Jonathan Davies believes Wales needs a Super League team

Wales dual-code great Jonathan Davies has backed the Celtic Crusaders to win one of two new Super League franchises.

The Bridgend-based side, which plays in National League One, will discover on Tuesday if their bid to join an expanded Super League is successful.

"The impact would be massive on the Crusaders and also on Bridgend and south Wales," he told BBC Sport Wales.

"The infrastructure is there, rugby league is being played in schools, but that area needs top-quality rugby."

The Crusaders' Brewery Field stadium was once home to the Celtic Warriors regional rugby union team, but that franchise was disbanded in 2004 as Wales reduced to just four fully professional union sides.

Davies, the club's president, believes a place in Super League would revitalise the area, which would once again have a team playing at the top level of its sport.

"Unfortunately its been taken away from them in union and now its an opportunity for everyone to get behind a Super League side," Davies told the Back Page programme.

606: DEBATE Do the Crusaders deserve a Super League place?

"Rugby league does try and expand the game and take it out of the M62 corridor, but that's all we can ask that we're given the opportunity.

"Once we've been given the opportunity it's up to the Crusaders and the people of south Wales to make it a success."

"They'll have three years, the first season will be very difficult for people to adjust both on and off the field but there's no relegation.

"If it's not working you'll know by the third year and the licence will go to someone else... and that will be it for rugby league (in Wales) I believe."

Davies says that rugby league should have used Wales' success in the 1995 World Cup, where they reached the semi-finals, to gain a firm foothold in the Principality.

"There was an opportunity there in 1995, because there was a lot of household names playing for Wales," Davies said.

"We would have all come back and played for the Celtic Crusaders then, so to speak, but it didn't happen and now is the next opportunity."

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