Gateux,

It's a sad state of affairs but unfortunately the 'family' feeling that people used to associate with what is a brilliant game is waning massively. Nothing has done more to kill the RL community as a whole then the franchising debacle and the gap between the 'them's and the us'es' will only get wider as this goes on and we enter the farce that will be the 2011 application process. It was even apparent at board level with certain club officials pouring scorn on the applications of their rival clubs bids.. mocking modern community stadiums and the like whilst extolling the virtues of iconic stadia that will be built should 'They' be given a licence..

It's fairly patronizing to expect fans of championship clubs to want the game to go on and get stronger at the expense of something that they have devoted themselves to for the vast majority of their life..
It's like asking them to have their favourite pet put down so that other people can enjoy their own pets!!!

Do you honestly expect the reaction to have been as half as bad were relegation and promotion still in place??..
If clubs were of the belief that by attaining certain standards on and off the pitch and that winning the final were enough to gain them a place amongst the elite would anyone actually be wanting to see the crusaders fail to the extent that they are?
Instead, due to the cherry picking process put in place by the men in ties at Redhall, the feeling amongst those on the outside is that entry to SL is by means of 'dead men's shoes'. The RFL have made their expansion agenda quite clear and this only goes to further deepen the fear that there will be no possible return to SL whilst Toulouse, Gateshead, Edinburgh?? and who knows what future experimental sides wait in the wings.

There were obvious problems with the old system such as having the championship GF played in October and staging the NR cup group games at the beginning of the season?? This gave teams less time to prepare their squads for SL
Instead have the NR cup as the swansong to the season and get the GF out of the way earlier giving them time to put a side together
... instead of the old parachute payment for heading down a division why not have provided money to the newly promoted team to strengthen their side and help them become competitive.
Give greater protection to team's youngsters so that they can't be poached away as easily... Enforce a similar ruling to the one that is about to be brought into the Football PL for a set number of home-grown players to have to be played in a set number of games??

Not really they don't help anyone outise SL, And ALL the money is in SL so how is that fair???

Plus helping Cru would of been to leave them to develop in NL ofr another 3 years not throw them in at the deep nad on oh yes... this!

Always been a rugby league hotbed in catalan you idiot.I am bitter i been supporting my team for 30 yrs so why you was pulling your plonker.Not 3yrs

Not sure why you say that.

11 pages on the HKR forum starting rumours off about celtic. Lots of rovers fans hoping for their demise and i criticise that.

Nice to know you support Celtic though. Maybe you could link in to the debate on the HKR forum where you ride out like the cavalry supporting Celtic on the thread criticising them.

how are we supposed to know? its the rfl's statement why dont you ask them.

I wasn't asking you, I don't expect you to know.

I was asking a paid employee of your club, who is in contact with people at the RFL.

While he's answering that one maybe he could also tell us about the CCJ's recently imposed on the business too (but of course there are no financial problems according to Mr Samuel ) ?

Though Roverswall's moral support for our club is welcomed, I don't think it matters what a bunch of stirrers on a website say, so he desn't really need to run to our defence. Clearly all is not shiny in Crusaderland but rought times happen in any business. It would have been nice if it was not so soon after getting into Superleague, but them's the breaks. I daresay we are not the only club struggling financially right now,but we get the stick because of the flatcapper mentality of some. Not really my problem so don't much care what they think. I'd like to think we are going to be around for some time but if not, will enjoy what time we have.

Derwent, why do you want to know exactly? Is it to give you another stick to beat us with? Relax and enjoy your own team. It's more fun that way.

What I'm saying is that so many teams who have come up through 'normal' promotion have struggled and often gone back down. A three year breathing space for any new team into SL is a good thing.

I have no doubt that Widnes, Leigh & Halifax are massive contenders for the next round, but they'll also need three years to adapt, not 1.

I don't think we can say Crusaders has been a failure until 2011, when the new applications are submitted.

Mate, my team are in NL1 and likely to stay there for the rest of time. I am not a SL fan or a fan of one of your franchise competitors.

What I am though is sick of the all the spin, half-truths and sometimes outright lies being told to justify things.

I have no problem with CC being in SL. I understand why they were put there. It's fine. But lets not gloss over the truth. The RFL have handled the whole saga of Celtic Crusaders badly from their inception, when it was obvious to anybody with half a brain cell that they could not have such a team like they had on the NL1 salary cap. The continual denials by the RFL over things like that just served to create bad feeling.

My main beef is with the RFL, not with your club.

They should have had the balls to say "we're putting Celtic in SL for the overall long-term good of the game, even though at this time there may be other candidates who may have been stronger in the short term". People would have bought that and the initial fuss would have died down. It worked with Les Cats.

Instead they have gone through this charade of pretending that Celtic were stronger than clubs like Widnes when it was patently obvious that they weren't. That is what has caused the arguments and the bitterness towards Celtic, it has been brought on by the RFL's poor attempts to defend their own actions with downright lies at times.

You guys are caught in the crossfire, I feel sorry for you at times, but the bottom line is that you were rushed in under-prepared on the whim of the RFL and now you are paying the price for it. I sincerely hope that things are not as bad as rumoured and that you can ride out the current storm. But a little bit of honesty goes a long way........

Fair play then Derwent I take your point. I can't give you any more information I'm afraid on our current situation. We are being fed the same stories you've heard. Someone who may or may not know has suggested to me that the press release from the Crusaders regarding finances is not neccessarily the whole and transparent truth, but then these things never are. Nothing earth shattering in what was suggested to me, merely the usual tinkering that all businesses do. I can't tell you what they said unfortunately for two reasons. 1. It was a confidence and 2. I can't remember accurately enough because finance bores me.
I have to say I am not a fan of franchising in any sport, but am willing to accept it because it fell in our favour (unlike any 50/50 refereeing decisions since then) this time.

Great post.

I wasn't going to post on this thread, but this pretty much sums up the whole thing in a nutshell. Some of the fans crowing on here are disgrace imo.

The RFL are responsible for this mess - them and them alone. This could have been a great success story, but they fooked it up right from the start. Now it's upto them to put it right.

As Starbug has said, some of the TV money given to SL clubs should be cut and used to finance Celtic for the remainder of the licence period.

If your saying that the only reason i want them to stay up is because there two easy points then your an idiot they have already shown twice that if u go into a game with them thinking there a pushover they will win (wigan and bradford)

Sorry, I can't find one online but if you have Monday's League Express then they are mentioned in the article in there.