I was reading a report about the Queen visiting Croke Park shortly. There is a sport played in a country which is proud and protective of it's own identity and what their sport means to them. There is not much money in the game and there is no significant effort to 'spread the gospel', but they can still fill a 70+thousand stadium - because the game is part of their culture, their heritage and their persona.

You can read into that what you like, although it doesn't mean that I'm necessarily anti-expansion, more that I feel that the strength of our game seems somewhat over-looked at times.

You may be right, but we are all different. I certainly will not go to Wales and hand over cash to a club I don't think should be in SL. That's just how I feel, I rarely go to away games now for the same reason, although that's less dogma and more being peed off with it all and a bit skint.

I don't blame anyone for going or staying home on this one - it's a free vote for me.

Its a sad state of affairs when our best chances of staying in superleague is the financial demise of another club. A fan shouldn't even be considering not going to support their team away from home because putting money in the opposition coffers may ultimately help in the demise of their own club. Well done RFL in creating this ridiculous situation.

The point i was attempting to make was that, if bazzo wanted to go, he should go for himself and his love of the club, rather than denying himself in the belief that him going would play into the RFLs hands.
You are correct, it is a personal thing, me personally i don't usually manage away games, i sometimes go to Hull kR and Cas, but thats about it, family has to fit in somewhere.
I have to tell you though, i'm in two minds because the players have shown such courage and effort, i feel i should make some sacrifice and dust of the passport and toddle of to Welsh Wales.
But like Bazzo, there's a little niggle!!!!

That's not a good comparison as we posted an average of around 4,500 back then which is way above what Crusaders are getting. We were recovering from being a second tier club where much of our fan base had stopped watching us or had started watching Leeds, Bradford, Castleford and even Halifax (see my points on replica shirt thread).

Superb post Vasty!

In what way are they not a standalone club? In what departments do they score more heavily than us - in your opinion of course.

He basically admitted as such in a different thread!

As far as I'm aware they are a subsidiary of Harlequins RU club, certainly their stadium and other facilities are fully dependent on the RU club. Now let's not kid ourselves here that organisations core product is RU, and it is RU's interests that will come first. The moment the RL side doesn't offer the RU club whatever it is they get from it they will drop them like a brick and they will be gone IMHO. Most RL clubs are at risk also but not from their parent company, rather just the standard rough trading conditions all clubs face. Hence they are not stand alone company/club who only interest is RL. I cannot think of one "heartland club" that is the same. Perhaps Leeds, but they are such strong performers and so viable I see no issue.

I don't understand the second part of the question.

However my small issue with your post was that you said and maybe you didn't mean it that way - "I don't know how people can reasonably be against either London...". - I don't understand
why it's unreasonable to question their validity.

OK, to simplify - if it was a 2 horse race between us and Quins, who do you think deserves to get the franchise most when they are judged against the RFL's criteria?

Semantics.

I don't think I have yet to read on here (or anywhere else) a 'reasonable' argument as to why the London club (or Catalans too) shouldn't be in the league - specifically when they are compared to us.

Pushed for time right now on the other points raised ref stand alone/parent clubs/companies etc, but will reply later in the day.

Its a bit like the mirror opposite of the situation down at Headingley, many rhino fans will tell you they are plowing their hard earned into the tykes.
I don't know how true it is, as i can't see the logic in it, but clearly the people running the show can, so maybe the Harlequins are getting more out of it than just shared facilities.

Certainly any argument against catalan, would be on fairly thin ice, they have worked for all the reasons that London haven't. They have a RL tradition and a passion for the game and they turn up in good numbers. For me the London experiment, has been an abject failure because it could not stand alone without support, because it does not have adequate support, in plain business terms the customer base does not support the business.
The london Argument has always been, "ooh its so difficult to get to the games, and it takes so long, blah, blah, blah" then the simple truth is the team is in the wrong place, it should be somewhere, where the fans can access it more easily (like along the M62 for example), is like building a stadium on the top of Mt Everest, and then complaining only a couple of sherpas turn up on match day!!
I would have said exactly the same about us if we had not been purchased by AG, if no one wants to run the business because it isn't going to be "successful" for whatever reason then you have no business.

I have not got enough facts to make that decision, has anyone outside the panel that judge these things. My argument isn't based on what I consider flawed criteria it's based on whether they are more viable than us. I don't think they are. I'll have a go though using the criteria - see below.

In order for the Championship club’s application to proceed to assessment by the RFL, they had to meet the Championship club minimum criteria. These minimum criteria arec. Club has turnover of at least £1,000,000 in financial year ending 2009 or 2010.
d. Club has an average attendance of at least 2500 in 2009 or 2010.
Provided at least one applicant meets the minimum criteria, a Championship club will be awarded a Super League licence for a three-year period commencing at the start of the 2012 season.

The last two are criteria to get into SL, Harlequins I suspect are struggling to hit these and they are already in SL. We are not.

How are the applications assessed?

Clubs are assessed on criteria in 5 key areas:

a. Commercial, Marketing, Media and Community.
b. Facilities.
c. Finance.
d. Governance and Business Management.
e. Playing Strength and Player Performance Strategy.

The only one of the above we IMO don't have a good chance of beating Harlequins at a guess and it can only be a guess is facilities.

So if there isn't some form of protection available to Harlequins why are so many so sure we will go down. I'm not trying to plug a conspiracy theory, I'm just very curious. If we were to say win the CCup and still go down I'd be even more curious, wouldn't you.