Bullseye:
Will that spot go to Toulouse though? A fair few SL club owners (Derek, Ken and certainly others) don't want another French team. Do they have a say if the IMG scoring puts Toulouse top of the pile? After them York and London were in front of us. Can't see London maintaining their score now they're in the championship and having to work far harder for IMG points. So it's between us and York. York better than us on the field and have a better ground (but whether the IMG scoring actually puts it that far ahead I don't know). Also we have higher attendances that York (just about).
At the end of the day we're a contender but I still think Toulouse and York are ahead.
If we did get promoted then we'd need to recruit massively - can we afford to do that? As mentioned above we'd be feeding off the scraps as the better players would be signed up before we got a seat at the table.
I think the unspoken truth is that the IMG rules will be flexed / amended to get whoever they want into SL.
If it's us, great.
I can't help but feel we're tried and tested, would swell gates across the board and it's a safe bet.
We just need to progress sensibly, accepting we'll be competing for the wooden spoon for a season or two. Then we can add quality players to the roster without the panic.
We would also have a better chance of youth retention. And on youth, what odds are some of our talent returning....?
I'm correct in thinking many of the IMG points will naturally go up simply due to us being in SL?
