The future has to be a return to Licensing, it’s the only long term sustainable way. We can’t have a system that means something as unpredictable as a run of injuries to key players could be the thing that effectively finishes a club. There has to be a safety net, along with prudent and practical financial control.

There’s nothing stopping the RFL setting the criteria for acceptance of a license and publicising it so any club from outside SL could apply to join by a certain date each year.

Yeah but they were expecting Bradford to go bust, totally different situation

Exactly this. Bradford were in a complete mess financially before they were relegated. Leeds on the other hand are the biggest and most profitable team in SL. For them to be relegated would be a disaster to the sport and not something which the RFL would let happen.

I doubt it and hope no scenario to bail us out through the back door would happen, if we are bottom we take our medicine and move on.Yes Leeds are one of the big clubs but if having them outside SL for one season would mean a total collapse then RL in this country really has even bigger problems than first appear.

Not that I want it to happen, but can you imagine the positive impact it would have for the Championship clubs if Leeds were to get relegated?

They talk of the payday of having a big club in in a cup draw, well this would be one every week!

Alternatively it would give the Championship a real boost. I don’t think either Leeds or Wigan will be relegated, but there is a real possibility, if either club finishes 12th, nothing will be done to stop them going down.

For the record, I think (hope?!) we'll finish bottom half but not bottom but I completely agree with this. Ignoring the argument as to whether or not there should be relegation in SL, this season there is and if we finish bottom and strings are pulled to ensure we don't go down it's a disgrace and an insult to every other team that competed. If we finish bottom then there's noone to blame but ourselves and as Biff said we take it on the chin, have a year out and look to come straight back up. To change the rules because you don't like the outcome would make an absolute mockery of the game.

A bit like Brexit????

Huddersfield’s win tonight puts a lot more pressure on us for the Easter weekend

Hudds beat Cas

If having a salary cap, P and R has to go and a franchise system has to come into play, if you want P and R get rid of the salary cap, then the big clubs can weather the storm of an injury crisis by buying more quality players. The game is already in a financial mess, half the teams in SL are playing to crowds of 5,000 crowds or less, Championship clubs and below are on their knees, why wouldn't you want a club to spend money on players if they are struggling, if the likes of a Leeds, Saints, Wigan and a couple more clubs were to be relegated it would damage SL, I don't agree in a salary cap sport, if we are playing to a cap, it should be set against different targets, such as size of club etc. Can you imagine Man Utd having the same spending power as Brighton , get real it would kill football, and this is slowly killing our sport.

My only problem with the cap is not having it simply rise with inflation so that players' wages do as well on average.

I disagree that that just getting rid of the cap will improve the game though. Day one following getting rid of the cap, every SL player will want an upgrade. That's basically all you'd see - rampant wage inflation across SL. That was exactly what we saw in the NRL when the last TV deal upgraded the cap. You might see a few higher quality imports, but with the marquee rule maybe not more than otherwise.

In a pretty short while you'd have the bigger clubs signing most of the best players as they used to do, and the gap between top and bottom get bigger again.
Unless there's a way that increasing the cap improves junior development, I just don't see how quality increases much. The cap would have to be stratospheric for SL clubs to sign RU internationals like they used to, and the gap to the NRL is pretty big as well.

Is there an argument that letting the big clubs send what they want will improve the standard of SL? Genuine question.