Reading the papers today, you quickly realise what a mess the game is in

Blackpool almost gone

Crusaders facing winding up order

the 6 'illegal' Celtic Crusdaers players are still owed money (regardless that they shouldn't have been here)

Jon Sharp taking Crusaders to a tribunal

Existing players still owed money (Crusaders again)

Harlequins to become Wigans feeder club lol ie rumours of Wigan players to be loaned to Quins for match experience.

Not asking the government for help funding the RL World Cup

The England performances (regardless of bent officials, we were well beaten)

....oh and the franchising joke

I'm sure there is more but I need to do some work

When will the RL Club Chairmen, both SL and Championship, realise the game is dying and tell messrs LEWIS and WOOD to just feck off

I'm not normally a doom and gloom merchant, but I do think the game as a whole has to get itself together and start pulling in the same direction.

I'm not being a doom and gloom merchant, just not ignoring the facts like everyone else seems to be. I never mentioned the debts being run up annually by SL clubs either.

Crusaders facing a winding up orderer, I thought they were safe when they moved to Wrexam? They have been getting decent crowds haven't they?

This 'car crash' administration have been gathering the 'self destruct' momentum every season. The World Cup will be the final nail in Dickie Lewis's coffin, and RFL cant afford the extra wood for Nigels.

Going to happen sooner or later, with Mr Lenegan 'owning' both clubs.

It depends how many are paying and also how much they are spending on a highly O/S last min squad and a top rated coaching staff, bare in mind they will pay rent to Wrexham FC and likely not get concourse deals as they did in Bridgend at first. It's the old story, they RFL will say that these issues relate to the previous administartion as they did with visa issues, yet when it comes to Widnes etc they say, you can't just ignore the previous admins errors. BAD TIMES.

How do they propose to pay for this WC then? If they were posting a 500k profit every year and saying look this is going to the WC and massive marketintg campaign then great... but their not! Whatever these 'task forces' are doing at Crus & Quins they will be costing the RFL money, which presumeably is then not going to other areas / other clubs. So i fail to see at what point they believe the World Cup and all that goes with it won't cost a bomb up front... if it's another embarrasment all the hard work done with SKY deals will be gone in a flash as well as national coverage of the game.

Its not often SKY get more than 100k for televised games. How does that entice sponsors? Warringtons new sponsor is 'Bensons for Beds', hardly a high profile sponsor.

Alan, I was going to mention Lenaghan but wasn't sure if that had been sorted or not. It should have been as his 'deadline' from the RFL for doing so was sometime in 2009

you missed out the word 'ILLEGALLY' Alan.

Surely the RFL would never have allowed him to do anything illegal?

They are a nationwide company though, to be fair.

Didn't say they weren't Matt. Still not a high profile company in my mind. At least the residents of warrington will sleep easier on their 'cheaper' beds.

Actually Matt I think I have sussed out your character, you can always find the good in anything/anyone....lets face it Genesis ahem!!!!

We are no closer to the Aussies now than we were in the early 80's when they tonked us at Central Park. All the GB fans turned up expecting an easy home win and ended up cheering for the Aussies because of the breathtaking rugby they were playing.
15 years of SKY money has been thrown away trying to spread the game, an idea which is laudable enough, but unfortunately the money has effectively been wasted. RL is not really played any wider now than it was 30 years ago. The so-called development areas will never produce a return on investment in my lifetime, if I live to be a hundred. In the meantime the game is on it's knees in much of the grass roots areas. Areas we need to build on if we are to produce a world class team. The top SL teams have wasted money on expensive contracts for Aussies at the twilight of their careers who see coming over here as a paid holiday.
If SKY ever pull out the game as a top class professional sport is dead. A very dangerous position to be in. As a business you should never have more than 40% of your business with one customer. We have 100% of our dependency on SKY.

More bad news for Crusaders and the game in general.

Surely its time some serious questions are asked (and answered) about those who approved Celtic / Crusaders last franchise application.

you think they would admit they got it wrong?