Celtic move north.

Celtic Crusaders have dropped the 'Celtic' from their name and renamed themselves Crusaders RL. It was part of a rebranding exersise that has ended up with the club moving away from Bridgend, moving away from Newport and finally they are settled in Wrexham. Wrexham just so happens to be on the other side of  Wales nearer to Rhyl and Colwyn Bay for those who don't know. Its much further away from Cardiff and Swansea in between which the club was originally formed and based.

So why has the club been relocated? Money!

Leighton Samuel has screwed over the town of Bridgend twice now, having owned the original rugby union club until it went bust and Samuel switched codes. But while crys of outrage are heard from Widnes to Halifax and the RFL is slammed for not stepping in and saving the club from embraressment, (which if they had done, the flat-cappers against expansion would be waving their whippets and setting the dogs loose on Red Hall) the deal brokered between Wrexham FC and Mr Samuel has seen the club based in another area of untapped talent and is still classed as an expansion club despite only being 30 miles away from Widnes.

But the club wasn't bought by its new owners to spread the gospel of RL. It was bought to save the struggling Wrexham FC. The statement from the Wrexham chairman went something along the lines of, they couldn't afford to run the football club with only a few thousand turning up each week. He was talking of figures similar to when Celtic were based in Bridgend, averaging 3,000. In fact if you want to be more specific, in Bridgend last season Celtic averaged 3,500. Wrexham have so far in the 2009/10 season averaged 3,200. Considering it would take less time for the majority of teams and fans to travel toWrexham than Bridgend, the new owners must be banking on a lot of away support to raise revenue. I dread to think if the likes of Saints, Wigan and Warrington were to outnumber the home fans whilst invading Wrexham.

But South Wales has not been forgotten in all this. While Super League may be moving up north in the valleys, South Wales RLFC will step into Celtic's old shoes and be based in Neath. The newly formed club will be overseen by a Welsh businessmen, but will consist of board members from Wales Rugby League governing body. They have been admitted into the Championship 1 for the 2010 season, but will not compete in either the Challenge Cup or Northern Rail Cup for this season at least.

It appears they will act as a feeder club to the Crusaders Super League team for the time being, and in my opinion they should not be rushed into applying for a Super league lisence. While it would be nice to see a south Wales side in SL again, they need to develop a bigger fan base than what Celtic did for them not to be forced from their home or go financially broke. An increase in amateur players in the RLC and schools competing in the Champion Schools proves there is an appetite for rugby league in south Wales, and if Crusaders can spread the game like they did in Bridgend and the rest of south Wales then I'm sure Wales can eventually become familiar with rugby league in the end.