I've just been looking at the league table and noticed that Warrington's points difference is 609!

Firstly, well done Wire! Excellent stuff! (That hurts!)

According to my research (Wikipedia!), which I'd really like verifying by somebody who knows the stats to be correct (tvoc?!), if they keep above the 600 mark, this is only the 3rd 600+ points difference of the SL era.

They've also got a 39 point positive swing in the 3 remaining matches to gain in order to break the record.

They would NOT however, be the first team to have a 600+ points difference to finish 2nd. That "honour" goes to us.

[iTeam - Year - Points Difference - Final League Position[/i
Leeds - 2005 - 647 - 2nd
Bradford - 2001 - 646 - 1st
[iWarrington - 2011 - 609 - 2nd (with 3 games still to play)[/i
Bradford - 2000 - 596 - 1st
Leeds - 2004 - 594 - 1st



*All stats are from Wikipedia. I'm not sure how accurate they are!

Edit - Stats altered slightly and are now confirmed. Bloody Wikipedia.

Points differences of such magnitude highlight the inherent weaknesses of the competition IMO. This is something in which Matterson, Monaghan and Cullen have all correctly alluded to recently. The two main weaknesses being...

1) The salary cap set at a level which only a handful of clubs can spend up to, producing a rump of clubs who are nothing more than whipping boy rabble just making up the numbers.

2) The lack of players of requisite quality to run a 14 team SL competition, resulting in a concentration of the best players and stronger squads at the top clubs who can afford to spend close to the aforementioned salary cap limit.

I'm tempted to agree Keith, but what's the answer? When the clubs won't vote for a smaller league due to the effect it would have on their revenue streams, how do we move forward?

I'm kind of on Keith's wavelength with this one too.

Problem is, you can't exactly just get rid of clubs with history. Was it Monaghan that suggested "Merging the Hull Clubs"? Bet that would go down REALLY well.

Interesting that 3 of the 5 teams were coached by certain Tony Smith..

The P1 and P2 on your mini table require switching as Leeds scored 1152 (the SL record) and conceded 505 for a points difference of 647 in 2005.

Other than that wikipedia has seen you right.

For me it should be a two tiered system, top 10 clubs at the end of 2014 go into the superleague, the remaining 4 clubs and the top 6 teams in the championship come together to form a new championship.

Free weekend for everyone on the WCC weekend, free weekends for 3 match International/origin series, a re-introduction of the yorkshire-lancashire origin for those players not involved in the origin matches to be played as curtain raisers to the origin matches. Sky money to be shared out equally between the 20 teams regardless of status etc and a return to promotion and relegation. two up, two down.

There simply isnt the money, and there arent the players to provide for 20 clubs. Our SC is already embarrassingly low and hasn’t been raised for over 10 years, the NRL SC is about to go up massively and the exchange rate means we wont have the ability to compete for anything but the lower end from 2013 onwards. Which is simply going to exacerbate the issues we are already facing.

CMR isn't suggesting creating any new clubs that aren't already in existence though? The 20 clubs are already there, he's just suggesting taking 4 from SL and 6 from the Champ to make another division.

He also states we should split the money between those 20 clubs instead of 14 as we do now. We have an SC which is ridiculously low and some clubs are still failling to spend it, some by a fair distance. Taking a few hundred thousand from them and giving it to clubs in a lower league (who can then compete for similar players causing their relative values to rise meaning you not only get less money but less value from it). There also isnt the players out there which if the money was spent by our lower league clubs could raise the standard enough. We struggle to fill SL with quality players, its not going to make it any easier trying to fill 20 clubs rather than 14.

A simpler, maybe a little more lateral solution to this problem would to change the game to 4 quarters of 20 minutes. Which would allow sides to re-group if the opposition gets on a roll, removes some of the reliance on stamina which can see clubs run away with games, would be done in alignment with a reduction in substitutions which would give an extra tactical facet to the game, and also allow an extra ad break within the game, raising its value for TV, bringing in more money so we can bring in and create more, better players.

Lets go the whole way and call each tackle a down and get all the players to wear oversized shoulder pads and helmets??

I'm using a team like Bradford as an example, they're marketing/ticketing team have devised a season ticket price of £60 if they get 10,000 people to buy them, that is at least £600,000 into their coffers, plus hospitality on a match day (another example of 500 people paying £100 = £50,000 per game, multiply this by 9 proposed home games per season and you reach £450,000) - Thats a minimum of £1,050,000 so far for those keeping count, plus shirt/short sponsors (around £250,000 per season), ground sponsors (possible £250,000 with advertising hoardings etc), merchandise sales (20,000 shirts alone at £20 profit will generate £400,000) and walk up sales (average of 2,000 away and home supporters walk up at £20 is £40,000 multiplied by the 9 proposed games is £360,000).

Total so far is £2,310,000 without any sky money. Obviously there are other teams like Wakefield, Salford and Harlequins who won't be able to reach this sort of money earning potential, but I've selected a team who are currently placed 10th in the table, so would be at the lower eschalon of the proposed higher league.

I'm sure there are other marketing and money making ideas that clubs use to bring in more money/corporates, golf days, limited edition shirts etc etc but the ones i've stated are the basics - how clubs go bust I have no idea!

Why? Im not against it, but i cant see a reason to be for it.

We still have a problem of an inability to produce sufficient players of the correct quality for an elite competition - 10 teams max playing each other three times.

Even in the much vaunted NRL they have the same problem the likes of Parramatta, Cronulla, Canberra, Titans, Penrith are just whipping boys for the top sides - there is simply not enough talent to go round.