One of two I can understand, but for six players from the Celtic Crusaders to be deported because of Visa violations, something is terribly wrong here!
I’ve spoken a few times about the Celtic Crusaders on this web site. I gave them a honeymoon period to get over a few teething problems, but it became clean a while ago that there are some major problems at the club.
The Rugby Football League fast tracked the Crusaders because quite simply Super League needs to expand quite a bit over the next ten years or it will die.
Any real Rugby League fans fully supports the Rugby Football Leagues expansion policy and the league has already said they are willing to step in and support the Crusaders as they would any other club called the Celtic Crusaders or London Harlequins.
We need these expansion clubs, its that simple.
The problem with the Crusaders is that, for all the good intentions of the people running the clubs, some of them are so far out of their depth, so far off the pace and so completely and totally inept that major cracks are starting to appear in the club.
The six players who have been deported with immediate effect are Crusaders captain Jace Van Dijk, Tony Duggan, Damien Quinn, Josh Hannay, Darren Mapp and Mark Dalle-Court.
I am a big Rugby League fan, and I have only heard of two of those players.
The Crusaders have a major problem with player recruitment and I have to blame the coach, another Aussie I have never heard of called John Dixon, a lower grade Queensland coach.
Now some people will say he has come in and got the Crusaders to Super League, so he was a success. The fact if you could have had a monkey in a red knitted jumper coaching the Crusaders, the RFL were fast tracking the club no matter what.
Still, the monkey surely would have done a better job at assembling a group of players that was needed to compete in Super League. Super League is hardly the cutting edge, you can get a few half decent players and win title after title.
Still, under Dixons control, the club has taken a bit smoking dump on the enthusiasm the Welsh had for their first Professional Rugby League season, such has been the clubs non performance.
Its reminiscent of the complete decay of the old London Broncos under the control of Tony Rae, a man that walked into a club that was owned by Richard Branson and drove them so hard into the ground that they needed to merge with a Rugby Union team!
The only way out of a situation like this if for the Rugby Football League to head down to Wales and get their hands dirty getting some half decent people running the club. Get them on loan from other clubs, give them short term contracts just to get the Crusaders up to speed, but get them in as soon as humanly possible.
For a single club to allow so many Visa violations, thats nothing short of a disgrace. Its an embarrassment to Super League.
Sort the Crusaders out because right now, they are doing more harm than good!
