Spot on , unless you aim high , you don't get high , as I put on the Fax board , unlikely scenario I know , but if you were to achieve a 6/7000 average in the Championship the RFL would have a very difficult time refusing you entrance if there were several SL clubs getting considerably less , and yes there are no ideas that are not worth trying , no matter how ' odd ' they might seem , we have nothing to lose , in fact I will be contacting Fax to suggest they consider providing travel for the Leigh fans to the match at the Shay in April

If they were to try it , I will do all I can to help , and hopefully so would the Leigh Centurions , and last but not least hopefully the Leigh fans would support such an initiative and travel in large numbers

Fax will get them attendances by a country mile.

Better to have tried and failed (if we do) THAN NOT TO HAVE TRIED AT ALL.

You can all sit about moaning and moping about Fat Boy's latest ruling or take some positive action. Wakey and Cas have done nothing for 3 years and might well ( and should ) be kicked out of SL but will be hoping yet another set of blueprints will save them.

Get off yer s and be positive.

nothing has 'been tried' yet, its retoric until it happens and thats free.

Freds completely correct that so far all Fax have done is talk big. No detail, no finite timescales, nothing but a lot of PR speak that conveniently coincides with the the franchise decision process.

We then hear their fans calling for the heads of both Cas and Wakey as unfit for SL. Why? They both dwarf EVERY Championship club in every aspect of the game. At this point in any Franchising conversation the issue of grounds is inevitably raised. Take a look at our sport and the current financial climate in and outside of the game and then please explain why grounds are being touted as such a critical criteria? Can someone please explain how the sport benefits from the use of a council/privately owned new facility over a club owned older facility. As long as the gound meets the capacity requirements of the club, the relevant HSE regulations and provides and acceptable minimum of food, drink and toilet facilities I would suggest a responsible governing body would be encouraging its members to retain their assets, tighten their belts and weather the current financial downturn with a view to revisiting the games facilities issues when the economy supports such luxuries.

It may be that Fax have such ambitions, in fact I would suggest that every chairman in the Championship has. The question is what are they planning thaty is any different from what the rest of the league is doing?

No argument with what you say. However, the 'governing body' hasn't suggested tightening belts etc. - YET! They may well do that, as a matter of convenience to allow some SL clubs to retain their lofty status. Now that would probably be a sensible thing to do, in the current economic climate, but they should have said it a year ago, not when they announce the successful and unfortunate clubs. To make such an announcement then would leave them wide open, yet again, to accusations of moving the goalposts, to 'suit' certain clubs.

Inevitably, there will be an announcement about clubs going into administration (a la Crusaders) to change the criteria from three years ago. ( a la Widnes)

By the way, we (Leigh) were left with little option other than go for the council built/owned stadium, as Hilton Park was virtually condemned, and was costing crippling sums to maintain, let alone bring up to 'acceptable' standards.

you cant get away from the fact that the rfl have placed an awful lot of importance on stadia.
the three clubs in SL that are most at risk have constantly made and broke promises about there stadiums.not just in the last three years. its time they were brought to book.
if these clubs cannot guarantee that they will be in new stadiums by the start of the 2012 SL season they should be out.

The actual terms were , sign up or have a capacity of 1,000

To play devils advocate on this...

The reasons for the non appearance of the proposed new stadia is not due to failures by the clubs as such, it is due to the government/public funding being with withdrawn either centrally or by local goverment as a result of the recession.

There isn't a club in the land that could finance the building of a new SL compliant ground. Any new stadia requires public funding as a community asset or the kind of private funding the sport just can't attract. To my knowledge Wakey, Cas, Salford and Saints all had committment from their respective branches of local government to support their schemes.

If that situation has changed due to government policy, is it fair to punish the clubs in the manner you appear to be calling for?

Should they all have their franchises withdrawn in favour of clubs with the geographical good fortune to have access to a compliant 3rd party facility?

What is the benefit to the sport of pursuing such a policy?

I am not standing in judgement here, I am just trying to make some sense of both the RFL & SLE's policy and some of the reactions on these discussions across the forums.

I'm sorry Off!, but you know damn well those are not the reasons. Activity only starts prior to the crucial period it happened in 2007, 2010 and no doubt in 1995

i cant comment on castleford because iv'e no idea when they first started to make promises about new stadia or redevelopment,but both salford and wakey have been making promises to the RFL since the late 90's and still not a brick layed.if they cant promise new stadia by june/july then they should be kick out.

I am of the opinion that the RFL will either, not change the current SL set up or it will expand to 16 teams. I just can't see them relegating any of the current SL teams.

I thought that would be the case , until Wakeys problems

But letting Wakefield drop and go out of business will make them look even bigger numpties. What ever happens the result will not suit everyone and I think the RFL will be looking at damage limitation for the next 4 years rather than bold strides.