What a complete effing shambles. The club does not deserve fans. Makes you wonder how some people can sleep at night. I will be gutted to see some of our youngsters (esp Dixon) running out for someone else next season.

I totally agree. I wonder if season tickets holder should make their feelings known. We could draft a statement to be issued on change.org and ask season tickets holders to consider pledging not to renew season tickets. If the club is to survive IMO it has to be on a competitive basis and with new management.

Without being guarnteed a place in SL we are sunk. We dont have a team to fend off relagation and the fans will not follow a team getting flogged every week as they have done for the last two seasons. DH or whoever will just call it a day and say enough is enough. No point in throwing any more good money away on a lost cause. I woudnt invest a penny in getting them back into SL after relegation as it will cost a fortune and without some 'give' on who we can sign we will be relagated again.

Its all right being moralistic but you guys dont pay the bills.

The paying customers will always vote with their feet. Sport at this level is business unless you have a very wealthy backer - which we dont.

Maybe I would rather we were sunk than being guaranteed a SL place. There are better ways to support the sport.

I started in rugby league watching Prescot Panthers, who were effectively killed by the RFL to facilitate a previous re-org. The game is more important than one club.

Personally I'm struggling to accept that we should get exemptions. Whilst building up our youth system I could understand it. We now have a youth system seemingly considered good enough to be saved by the RFL. I can't see what we really add to the league if we are playing 9 South Sea Islanders and am not sure why Cas, Widnes, Wakefield etc would permit us to be given the ramifications for them if relegated next year.

What you said, total joke if true

Me too, except that it was a few years earlier when they were called Liverpool Stanley and then Liverpool City.

[Well OT, but I thought they were killed because Maurice Lindsay thought they were an embarrassment. He was probably correct, given that they were then owned by a guy who ran just a single newsagent's shop in Wigan or St Helens.]

Yes, don't see the sense of it. A London SL club needs to be a significant symbol for the game in the south, something that it's been nowhere near to achieving since 1999.

I beg your pardon. Hasn't David Hughes lost a small fortune in keeping LB in SL ?

We are in SL in 2014 playing out of the Hive, albeit with a reduced level of finance and at present, a paper thin squad.

The way things are looking at present is that any "other" investment is reliant on a number of assurances regarding P&R protection, which is, as far as I can make out, the $64,000 question........

If the RFL want a London Side, but aren't prepared to finance it, then are they willing to offer assurances to private investors regarding protection from relegation?

The Federation rules that are in place hamstring the club to a certain extent, because whilst the talent pool is growing in London, we are 5 or 6 generations behind the rest of SL and therefore have far less talent to choose from. Northerners wont come south as they understand their money goes a lot further at home, so we are left looking for bargains.....the places we have finished in since the Fed limits came in would seem to point to it putting us at a massive disadvantage.

The question is, do the RFL/SKY/other SL clubs want a London team in the top flight? If they do, then we will be safe from the drop for a few years and full of overseas talent.....if not, we will be lucky to win a game next year and will be a championship club in 2015.

Gutterfax - surely it would be a cheaper option to employ british based players than overseas ?
I can see LB getting the dispensation for this but asking for protection from relegation will surely be kicked out by the other SL clubs. The only way this would be agreed IMO would be for one year only with no relegation for anyone. Turkeys aren't going to vote for christmas on this one.

I don't disagree with you and the club asking for special treatment doesn't sit well with me, but I am simply saying that if London are needed, but the RFL won't pay for it, then it's naïve to expect private investors to bankroll the games experiment and run the risk of losing their shirts.

The guy who I believe is considering investing is the real deal......he doesn't throw his cash away, he expects every penny to be accounted for and is a massive fan of "community" club ventures. If the Broncos were to get 3 years protection from the drop, I reckon he's have their crowds over 5k and the club on an even keel........if they don't get protection, then it will be one more year on a shoestring, relegation and eventually, liquidation.

If London are a bargaining chip in SKY deals...the turkeys may have little choice.

Exactly Gutters. DH is at the end of his rope and cant keep putting money in like this. A new owner will only do it if he thinks there is an environment for it to work within. The format must change to give a new owner time to tun it around, although i doubt 3 years will do it. The franchise system is preferable IMO.

I'd suggest the main reason we are seemingly after an import exemption is that most UK nationals of the right standard are already under contract for 2014 and we just couldn't recruit British across the board if we wanted to. My suspicion is the are looking at non NRL South Sea islanders.

One of the reasons I am so uneasy about an exemption re foreign players is the presence of Tony Rea. He did very little to develop a youth system, that I am aware of, as either CEO or coach first time. Remember Peter Lupton playing for Charlton Park RU as we didn't have a team good enough for him to play in? Brian came in and gave Phil Jones the support required and we have begun to see results.

I live in Aldershot and watch the youth reasonably often. I haven't ever seen Tony there. He may attend every game I am not at but I doubt it. I did see Brian at a game in Aldershot this year though. I fear any exemption could see a return to the 'just bring in another Manley player' days. I think the one strong argument we have for protecting our presence is that we are expanding the player pool - Kieran and Illiess are highly promising. Louis and Tony are full caps. The likes of Mikey and Dan were capped in junior RL etc. Our head coach needs to be someone who buys into the development ethos to my eyes. I'm not convinced Tony does. (Which is valid as head coaches are judged on today not tomorrow. I just don't think it is a good fit with the position the club is in.)

Not too sure why the RFL would want to fund an Academy in London if we are pulling in imports all over the place either.

Interesting to see Wigan so heavily involved in the Welsh RL academy. Will a richer SL team be tempted to do the same down here?

I'd also suggest shocking player recruitment has as much to do with our recent struggles as any rule changes re imports. Doesn't matter how many imports you have if they are as dis-interested as sone of our recent ones tbh.

The RFL said that Sky wanted expansion of the game i.e. more viewers but didn't care where they lived. It's in their policy review document that was released recently. The same document referred to the difficulties in clubs such as Crusaders and Broncos (the only two names mentioned) running on small crowds and said that teams like Oxford, Hemel etc seem to be a better idea.

The RFL would get shot down by such as Sport England if they dropped the London Academy after the players it has produced, so at this stage no way can they afford to drop it.

Yes we have had imports who lacked interest, but with a good coach look what Sheffield Eagles have done with some wise imports!