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Hmm, I don't have enough knowledge on the issue to fix it, but I've seen a few bits and pieces of information suggesting that the Spears will now not be in the Super 14 in 2007 (probably due to the fact they aren't good enough yet, I don't know for sure). Someone with a bit more information should sort out the article. Just a suggestion.

[edit] Neutality Tag Added

This article has been written emotionally with all kinds of weasel words added. The author is forgetting that it this is an encyclopedia and not a platform his POV

An example of this is "In April 2006, after trumped up excuses and a blizzard of lame concerns expressed by SA Rugby over the franchise's financial stability and sporting competitiveness,"

Trumped up excuses. Lame concerns??

Just to let you know I will be neutralising this in the next few days. I know enough about the Spears to do this but am no expert on them so I will leave those edits to someone else

--Tiucsib 06:56, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Interesting views on journalistic license and applications of prose and vernacular. I can concur with the postings of the Southern Spears Wikipedia, as I have first hand experience and can verify and vouch for the accuracy of the postings on the site with documentation. If the accuracy of any of these statements needs to be tested I can substantiate this with documents if it is of interest. Tony McKeever - tony@thespears.co.za —Preceding unsigned comment added by Toto Koom (talk • contribs) 07:16, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to respond Tony. The accuracy of the information is not what I'm challenging here - the issue for me is that, as a rugby fan (and one that's not from South Africa - I'm a Western Force supporter from Australia), I wanted to find proper information about the team itself when I went to the Southern Spears page - i.e. the history of the franchise, it's background, the players it would have had, it's geographical base, how the promotion/relegation system would have operated - and, yes, a non-opinionated outline of the various legal battles. If you look at 27 February 2007 in the article's history, this is the type of thing I was expecting - not reams and reams of text going in to detail about (one party's version of) a legal battle, with no information about the team itself. Imagine if you went to, say, the Manchester United page and all you found was something like this? By all means, if you felt the information was unbalanced, then balance it out with your side of it - or even link to a new article if you want to go in to more detail - but I don't think an article like this helps anyone other than those with a vested interest in the Spears franchise. Cheers... --Biggiespell 00:06, 07 January 2008 (UTC)

I restored the previous page content (with an updated paragraph from the Super 14 page) to keep people like me happy who are just after team information - I have not deleted the court case stuff though. --Biggiespell 01:11, 08 January 2008 (UTC)

This is still seriously non-neutral. Knowing nothign whatsoever about rugby or the Spears and ended up here by accidentally clicking on a link from PE) I can state categorcally that to an unbiased reader, this is heavily slanted in favour of the Spears and against the RU councils

It is also woefully dated - phrase such as 'Judgement will most likely be given on July 31' are unhelpful - Which year? Was judgement given? If it's ongoing why is it not tagged as a current event?

All in all, it needs a major cleanup, but sadly, I'm not qualified to that, knowing, as I said, _nothing_ about the subject matter

chrisboote (talk) 15:30, 8 April 2008 (UTC)