kybone says...

lawynd- You miss the point mate. Im not against moving big games to big venues, but thats a completely different thing. What we're talking about here is a clubs nominated home ground. Yes i know Sarries don't have a ground right now but for years they,ve played at Vicarage road which is not there stadium and they do not have primacy of tenancy there and never have. As you say 'Neither of those issues applied to Saracens - because they were already in the AP'- This is exactly my point. The RFU have put a set of rules in place but then they're hand picking the clubs that they're gonna enforce them on.

For me the whole idea of minimum stadium capacity is a mute point anyway. Bearing in mind that in recent years both Leeds and Newcastle have struggled to break the 5,000 barrier. So in other words you could have Leeds playing in front of 4,000 in an 18,000 capacity stadium, or you could have LW, Cornish Pirates etc playing in front of 6,000 in a 6,000 stadium (with plans to either expand or rebuild). To me it looks better to see full stadiums, not clubs being forced to expand their grounds to a certain size when they'll never fill it.

Posted 21:14 16th July 2012

kybone says...

Waz4before- Actually mate I agree. The point i was making was that as far as the RFU and Premiere Rugby were concerned it was against the rules for LW to use any stadium other than their own, regardless of where it is. Yet Sarries have announced that they'll play games at several different stadiums and this doesn't even appear to have registered with the RFU or PR. You're right about the fans. As a Doncaster fan id be disgusted if my club moved to another town , especially if it was 50/60 miles. In fact id probably stop supporting them. What i don't understand with LW is why they chose Oxford to move to, as it became known during promotion fiasco, that the Crystal Palace chairman was quite happy to offer them Selhurst Park as a home venue. This would have been a move of probably less than 10 miles. They obviously never even explored the option. Maybe they're hoping to take advantage of an untapped resource in Oxford.

Posted 09:09 15th July 2012

Waz4before says...

Nothing wrong with this kybone - sarries are following the same model as used by many Australian Rules sides, a small home stadium and moving the big games to the bigger stadiums. Smart move. and they are at least STILL IN LONDON ... Well, maybe not for two games :-)

Welsh are different - had Doncaster won the Championship and them uped sticks and moved to Sheffield it would have been an outrage. By comparison Doncaster have been investing in their Ground while Welsh invested in players and fluked a play-off win, then left town altogether, who's standing up or the traditional Welsh supporters? Not theri moneybags chairman that's for sure! Hopefully welsh go straight back down and do the Rugby world a favor by going bust in the process ....

Posted 09:15 14th July 2012