Mission accomplished for Leeds but goalposts could be shifted once again

Victory over Worcester at Headingley earned Leeds an eighth season in the Guinness Premiership and with it an equal share in the funding provided by Premier Rugby.

The money the likes of Wasps and Leicester receive will at last be matched by Yorkshire's shining light, and with it the chance to fulfil Andy Key and Neil Back's vision of establishing the club as a force among the rugby union elite.

However, as they lined up the kick to convert their survival try, mutterings in the wind could see the posts urooted and withdrawn a good few yards.

There is talk that the salary cap of 4m which confines the top clubs to respectable and equal expenditure, is to be doubled to 8m, with Premier Rugby set to make a decision later this month on whether to implement the changes for the 2011-12 season.

It is a proposal that has its doubters among those who value good old-fashioned values that rugby is about 15 men with a ball up their jumper.

RFU head-honchos Francis Baron and Martyn Thomas cite the top flight's already-unstable financial position as the reason for their opposition.

But with one club rumoured to have breached the 4m ceiling this season – plus the fact that the French Top 14 already has a higher salary cap – it seems almost inevitable that the governing body will bow to pressure.

The French produced three times the amount of European semi-finalists than their rivals from across the pond and there is also no such ceiling for Irish clubs, who again produced more semi-finalists than England.

Leeds have already had to contend with suggestions that the Premiership will be expanded from 12 to 14 teams – the story surfacing in February at the time successive wins over Sale, Wasps and Saracens showed the Headingley club would not be shrinking quietly back towards the second tier as they had done in two of the past four seasons.

And now this, the sport moving towards exorbitant wages

that may be peanuts in comparison to football's Premier League, but which still represent a large banquet for a sport that not so long ago was an amateur game.

Leeds do not have the financial clout to make up the deficit from 4m to 8m, having worked so hard to be able to reach the former figure.

So if the salary cap is doubled, or even increased ever so slightly, do not expect Back, Key, Gary Hetherington, Marco Wentzel and the rest of the Leeds boys to be at all surprised.

Their response will be to do what they have done so admirably all season long, to roll up their sleeves and get on with it.

So it is left to Leeds United, Huddersfield Town, Rotherham United or York City to bring a smile to the faces of Yorkshire football fans.

Sheffield Wednesday's relegation yesterday was their third in 11 seasons and the second for Yorkshire clubs in 2010 – Hull City's is yet to be confirmed but the deficit they have to make up on West Ham United could not even be achieved on a Playstation game.

Two demotions for the region's 10 clubs makes for ugly reading, and the hopes of the White Rose county having something to shout about going into next month's World Cup, rests on the shoulders of Simon Grayson, Lee Clark, Ronnie Moore and Martin Foyle.

Leeds have their destiny in their own hands this Saturday when three points would at last see them end their exile in League One, a fate Wednesday fans are coming to terms with this morning after seeing their side fall short in front of the BBC TV cameras.

The third tier can be a suffocating environment, taking years off a club's ambitions. Only Leicester City and Norwich City, of the once-established Premier League clubs, have bounced straight back.

The last thing Leeds want is the lottery of a play-off format that has proved their undoing in three of the last four seasons.

Huddersfield Town, on the other hand, have been building confidently towards the play-offs all season, hammering goals in left, right and centre. And who would be surprised if Clark's in-form side pooped the party and actually stole the final automatic spot at Exeter in what is a fascinating climax to the regular season?

Rotherham United at times this season have had automatic promotion within their grasp, only to let the opportunity slip through their fingers.

They have at least secured a play-off spot and one hopes Moore leads his team out at Wembley later this month on the first step to recreating the road to the Championship the two parties took not so long ago.

And the final part of the Yorkshire quartet is perhaps the most gratifying of stories, the achievement of Foyle at York City.

On the cusp of relegation to the obscurity of regional non-league football last season, the canny Foyle, pictured below, has transformed the Minstermen's fortunes and a positive result today at Kenilworth Road against favourites Luton Town, will see them head to Wembley for the second successive campaign, but this time for the right to play in the Football League.

York's return would be an undoubted high, but the grim fact of the matter is that the county has no representation in the Premier League next season, while across the Pennines there are seven clubs: Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Manchester City, Manchester United, Wigan Athletic, Everton and Liverpool.

Yorkshire football needs a tonic, and quickly, otherwise this season will be remembered solely for the clipping of the Owls' wings and the taming of the Tigers.

So good luck to Leeds and the Terriers, the Millers and the Minstermen.