The problems for me with P&R are the financial chaos that ensues when a team moves up or down a division, and how you seek to make sure the likes of Catalans remain in the top flight.

The financial issues are down to the vast difference in finances required to run a SL team vs a Championship team.

Unless you enable relegated teams to operate on a vastly higher cap than the rest of the league they are sent down to, they will lose almost their entire squad overnight. All the players will have 'opt-out' clauses in the case of relegation, and the club would have to ditch players anyway due to the cap. Then you see existing SL clubs pick like vultures at the 'better' players in their squad, and the dross signs for whichever club replaces them in the top flight.

Alternatively you allow the relegated team a year on a cap way out of sync with the rest of the league they are in, which will most likely cause them to run in cricket scores on a regular basis.

The only solution to me would be to allow Championship teams to operate at a cap very close to SL levels, so the gap isn't so large, but the danger of bankruptcy from failure to get promotion is huge.

The promoted team has the opposite problem - a short period in which to build something like a competitive squad. As the best players from the relegated side would prefer to play for a better team, they generally miss out on them, and end up having to scrape around for players. Basically Widnes last year - every season.

This is now a far bigger problem than it was when we last had P&R because the promoted club - like Widnes found last year - is unable to sign half a dozen reasonable NRL players to fill in the gaps and help make them competitive.

Neither scenario is good - IMO all we'll see is one really cr*p team every year and a couple of familiar names yo-yo between the leagues - and quite possibly bankrupt themselves in the process of trying to stay up/win promotion (see Widnes, Halifax, Leigh, Cas in the past).

The other problem is that unlike football, not all RL clubs are equal. It's always been a nonsense to suggest that the likes of Wigan are somehow similar to Batley, Fev etc. The latter clubs will never, ever generate the interest, spectator supportand therefore cash of the big name clubs. Does anyone seriously think that it would be 'good' for the game for Wigan to be relegated and Batley to be promoted?

Then you have issues like Catalans. The whole point of having them in SL is to protect and grow the game in France and its appeal to Sky. A similar rationale has been behind various attempts to prop up the London side. Make no mistake about London - unless that team is supported centrally it will probably end up relegated and a virtual non-entity in a short time. If the sport believes a presence in London doesn't matter, then fine - but clearly that hasn't been the view to date.

Anyway, I think moving to 12 teams is fiune, but straight P&R is frankly stupid.

So we're effectively going back to what we had (giving that playoff spots are reduced back to 6). We had this before and people complained (because that's all some RL 'fans' do). Again some couldn't just have patience (especially in a tough economic time) to see the current format through......they wait about half a season and complain their isn't enough positive change.

What I've found laughable is how in last 18 months some people have forgotten the flaws with the old structure and called for it to be reintroduced (similar with calls for a reintroduction of Yorkshire v Lancashire match, we tried ten years ago, people moaned and didn't care now suddenly they want it back). Complaints about teams at the bottom getting beaten to easily and by big scorelines......erm that was happening just as much with 12 teams.

People saying that teams hitting trouble during the licensing period is proof it doesn't work, conveniently ignoring the current economy. What is annoying is the same people that have been asking for a change to 12 teams/top 6/ p & R will be the same ones complaining in a few years wanting yet another format change.

Unfortunately some RL fans have zero patience!

The bigger problem is not the structure or the number of teams its the p*ss poor effort by the RFL to sell the game meaning there is a chronic lack of money in the game. whilst this continues the sport will carry on being run by the chairmen changing to the structure that keeps the most happy at that time.

A closed off super league with either 12/14 teams is imo the best option for the game, however its impossible to justify this to all the clubs when the RFL are reducing the centrally distributed funds because it can't get sponsors & just bows down to accepting peanuts from sky. The currently licensing system should have seen a more stable league with improvements across the board i.e. playing standards, number of fans, increase in money, etc in both super league & the championships.
what has actually happened is
The standard of games in super league has dropped off at the bottom of the league, I'd say 4/5 championship teams have a very good chance of beating Salford & London and competing with the likes of cas & widnes despite having a salary cap of just 1/6th, before the licensing system it was 1/2 teams had a chance of beating the bottom 1/2 teams in super league despite the salary caps actually been closer to each other at the time. (the lack of skill in monday's sky game was fairly painful to watch and this is two teams who have a good chance of making the play offs)
The number of fans in super league has possibly increased but the number in the championship has dropped off (massively in some cases)
The sponsor situation has been well played out in the press.
Some clubs still carry on spending more money than they have.
The number of community coaches has dropped massively.
and the list continues

so whilst I don't think changing the structure again is a good thing for the sport, not changing it could lead to much bigger problems; the top 8/10 superleague clubs thinking bugger this, supporting the lower superleague teams its clearly not working lets start our own league/sport. Championship clubs thinking bugger this we're getting less support/money from the rfl than before, our fans are getting feed up we can't get in the top leagues so lets start or our league/sport and/or lets just give up.

Tony Smith was right - RL needs to stop messing around with too much. By all means reduce the number of playoff spaces. But the only rationale to reduce to 12 teams is if 14 is unsustainable financially or competitively.

On the field, the massive hit to SL of the loss of NRL players as a MAJOR source of players was always going to take years to work through, as in the end their replacements can only come from juniors. The flow from the NRL started drying up 3-4 years ago. Even if every SL club had the best junior development systems in place, we were never going to be able to seamlessly move from dependency on 6 or more overseas players at every club overnight.

I just don't think that there's enough evidence yet as to how many reasonable quality teams are sustainable with full dependence on junior development. We're probably two or three years away from being able to give a rational answer to that question - even then we'll still have some clubs way behind the rest.

Interested in what happens to the play offs.
Also, as mentioned above how to Bridge the financial gap between the sl and championship.
I would have the same cap for both levels but include something life the 50% rule to stop clubs overstretching

The only way you could even begin to bridge the gap for me is run 2 leagues of 10, with P&R increase the cap and quota levels in the bottom league to more than they have now but less than SL, enough so that players can go full time.
For this to happen though the big wigs need to start attracting money to the game, if they're struggling why not incentivise anyone to bring it in.
Some random stranger not interested in RL told for every £ he attracts to the game he'll get 20% of any profit that brings to the game. Sounds far fetched but WE NEED TO ATTRACT MONEY. Until we do that the system we have now is the only sensible one we have.

As I'm sure Leeds are. They'll more than likely have to reassess their policy of finishing 5th given the likelihood of regular season fixtures becoming meaningful.

which is all to the good of the competition. This is caveated on the premise that the new play-off system will give clearer benefit to those finishing higher up.

Dual-registration can now follow franchising/licensing and go and do one.

Who voted for this? The same chairmen that have run their clubs into the ground with chaotic mis-management?

Frankly, it's a complete red herring.

More players at grass roots, better coaching, better marketing, better financial management, better sponsorship deals and a meaningful international presence. These are the things that will make the game stronger, not tinkering about with numbers of teams in the top flight.

I suspect they will all light up cigars, sit back and slap themselves on the back at a job well done. And we'll be back here in 8 years time increasing it to 14 teams.

It's lucky that the man behind these plans has personal experience of bankrupting longstanding clubs while trying to avoid relegation. It'll come in handy.

Which way did GH vote? And why?

Bingo!

I think people, especially those constantly telling us what ever GH does is right, should walk away from their computers. Rumours are that GH is the chief instigator of these plans, especially the split to 8 teams, and the one pushing it.

rlHere's the opinion of your intelligent and articulate herorl.

Very articulate.

I don't necessarily agree but when your as well fit as sinni you can talk people around.