Dixon fires Crusaders' challenge to old order

Tomorrow morning John Dixon will gather his troops in front of the television at the Brewery Field and they will find out what the future holds for them and for rugby league in Wales.

The Bridgend-based Celtic Crusaders are one of seven clubs from outside Super League hoping they will be allocated one of the two new places created by expanding the competition from 12 to 14. In Widnes, Salford and even the more optimistic parts of Featherstone, they will be enduring the same nerve-shredding wait. Someone is going to be disappointed and most of the North of England would prefer that it was Dixon and his men.

In their three seasons in the National Leagues, the Crusaders have inspired more than their share of antipathy – dark mutterings about playing fast and free with the import quota and the salary cap, and a creeping conviction that the game's authorities wanted them in Super League at almost any cost.

More recently, influential voices with obvious vested interests, like the Wakefield coach, John Kear, and Salford's captain, Robbie Paul, have raised doubts over the Celtics' readiness. To Dixon, it all smacks of the North closing ranks.

"It's ill-informed," the coach says of criticism of the Bridgend bid, "but it's a totally understandable reaction. What I've got great faith in is the RFL [Rugby Football League] making the right decision in the best long-term interests of rugby league."

Dixon is an unlikely looking trailblazer. Short, quietly spoken and grey-bearded, he admits that his playing career in his native Queensland was "very inauspicious." As a coach, however, he became highly regarded within the Brisbane Broncos' organisation, from which the newly formed Crusaders head-hunted him in 2005.

The commitment of both parties was tested when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He went against medical advice by coming to Wales, but has regained his health; he is a man not easily deflected from his course.

Part of the case against the Crusaders is the way he surrounded himself with players he knew. It is a short cut for which he makes no apologies.

"You can't bring a 27-year-old player out of rugby union and put him into rugby league," he said. "In rugby league terms, he's nought years old. We tried signing players from the Welsh Conference, but the game was too difficult for them to play. Our future players are in schools in Wales now, but they're 14, 15, 16. In the meantime, we needed some role models." Celtics have achieved that to some extent through imported favourites like Tony Duggan and Jace van Dijk.

The other factors that made Wales ripe for pioneering were timing and geography. The axing of the Celtic Warriors union franchise in Bridgend left the town with a wealthy investor in Leighton Samuel, who was disillusioned with the Welsh Rugby Union, and a population without any top-flight sport to watch.

"People here missed having a premier sporting team to support," Dixon says. "That's what we're trying to give them. I wouldn't call us the only game in town, but we're close to it."

Again, the Crusaders can be described as partially successful. From gates averaging just over 1,000 last season, they have got more than 3,000 for a couple of their bigger, more heavily marketed games this time. Modest progress, they might say in Salford and Widnes.

"When you get Leeds and Saints coming down, the crowd potential is there for us to be successful," Dixon says.

Not so Super: League Problem clubs

THE ALSO-RANS

*FEATHERSTONE

For Village club that punched above its weight for decades Against Village club

*LEIGH

For New ground Against Doubts over other credentials

*HALIFAX

For Have been a successful Super League club

Against Unfinished stadium

*TOULOUSE

For Thriving city Against Not enough quality French players

SUPER LEAGUE CLUBSIN DANGER

*CASTLEFORD

Outdated stadium, limited crowd potential

*WAKEFIELD

Even worse ground, with little prospect of leaving it