Mike Eccles was on Sky Sports News this afternoon. Obviously to speak about Sundays win.
The subject of the IMG gradings came up, where both he and John Wilkin gave their somewhat forthright opinions on the subject.
Wilkin was especially critical of certain clubs who have sold off players and are quite happy to offer nothing the season, safe in the knowledge that
their IMG grading means that they are immune from relegation. Saying quite rightly that it is a very negative thing for the sport.
It is well worth a watch.

Hard to disagree with what Wilkin says. I'd still like to know how IMG came up with the metrics they did, because some make no sense whatsoever. Sadly there is little or no transparency in most British sports.

Speaking to someone at the Leeds game. He stated that their catchment area extends South of the Humber all the way to Cleethorpes. Quite a distance from Leeds.
Our area being Merton, finishes fifty metres from the stadium. So you could live in the flats within sight of the ground and not qualify as a local fan. Absolute madness!

Couldn't agree more Vic. It's like picking a 3 year window. Tells you very little compared say to 10 years or even social media activity rather than an academy. When you look at teams graded above us it is laughable. How many times have Bradfford gone belly up?

As us old timers have always said even the SL salary cap disadvantages Broncos because of the cost of living differences. We will just have to wipe the smiles off the northern owners & bookies faces by not finishing bottom.

whilst i agree about many of the "criteria" being snide, we really don't have anyone to blame but ourselves for the situation we find ourselves in.
As for IMG. They will have seen London Broncos as not worth the grief, especially if a "heartland side" were to be binned off instead of us, so as we made it easy for them, they took the easy option.

Fuck me IMG, through a presumably iterative process came up with certain criteria which were signed up to by ther majority, including London's representatives. With certain tweaks to catchment and inclusion of academy products plus extending the rolling period London would have marked better, but to suggest the club deserves better is pie in the sky. Consistently on and off the field they have failed and the lack of coherent strategy shared with the fans to buy into is the missing link. Chickens have come home to roost.

Hard to disagree. 24th might be harsh but did we credibly think we’d be top 12? Having said that if they really believe London is a good thing to have in the top flight now is absolutely the time for them to be working out a path to us getting there- I doubt we can do it on our own.

We may well have run out of feet to shoot ourselves in, but where can any growth come from the northern clubs. Surely any growth would just be tinkering at the margins. When has the Magic weekend sold out?

Any significant growth over time must come from outside the heartlands. But as often said by Orange & others, there needs to be a coherent plan in place to achieve it. In which case self interest will always win out over the greater good of the game.