment there is not enough money in the Championships to sustain it as it is. More and more clubs are going to go to the wall. Once the Championships have gone where do up and coming players get blooded? There are only so many places at SL academies. The enormous gulf between SL and the Championship is in my opninion one of the biggest problems with our game ever expanding. Once this is adressed then we will see growth in the sport. Watching the same teams playing each other year after year without any chance of a team working it's way to the top is in itself making the game a local sport. It's alright keep pointing to Australia and America and saying it works there. This is neither of those countries, it is the UK. We have deep routed ideas and stuctures in our sporting leagues. Some may call me a flat capper but I would love to see Twickenham Stoop full of RL fans or Crusaders in the CC final. For a start I would like to see more of the Sky money to filter down to the Championships and the RFL and SL to do a full check on the health of the lower leagues to see if there is a way to narrow the gap between us.

Quins attendances are dismal and one of the problems is that London is soccer to the core, with a couple of the worlds biggest clubs playing there. So Can Rugby League build a team that is recognisable locally, thus providing the tools to become more popular and expand? Im not sure....

The Crusaders leave me a little dumbfounded really. Been nothing short of a disaster so far.

I do recognise the reasons why the RFL put a lot of energy into their expansion vision. However, Ive seen very little to suggest it will be a success. There are some good players coming out of London and Wales I appreciate, but they will always be part of a minority in my opinion. And this isnt a case of glass half full, just the way it is.

Rugby League is and always will be down the pecking order here. Unfortunately. But where it is truly loved and embraced, is enough for me.

How long do you want to give these teams to prove they can make the cut?

Crusaders might make it in wales but quins have not got a chance they are all football mad down there and no matter what you do that wont change, the likes of leigh and widnes have got history the fan base would pick up very quickly around them parts if they get given a chance to build a decent squad

Basically what you're saying is that Maurice Lindsay was correct all those years ago. He certainly was a visionary the likes of which we don't appear to have at RL HQ these days.

Two things:

There is not a cat in hell's chance that the Cumbrian clubs would merge under one banner, despite there being a strong shout for a SL club to be present.

Secondly; Mo may have been a visionary (PSG not withstanding), but Richard Lewis is a realist, who has yielded a profit for this sport, something I am unaware of happening for as long as I have been watching the game.

I really don't understand why those trying to enter SL aspire to be likes those recently entering the competition, as opposed to denegrating them.

There was an interview with a chap from barrow (MD/CE??) who stated that certain clubs didn't deserve to be there and how they were better. Be judged on your own merits, not what AN Other is/isn't doing.

No it isn't. They technically don't have one, but if they did, the de facto national sport would be Cricket, not Rugby League. In Australia there is the RU and the AFL, plus the A-League is starting to generate some steam too.



If you are going to want to reduce the league back to 12 teams, you may aswell bring back promotion and relegation with it. Plus if you are wanting to keep Crusaders, Harlequins and Catalans, two of those who keep coming up regarding the expansion debate or the franchise discussion, what two teams would be most suited to drop down into the Championship?



Well, seems like you've answered the question posed prior with the Wakey shout, which I do have to agree with. Salford are in the process of getting a 25,000 seater stadium (which I doubt they will fill anyway) but going into the Championship will be bad news for them, especially aswell with the way they have recruited this season. I can see them pulling off a fair few shocks this year. Cas, hmm, that's a tough one. Don't mind them, but they are around the same catchment zone as Wakefield.



Some of the Widnes and Leigh fans have huge chips on their shoulders about Crusaders, Catalans etc because they feel that they are being denied a place by some fly by night team that can do whatever they want, whenever they want and will get bailed out by the RFL when the going gets touch. I do understand what they are saying, but at the end of the day, someone is going to be disappointed and there is nothing that can be done. Don't hear any bleating from the Fax fans, or the Barrow Raiders fans etc.

As for being the national sport, there is no chance of that, which is a big shame, especially when you see the ridiculous amounts of money that is bandied around football. Rugby League would make the perfect national sport in England/UK but it will never happen.



Bit of a contradiction there in the last post Alfie. You said that until the league is truly competitive between all the teams involved then Wigan, Saints, Wire, Leeds, Hudds and Hull FC will be challenging for honours. To be fair, in the last few years I feel that Super League has been a lot more competitive than previous years. Then, it was always Leeds, Saints and Bradford dominating, but then you had the emergence of Hull FC, and then our good selves and now Wigan.