The salary in the championship as I understand is £300'000 or possibly £400'000 that is not much to run a full time set up.

Doubt it - kids only want to wear the shirts of the top teams.

It is just about doable to run a full time set up on £400,000.

but what does that matter?


if you cant compete to be the best... whats the point?

I believe Halifax, Leigh, Featherstone & Barrow are already spending the full cap in that division. Its only 300K as opposed to 1.65m in SL. Throw in Batley and Sheffield who have settled teams and are very competitve and winning silverware will be far from easy. Assembling a good team within those financial restrictions is a fine balancing act between the youngters and the seasoned pro's. And with three years of championship rugby and no guarantees after that then the chances are any young talent will get picked off by SL clubs anyway. The novelty value of playing different teams will wear off pretty damn quick and people will drift away. Be interesting to see if AG is quite as enthusiastic then.

But you can only spend that for the first year I believe. After that its part-time players and a lower standard of product. The club has been pushing hard for a licence for a reason. Its where it needs to be.

Suppose I'm disillusioned with being thrashed on a regular basis, can't get my kids to come watch and want to us to at least be able to compete.

I honestly believe that although it is a bitter pill for us to swallow, it may be a blessing in disguise. My personal feeling is that we will not be the first heartland club to cut from the top flight. Anyone of a number of clubs do not fit the expansion vision. Any fan of other clubs who thinks a shiny new stadium will be a saving grace is wrong, the game is changing and sadly not for the better.

Catalan were brought in to improve French rugby league internationally. Massive failure since super league the French have finished bottom at the world cup and failed to qualify to play in the four nations.

Crusaders were supposedly to spread the word in the south of the principality. They moved north closer to rugby league land and still are not attracting the numbers.

The long and short of it is we are being judged on the past while others are not being judged anything other than their geographical location and how much the RFL have invested in them (allegedly). We may be the first to suffer at the hands of the 'franchising' system but we won't be the last.

We need to kick on as a club and if what most of us expect to happen, does happen then we need to take the bull by the horns and become a dominant force of the championship.

Sorry but if we are sacrificed I see it as the start of a slow lingering and painful death. Gates will fall dramatically and we will be lucky to average 1,500 which will look good in a 12,000 stadium at Newmarket and don't think that we will become the big fish in the little pond because we will be no different to any other team in the Championship.

Quite frankly if we do not get a franchise and we are indeed sacrificed by the RFL because they have this obsession with expansion and they prefer to keep Crusaders and Harlequins in at our expense then I'm not sure I want to be involved with the game of Rugby League at all - pity after almost 50 years of supporting Trinity but thats how I feel.

Anyway on a positive note I'm one of the few that still believe we will be playing Super League next year so I'm confident of the future.

Spot on. If we have to go to the Championship then we will have to face it as best we can. That said there is IMO not a single positive and if AG doesn't invest and N/M doesn't happen in the first 12 month then as you say the club will simply die.

If the good stuff happens .... we die slowly...


if not .... we die quickly!