It's a quite well thought out piece saying what most of us are already saying.
I have to say Bradford are very rarely mentioned when franchise application problems are discussed, but they are definitely in no better a position than we are with their achievements over the last couple of years, their ground isn't as good as ours in a number of ways, especially when considering the amount of cover they have, really it's only their attendances that can put them ahead of ourselves, even though they are of course considerably worse than they were 3 or 4 years ago.
I still believe the best way forward would be to expand the league to 16 as it is in Australia, but maybe this could be done in a couple of stages, Widnes in 2012 and then possibly Halifax in 2013.
The general arguments against doing that are there are not enough Superleague standard players around, but this will get more players up to Superleague speed and at the end of the next round of franchises, we will have another 50 plus players playing at Superleague level, training full time and getting the benefit of full time coaching, it should also give us at least another much needed 30 or so more players eligible for England and bring through more talented youngsters earlier who can make their mark on the game.
To throw any of the current clubs out now will be a real backward step and probably kill that club in effect meaning that relegation or the threat of relegation is back with us, the thing that franchises was supposed to put a stop to.
The clubs that are under threat of relegation are already at a disadvantage when it comes down to recruiting for next season, as they will have to pay more for a player than the clubs guaranteed a spot in 2012, when they can probably least afford to do so.
The reason I think the league won't be further expanded is purely down to what would be the watered down share out of the Sky money.
