BY JOHN DAVIDSON
London Broncos director of rugby and performance Mike Eccles is positive about the future of the club but admits the current situation is a concern.
London have only won two games this season in the Championship and sit from second from Bottom. They attracted a crowd of just 850 to their last home game.
Eccles is supportive of Gary Hetherington’s plans and vision for the Broncos and the sport in the south-east, but concedes his side is struggling right now.
“This is fantastic,” he told rugbyleaguehub.com Long Reads.
“We need to speak about what next year looks like, what the next 10 years looks like.
“[But] in half an hour I’m going to go to Doncaster where we’ve got a hell of a fight on our hands on Sunday and I’ve got to make sure everybody understands that there is a team currently that is very under-resourced and we’re spending the second or third-least in the competition, which reflects where we’re at.
“So there needs to be some duty of care to that and it can’t be all about next year and the next 10 years.
“I’m feeling extremely positive about the future but I’m also extremely conscious of supporting the boys that we’ve got right now to be competitive on Sunday, and it’s a tough ask at the minute.”
Speculation continues to rage about a potential NRL takeover of Super League and that the Australian competition would want a strong presence in London.
Eccles is supportive of NRL involvement in the British game.
“Absolutely,” he said.
“I don’t know under what dynamic. But having an NRL influence on our game can only be positive.
“They’ve got a broadcast deal at the minute where you can pay all your players and all your staff and still have two or three million in the bank before you’ve even sold a jersey or a ticket.
“Where they are right now is absolutely phenomenal, so if they can support us to get back to where we were, because it wasn’t that long ago when players were coming here to get a payday, 20 years ago.
“It’s how it looks isn’t it? These things are way above my pay grade, I don’t know.
“But, selfishly speaking, they will obviously want London to be part of anything they get involved in. So, get them in for me.”