That's a good way of putting it. They still had a golden opportunity to get shut, and so they must have been impressed with what they saw.

This whole sorry debacle just shows that franchises don't work; they don't prevent or avoid the problems they were introduced to combat and nobody likes the system.
P & R is the only fair way.

Congratulations Trinity, commiserations Fax.

My dad is bigger than you're dad!

That's very well put - we're not exactly an expansion side or an RFL favourite, so they would have no reason to keep us in over Fax other than our application being better.

The Fax Chairman needs to wind his neck in and learn to do a Widnes; take your medicine and keep your fingers crossed that ourselves, Cas or Quins fail to deliver.

Story goes our application was the strongest of the five C's.

If this does actually turn out to be correct, and is published as such, then I hope the Halifax Chairman has the good grace to retract his comments.

halifax's bid was doomed as soon as they started cutting corners .

getting shut of Howard was a massive mistake , we all loved Howard

I just cant see it to be honest. They wont let London fail, i suspect its far too important to the Sky deal to let that happen. Im not sure our club is really going to buy in to the idea that clubs have been given areas to work on and if they dont then they could get kicked out, afterall that was the story last time as well.

Im actually glad our Chairman grew a pair today, i honestly believe this was our best chance to get in as i doubt anyone in our league apart from Crusaders will be said to meet the criteria in 3 years time and even if they do theres no chance of their application been better than a SL teams.

I didnt think Wakey deserved to be kicked out as im still a big believer that sport is about what happens on the field and i also think of Wakey as a traditional club like Fax. I think a lot of people just accepted Wakey would make the drop but when Crusaders dropped out and that didnt happen people have aimed their anger at the easiest target when it could and possibly should have been aimed elsewhere.

The Shay Capacity 10,061 (5,830 seated)
BV after redevelopment 12,000

The Shay Capacity 10,061 (5,830 seated)
BV after redevelopment 12,000

hasnt that what the last 3 years has been about, putting your money where your mouths are, have you done it???

we wont ever get back in your league till this franchise crap end's and with Crusaders netting one big fat own goal for the RFL today hopefull they will cut the crap and putting the teams who deserve to go up and not teams who are based only on location and nothing else.

and i must make this clear i have nothing against your club and i wish you every success in the next 3 years.

but you can see what he is saying,

but we won't though will we, Crusaders will come down get ready again and be prepelled back somewhere they can't survive, we wont get back in for at least 6 years FACT!!

And then at that point we will have maybe a scottish team or Cumbrian team being in the running and there is only one winner,

am not paying £15 to watch 20 freindlies anymore i just can't afford it. i'll stick to football cause this sport is just a joke

I can see what he's saying, but for mine, he's getting it wrong; your battle was with Widnes and that battle was lost several months ago - you were never going to have a better application than even the lowest scoring SL clubs, and so it transpired.

If he continues his bitter ranting after the dust has settled, he'll be doing himself, the club and its fans a serious disservice in my view - now is the time to take the hit, listen to the feedback and make sure that when Cas fail to deliver their stadium, Fax are ready to step into the breach.

Yes but our application is never going to be stronger is it, we dont get as much sky money,

we dont get Leeds, Bradford and other fans bring 2,000 fans to an away game.

our attendances will only go down becuase people cant afford to pay to watch 20 freindlies for the next 3 years, £15 a pop i beleive at the shay or something like that have a season ticket so dont pay much attention.

how can our application ever be strong enough to compete??

How have Widnes done it? Is it something they have in their club structure or simply down to O'Connor's money?