You'd better start accepting, 'cos the application will almost certainly include aspects where expansion / geography is seen as a very big factor. The licence application will have been worded in such a way that the RFL will have every excuse (oops sorry ! considered reasoning !!) to support any decision they make. Faia and reasonable are not words they understand. Money, ie Sky, IS a word they understand.

My heart says we won't get a franchise but my head has doubts. The club seem to be going in the right direction and have even advertised 2 job vacancies in the past couple of weeks, the last one being an admin position in the community department which you wouldn't think could be run on the same scale in the lower league. May be a short lived job! Hope my heart is proved wrong.

What a stupid idea...

Have you considered working for the RFL?

This is true, but I get the impression that others in the RL world see us as "all mouth, no trousers" - i mean how long have we been going on about a new stadium? Some people see the hospitality box as a massive portacabin we built instead of upgrading the ground properly as we promised.

It would be really unfair for us to get the boot, but as others have said - the other teams who are competing with us would say the same about their own bid. We'll just have to wait and see.

I have always considered, "lack of faith" from the RFL in us as a club, to be one of our major stumbling blocks.
From all reports the RFL are, and continue to be hugely impressed by the efforts the club has gone to, hopefully they will realise that what has been achieved in 6 months could go on and make us a very reputable SL club.
At this moment in time we are the most progressive "club" in the competition, other clubs are being told to look at some of our operations as "best practice".
I hope this stands us in good stead, and that the RFL bods realise what they are dealing with, and don't let either our past or their proposed expansionist future derail the good work being done.
Potentialy the sleeping giant has started to stir, lets not be put into a RFL induced coma, to protect clubs with nothing to offer.

There is a strong rumour from certain parts of the kick and clap world, that Harlequins are considering a drop in division for a couple of years to build a sustainable winning club. All this with some kind of golden handshake assurance from the RFL. Surely this would make sense with proposed re-branding and would make it somewhat easier to sell the game to public of the 'Big Smoke' if they were watching a winning side. A one step back followed by giant leaps forward.

Like I said it is only a rumour, sometimes there is no smoke without fire and not beyond the realms of possibility.