I hope you are right. Your optimism is certainly a better attitude than mine, I wish I shared it right now.

Hopefully all will pan out fine. If we're mid table next season, we should still be favourites for the license.

Thing is though the franchise process looks at way more than on field competitiveness, how many boxes does it tick exactly? Barring an utter disaster with the club (which we're used to), there's every chance we'll remain competitive.

In Cullen and the O'Connors we've got the best combination of rugby and business brains this club has ever had. We should have faith in their ability to make us successful in every way.

Our biggest worry should be the t1ts at Red Hall.

Apparently ' dual registration ' players will not count on the cap

So you could have say Hunslet with 6/7 Leeds ' loanees ' still operating on 100 K

Basically if you agree to be a ' feeder ' club you get a SC excemption

Good old RFL eh

Yeap. Feeder clubs from clubs with a 130 yr history. Greedy, selfish c***s.

it appears the RFL want to completely wipe all non stupor league professional rugby off the map,

as for the dual registration thing, any coincidence that leeds have made an agreement with whitehaven????

Isn't it a 20% chance we could go down? 2 teams will go down next year in an 11 team league but 1 of those (Toulouse) can't go down anyway. so by my maths 2/10 x 100 = 20%

Still on the bright side, there is an 80% we'll stay up and also we don't know how hard the economic situation is going to hit other teams. Fax's spending suggests they think they are ok, but what about everyone else? It will be interesting to see if Fax can afford to run an youth set-up and a competitive 1st team.

For us to have the best chance of staying up and also winning a licence would be if either Leigh or Gateshead go down this year. If that was to happen, a) it would take one of our rivals out of the SL equation and b) Batley would still be one of the prime contenders to go down next year. If both Leigh and Gateshead stay up, there will be no guarantee that they will be down the bottom again next year. Looking at the fixtures though, Batley look to be in the most trouble IMO - it was a big missed chance when they lost to Sheffield on Sunday. If Batley do go down and Leigh do strengthen, next year could be even more competive than this year.

Hang on have I missed something? What's all this talk of relegation???

I also think the maths have been overly simplified to reach that probability...

Correct!
Stupid aint it!

It'd be stupid of us not to approach Wire / Wigan / Saints to strike up similar partnerships.

I'd say only a quarter (if that) of youngsters come through to the first team from their academies so there is plenty of young talent going spare. Similarly to Pickersgill and Penny, if we can take youngsters on a dual contract, we have every chance of signing some more for SL.

I'm sure the RFL would be impressed if we intend to field a young, British squad in 2012. (Hell, even if we don't, why not lead them on?)

You actually want to become a feeder club?

With Pepe! Worst thing we can do is become a feeder club! For the next 2 years Widnes need to show as an organisation how much we stand up over EVERYONE else in this division! Let other sides 'link up' with SL clubs or whatever!

We'll stand alone as the 1 side in NL with an acdemy and as a side who loan A LOT of players to lower league sides (Blackpool / Rochdale) we'll look like the parent club in this and will show simply we are too good (AS A SET UP!) for the national leagues!

This is part of what me and Chris have been trying to get through to people. There will be a massive advantage to becoming a feeder club in the Championship, because the cap has now been lowered. Now that dual registrations do not count on the cap, trying to stand alone, with a £300,000 cap, will be both expensive and unlikely to produce a winning team.

A smaller club could recruit a team mostly made up of dual registration players and a handful of quality players from this division, and end up with a far better team. As richardviking has said it would be stupid not to aproach local SL clubs rather than run costly academy sides in these circumstances. The money you save will allow you to bring in higher quality SL club youngsters and better Championship players.

In other words, we are now a league of feeder clubs. Our larger crowds will count for nothing and even running academies would be more of a hindrance. If we do not get out of this league in 2012 this is our future.

Thats short term thinking. Payments to players who are under 21 on 31 August in the year preceding the Salary Cap Year in question will continue not to count towards a club’s salary cap spend so running academies is very beneficial and is what clubs are been encouraged to do rather than spend money on players who have failed at super league level.

Becoming a feeder club is the wrongway to look at it. Sure, Widnes could become Warrington Under21s, but I'm not suggesting a firesale of SL's young players.

Maybe 3 or 4 could be brought in.

No it's long term thinking.

Why go to the expense of running academies when you can just dip into SL academies and save the money to bring in better players?

Trying to continue as before is no longer an option because the situation has now changed. With the introduction of a £300,000 SC and the ability to sign dual registered youngsters, we now face a very different environment in which to be competitive; an environment that will suit smaller clubs far better than clubs with ambition. Fans will turn away from clubs once they become feeder clubs. If this does happen to Widnes, then I've finished with the game for good too.

2012 will probably be the last chance for a heartland club to move up to SL. After that there probably will not be a club capable of meeting the criteria. Sadly I include Widnes in that also.