It was interesting reading the groups Bios. Let’s hope they are able to move the club forward in whatever IMG decide to instigate “for the good of the game.” I hope it is for the good of the game at all leaves and not just the SL teams. I feel that to strengthen our sport the lower leagues and amateur games need to be supported to get more people watching and playing not just more money in SL clubs. The stronger the roots of a tree are the healthier the top of tree is. Having strong, well supported championship and champ 1 and A team comps and academies the stronger the top tear and our international teams will be.
However I feel, despite all the talk of expanding the women’s and wheelchair game, it will be very SL focused and in favour of those teams. Glad the club have appointed these people. Let’s hope the meeting is still on.

Like I say I’m gonna reserve judgement until there’s more clarity on the situation, the grading system seems quite complex and probably needs to be simplified for the average Joe just wanting to support their club . With onfield performance only contributing 25% does that enthuse teams to actually play to their best , who knows , usually onfield performance and fandom ties together but fax who have had two good seasons haven’t seen a significant rise in attendances . I’m also not sure super league is the promised land , as a product I find it quite boring. What’s ironic is that rugby league has spent the last 30 years trying to make it what it was three decades ago , a great product.

When involvement of IPG was first muted I naively hoped that they would be coming up with new ideas to raise the profile of the game, or increase levels of investment/sponsorship. As has been said this feels just like a very modest revamp of old licencing guidelines. It's almost as though no one has put any thought onto it for 12 months, then suddenly realised they had a week to produce something so just dug out the old licencing guidelines and reworded them slightly. While I'm realistic enough to realise that some change to the promotion/relegation structure is needed, if the main aim of the proposals is to increase crowd numbers, having a system that only applies 25% to onfield performance shows a complete lack of understanding about what motivates supporters to back their team.

[Part quoteWhile I'm realistic enough to realise that some change to the promotion/relegation structure is needed, if the main aim of the proposals is to increase crowd numbers, having a system that only applies 25% to onfield performance shows a complete lack of understanding about what motivates supporters to back their team.

Regarding the performance weighting it’s because everybody knows what draws in the crowds and expects every sports team to try and win every game regardless so they won’t need any encouragement in that area.

For years the first team is where all the money had been spent whilst other areas have been neglected so making them more important is intended to give more incentive to invest in them.

Not saying it’s the right or wrong approach, just offering an explanation.

Let’s face it the new proposals are just rehashed versions of previous licensing. The player pool isn’t big enough to support a professional league of over 12 teams both financially and the onfield product. The main issue is and always will be distribution of money by the rfl through the sky tv deal , without transparency and complete objective governance the teams will by enlarge remain in their current status unless a rich benefactor is put in place to overturn the status quo. You can have all the points systems you want but without money you might as well fight the wind .