I know it is very early days and we shouldn't be thinking past Sheffield, but what if we do go up to SL?
If promoted via the MPG then we would have 4 months to either increase capacity at Trailfinders (planning consents etc) or make pans to take games "on the road".
Leeds crowd in the 8's last year was 1,900 or there abouts, but if surely we would not have the capacity (3,000?) to accommodate them in a regular season game, or the likes of Wigan and Saints.
Griffin Park would be available for 2018, or maybe a return to Barnet, but ideally if we could put a temporary stand opposite the grand stand we could accommodate 6,000 which would suffice. How many did the old temporary stand at HKR hold?

Whats Trailfinders plans if they get promoted?

Their stated plan last year was “we don’t want to be promoted”

I believe, don’t quote me though, Trailfinders last year said they would have turned down promotion last year had they earned it, but they would plan for future promotion, what ever that meant.
Back to the same old question could they develop Ealing.
The broncos plan last year was to stay based at Ealing but play at other ground in london to comply if they could not get a stand approved with Trailfinders help

I'll start thinking about promotion in June, when I see how Injury free we are, and if our chairman will strengthen the squad prior to the 8's to make sure we can cope with Injuries to key players. We have the 17 good enough to go up, but not much beyond.

Kear will be back in a few weeks, hopefully Harrison will be back soon as well. But we need to try and blood meadows more in some games to get him ready for the 8's if something happens to Api or to Sammut.

Spoke to Dan Harrison yesterday. In great spirits as always - he's a top bloke! - looking at maybe 10 weeks!

Seriously worried about the catering strategy for the on the road games!

A planning application would take around 13 weeks, though pretty useless unless the pre-application discussion have been had and they’d need a good few weeks. If realistic ambitions to achieve and stay put (either code) the application ought to be in and it can sit there for 1-2 years depending on speed of success.

Disagree with this.
Imo we have 22-23 players of the quality needed to at least finish in the top two.
We had first teamers Kear, Harrison, Evans, Gee and Channing missing yesterday and still spanked one of the favourites.

Saying that, if we get injuries in the halves or at hooker then we might struggle somewhat.

We are, im guessing way below the cap (based on who left and who joined at the end of the season). Should we need to I hope we would bring in players to bolster the squad if needed (easier said than done) but it would be a real shame if injuries/squad size cost us. That was my point about Leigh and Toronto, they will just throw money at players to boost the squad if needed.

Thats the concern, Meadows has great promise, but you saw the difference Api brings to the the team. Halves and hooker are the key positions we will need to unlock Super league defences, and that is where we are very thin

Did anyone watch the top of the table clash between Ealing Rugby & Bristol Rugby in the RU on10th Feb?

Well, I did as it was played at Trailfinders and broadcast live on the Sky Sports Action channel. Flicking back over at the end of halftime I caught just the last minute of the interview with Dick Graig who is the Ealing RU president.

He was quizzed on ‘what would happen if Ealing were to be promoted at the end of next season’ and his answer was that Ealing has applied for Premiership status and had started the lengthy processes necessary, already having had their audit completed so as to be Premiership ready.

This leads me to believe that if they are table toppers at the end of next season they’ll be ready to apply for promotion. The coach in the post-match interview also wanted promotion but was a little less sure about the prospect as Ealing Rugby seem to work on a shoestring budget too - which sounds very similar to us, the London Broncos.

So there you have it and of course, it may never happen but considering Ealing’s meteoric gallop up the RU leagues to the Championship anything is possible. FWIW, they lost that game 27-28 in the lashing rain with a crowd of 1589.

Watch this space.

Being a Quins RU fan, I keep a close check on the other London Union clubs (we have players D/R with some of them). Ealing will have a great chance of going up soon. This season was always a tough ask. There is no salary cap in the Championship and moneybags Bristol pay their squad more than the rest of the championship combined!!!. Next season London Irish (who are going down by the looks of it) will find it tough. They have already lost a couple of players. Ealing are slowly building a very good squad and have signed a couple of players from the Prem already for next season. I can see them running close next year if they keep up the way they are going

I went to Market Drayton fc a couple of years ago and while I was talking to the manager he said you don't need planning permission for a temporary stand as long as you take it down every year which seems what bath rugby do. As for trailfinders they would probably groundshare elsewhere as the criteria to join the cartel is ridiculous with the amount of hoops they'd have to jump through

The stand at Bath is on a long standing agreement, Bath don’t just chuck a stand up and then pull it down at the end of the season

Sheffield have had to apply for planning consent for their temporary stand at OLP.