I am a confirmed expansionist and certainly agree that Cumbria should be explored , but just out of interest what makes say Castleford a more attractive proposition than the teams that you consider worth dropping ?

They have proven they can attract crowds. They have a fine youth production record. They have formed a brand that seems to work now. The areas of say Wakefield that are really captured by the game go to Cas anyway.

Agree we as a sport bottled it last time with licensing. We gave in to the demands of the lower league clubs, the tail was very much wagging the dog. I’m not keen on Robert Elstone because I trust him as far as I could throw Lolohea. But I hope at least his appointment means that the sport won’t be making such decisions in the future.
Unfortunately they’ve made the same mistakes as 10+ years ago with the boring, unimaginative, lazy loop fixtures.

I’m massively in favour of licensing. I don’t see how the sport can ignore the massive success and growth of the NRL that a licensed league has played a big part in helping create.
However, I can’t help but remember that god awful, cringe-inducing press conference we had at the start of licensing where the charisma black-hole that is Richard Lewis was stood in front of a sh|t PowerPoint presentation of spinning club logos as each one was announced.
Please, please! Anything but that again!

Not sure what all this talk about licensing is about weve only just gone back to 1 up 1 down surely were not changing again????

You can change SL to as many teams as you want but it will mean less money for the clubs currently there and they wint vote for that.

Elstone cant be judged until the next TV deal is announced. If he comes back with a mega deal hes good if he doesn't hes just like the rest. That and the next world cup in England are the 2 most important things for the sport

What if he got an improved deal but that meant the same money per club and more clubs?

That's my view Batley - genuine expansion bringing in overseas clubs has the potential at least to lead to a bigger TV deal. It wouldn't be hard to get Sky's views on the impact of different mixes. One thing's for sure, the idea of replacing a Wigan or Leeds with Widnes or Leigh would make the comp instantly less attractive.

Easy to say that as a Leeds fan. Wonder if you would say the same as a Widnes or Leigh fan?

There isn't enough of them to bother about that one though. When there are, then their voice should be heard.

That's irrelevant tho. There are probably more of them than Salford and Hudds certainly in Leigh's case.

They would probably take more fans than we did to Wigan, Salford and Wakey games also. Our away following is embarrassing.

I find this Cumbria for Super League rhetoric bizarre. Yes the amateur game is played up there but one club is at the bottom of the Championship and the other 2 are in League One, they generally get attendances of under 1000.

The towns are too small and isolated to become anything other than a Championship club. It would be great if the three of them were able to become strong Championship clubs.

Promotion and relegation needs to be decided on the field, with a minimum criteria for entering Super League. The only exception to this is I would grant any North American club an exemption from relegation, a transatlantic Championship makes no sense whatsoever.

I agree Sir Kev but is this even up for debate???