This signing could be our main worry Mr Senior is not going to join a championship club ; this signing leaves me suspicious do they allready know?

Crusaders are certainties, mate.

Come on NGBC, look around at every other SL club, time to face reality mate.

It's a bitter pill to swallow, thankfully I will avoid the hysteria next tuesday as I will be in Tenerife ! I accepted that we were doomed after the 'biggest announcement in the clubs history' stunt failed to provide me with enough hope.

The RFL have already said they are in, likening them to the Catalans.
Unbelieveable, unfair, biased, double standards etc etc

I'm not trying to have a go but where is your head sometimes. We had this debate on here about this signing weeks ago. IMO the fact that Senior has signed in itself means nothing as he is an old player probably chancing his arm for a last big pay day.

What is an obvious issue is we are signing no one and have been continually releasing our best people, hardly preparation for SL but certainly for championship. This clearly shows to me at least that we have little chance of a franchise and more disturbingly the club have known this more or less all along.

Now that this is becoming apparent why do you continually heap abuse on people like me who have simply been stating the obvious? We are not negative and you shouting platitudes doesn't really make you positive just deluded - we need to face facts and stop trying to make Andrew Glover into some kind of superman which he isn't and it's not fair to expect him to be one.

We need to remain positive and back AG or whoever is in charge and hope for a possible return to SL at some point in the future. But the battle for remaining in SL IMHO is over and has been for a while now. Barring a miracle I can't see it happening.

I really hope I'm eating humble pie on the 26th, I'd wolf it down. Nothing is set in stone and I could and should be wrong, however I'm fairly optimistic by nature and I still can't see a silver lining.

You are deluding yourself if you thought crusaders were ever in the mix to miss out, they've been a shoe-in all along. Its only ever been between us ans Cas. A couple of years ago the RFL issued a warning over stadards of stadiums andonly ourselves and Cas have failed to progress. They didn't issue a warning over any of the other criteria, thus eliminating Crusaders, Quins & Salford from the race. It was always going to be just the two teams. We score about the same on everything with one big difference, the administration. That will be the killer blow. Time to get your head around the fact that we are going down and it could be for a long time.

perhaps! But like Vasty says, i'd be amazed if the trinity BoD weren't aware of their fate already!

u really are special NGB4C

You are not on your own there. We have to be realistic, the franchise system is a smoke screen for expansionists. It is most likely us to miss out now, but over time more and more heartland clubs will follow and those who believe they are safe in the future are living in cloud cuckoo land.

My mate said to me the other day that if you look back through the history books and equate franchises to what the RFU was like in 1895, it is history repeating itself. Whether that completely happens again is open for another debate another time.

The RFL are using a blue print that in the NRL works simply because the game is more financially viable and so much more popular.

Messrs Lewis, Wood and Rimmer may be the men who made the RFL more profitable, but I believe that history will show them as the men who killed our great game as we know it.

Crusaders owe the RFL a lot of money and they take some every year out of there sky money, there going nowhere until at least its paid back

When we go I just hope the club grows some balls and fights. The Crusaders are not expanding the game into Wales and that is totally clear for everyone to see. The Scorpians are the ones that are. So that blows that argument out of the window. I would not even be against us pulling out of the comp straight away and throw the whole thing into disarray.

and that;s going to help your club in which way??? Loss of revenue? Loss of sponsorship?? Loss of development opportunities?? Loss of face and future co-op with the RFL???

Oh aye, that's really going to help your club that is!