Leeds' catchment area has a significant greater population count than virtually any other club's catchment area - law of averages suggests that has to be an advantage.

Hardaker was not picked up by any SL club as junior, Watkins is an exception. The bigger clubs like Leeds and Wigan will always be a bigger draw than the likes of Cas, Wakey and Widnes simply because of size, structures and reputation. The T/O of a club like Leeds gives them the spare monies to spend on youth development that the smaller clubs can only dream about.

Mergers only work if they provide the customer with something they want, and can't get through any other means.

You'll struggle to find many fans of the "Calder" clubs who are so desperate to watch SL that they'll happily accept their own club being absorbed into a merger IMO.

I don't think encouraging RL clubs and RL communities to lose their identity is a recipe for future success.

The RFL need to determine the teams they want in SL through the license system and let the others find their level - no need for mergers just a need for some realism at those clubs ill-equipped to sustain competitive full-time squads and maintain a reasonably well-appointed stadium.

Regarding Leeds having an advantage of a larger catchment area, didn't Watkins come from Manchester.......also Sinfield from Oldham.

A view that couldn't be backed up without it happening. That's the issue, until a proper merger and advancement takes place, people will always have this same view, that holds the game back.

A perfect test case for me and crying out for a merger is South Yorkshire. Such a vast area and two small championship clubs playing within it. Such a great run club is Sheffield Eagles, fans that back it all over, and yet in truth does not have any identity at all, and is kind of nomadic moving around grounds. Then Doncaster that is not well run, always struggling, but with a fabulous base and fans that also back it.

A merger of those two clubs would reach out to so many people that it currently doesn't do. And any super league should have a south yorkshire club in it, where it can not be accused of infringing on other locals.

Correct. SL has been too short sighted for too long. The game in this country is being held back by the bottom clubs.. if we are to catch the NRL things must change.

So what do you define as a "proper" merger?

There will always be the perception in any merger that one side has come out of it better off than the other. In Australia, Illiawarra fans view the "merger" with St George as basically just a takeover. The team plays half its game in Illawarra, but it wears the St George jersey with the St George badge on it (albeit with the addition of the Illawarra name).

Tensions are bubbling up at Wests Tigers over what the junior teams are called that play in the NSW Cup, and the perception of Wests fans that the club is effectively being run by "Balmain" people.

Is there evidence to suggest that rugby league fans from Doncaster travelled to Sheffield to watch the Eagles when they were in the top division. Or that Eagles fans travelled to Doncaster when they were in the top flight?

Why would they? completely irrelevant point.

The point is what would they do, or more important people who currently go to neither of these two teams do, should there be only one club in that area, who is also playing in the top flight, and a competition that would be enhanced by restructuring it.

I'm going to try and go through the arguments against mergers one-by-one to deal with them all.

The League don't own the Clubs, so they shouldn't do anything.

No. But the behaviour of clubs impacts on the ability of other clubs to be succesful and of the game to flourish, which is most certainly the responsibility of the RFL. If having a league containing lots of small, uncompetitve clubs that can barely get by season-to-season is bad for the game, then the RFL can (and should) change that system to ensure the best interests of the majority. Note that that will include fans within such clubs that would rather have a team to support playing SL as part of a merger than no team at all.

Mergers will be done badly, as takeovers

Obviously, if a problem can be pointed out in the way mergers have been done, then we can avoid those problems. Suppose a Cas-Wakefield-Featherstone merger. You couldThere isn't a problem, and clubs can just continue on as they are

This is true, if you're willing to see some of SL go back to semi-pro status, or to be reliant on the support of the local 'Mr Big', and for only a handful of clubs (realistically St Helens, Wigan, Warrington, Leeds, Bradford & Hull FC) to ever have a realistic chance of winning anything. To be sustainable, a rugby club needs to be able to threaten a 10k gate reasonably regularly. Do you think that Cas, Widnes, Wakefield, Salford, Leigh, Halifax etc. can do that? If so, show us a plan to get them to do that. If not, what's your solution? Because getting by season to season just isn't good enough.

Obviously liscencing is a good thing, and is a first step. But we need to face facts-that some clubs are never going to be sustainable because the catchment areas they have (e.g. Castleford-a town smaller than 50,000 people) is never going to make a side sustainable, especially when they are competing with other avenues for people to spend their money, such as other teams, other sports, and other forms of entertainment. The choice here is not Cas as they are now v Cas in a merger, it's a Merged Cas v no Cas.

Yeah, I can imagine that Sheffield would definitely see a merger in a good light.
What with all the benefit they got from it last time and everything.

Seriously? what is it that is so hard to understand? Sheffield have never been in a merger. They were taken over in order to meet a franchise requirment to get Huddersfield in.

As Sheffield are the stronger of the two clubs in South Yorkshire, they would definitely be getting the better deal of the one I suggested.

So whats this then? You don't half talk wet at times you lad.

Not going to do this one by one (sorry) but a couple of things leap out...



Sorry, but again, by what mechanism can a governing body mandate the merger of two businesses? It's not that they shouldn't do anything because they don't own the clubs, its that they can't do anything because they don't own the clubs.




You wouldn't and couldn't just glue the squads together though, so that's a bit of a nonsense, with respect. They'd still have a salary cap to adhere to. While I gether neither are paying the full cap at the moment, I'm sure they're paying more than half!