im not sure that is the case. I mean it was a league of the same teams. Im not sure how it is harder to finish 4th now than before. Surely if you could coast to 4th last year, you could coast to 4th this year. Surely it is exactly the same?

Simply because you could finish 5th 6th even 7th or 8th in years gone by and have and still have a great shot of winning the title, hell we exposed the system! This year very good sides like Catalans and Warrington are probably going to miss out so of course its tougher.You can't coast anymore or you will miss out altogether on the playoffs.Is it just a coincidence we are likely to finish top in two games time when Mcdermott's Leeds couldn't finish top 2 once in his whole tenure before this year?

We had several seasons without P/R. That gave the likes of Wakey and HKR more than enough chance not to go run out and buy overseas at the first oppotunity and have teams filled with academy products and have things in order upon the return of P/R......however they haven't. Should we have kept the old system on the off chance those two sides might have eventually gotten their act together more on that issue? Let's not have P/R or a more interesting league on the off chance HKR might play a academy lad at 2nd row instead of signing some Aussie.....yeah sounds great.

As this season will ultimately end up being a top 4 play off series rather than a top 8 as in the past

I believe that finishing 1st has it's merits with the 4 home fixtures that you are rewarded with as those fixtures are against your closest rivals in the regular season league table

IF you win all of your your home games from first position in the league then you are almost certain of a semi final play off with the league points you have accumulated throughout the regular season

It's sudden death Footy from this point and I still believe that the side with the fittest squad of players will ultimately win the GF irrespective if they are drawn at home or away in the semis,It's just a case of reaching the last 4

I don't accept that. Whilst I accept some may argue Leeds might have coasted at some point. I cant accept that the teams around them did. Those sides aren't good enough to do so.

And I don't think it coincidence. We are simply better than we were in those years.

Those clubs did give more English lads a go. All clubs did. The number of English players went up and the number of overseas players went down during that period. It has since gone back up as clubs take short term panic decisions.

If you find a low quality league filled with antipodean players not good enough for the NRL 'interesting', the Queensland cup would welcome you and you will see all these superstars too.

Perhaps we will get to see quality players like andreas bauer or luke dyer again. Maybe if we are lucky the million pound match will see a team field 15 overseas players like the last one and again superstars like Korkidad and leo-latu can grace our game again.

And it could just as easily be argued that franchising produced a bunch of equally average English players who presumably commanded similar salaries as those from down under. The point about panic measures is questionable too; previously sides were happy to throw in youngsters not up to the task and stick with failing coaches rather than incur added cost. They've now had to sharpen their acts by making necessary improvements. As a paying spectator I know where my preference lies.

Except that's what did happen.

Chisholm will become the 11th non-British player fielded by Hull KR this season. In 2013 that number was 8 (assuming you count Rhys Lovegrove).

Wakefield had 7 non-British players in 2013. In 2015, they have used 10.

So the return of P&R has significantly increased the number of non-overseas players at those two clubs, because they're panicking about the loss of revenue that dropping out of SL would bring.

Take a look at what happened to clubs who got relegated when we did have P&R from Super League first time around. Workington, Halifax, Oldham for example. What happened to those clubs once they lost the golden goose of SL TV money? A full P&R system based on nothing but results on the field is not financially viable in British RL. The gap between the top tier and those below it in funding is so significant in percentage terms that relegated clubs are forced to slash budgets to the point where they almost cease to become viable SL clubs at any point in the future.

The whole idea of licencing was that it gave clubs time to sort their sh*t out. A period of stability where they could put systems in place to build and grow without having to worry about being stuck in relegation battles every year. Yet in typical RL style, we whinged and moaned about teams coasting and every minute not mattering and decided to throw the baby out with the bath water. So now we're stuck with a system that encourages teams to think short-term and protect their own position, because it's "more exciting". Not that you'd know, because attendances at grounds and viewing figures on Sky don't reflect the anticipated spike in interest that "Every Minute Matters" was intended to achieve.

Until RL in the UK stops taking the bloody short-term view and chasing some mythical group of "lost" fans who were never actually lost in the first place, it's never going to develop and grow because it doesn't encourage those clubs at the top of the pyramid to think beyond their league placing.

In what way have clubs "sharpened their acts"?

Are spectators really turning up at games specifically to watch the likes of Michael Sio and Dane Chisholm? Of course they aren't.

Clubs would probably generate more interest and excitement among their fans by blooding young prospects from their own Academy, but they're scared to. That doesn't make SL any more exciting, it just turns it into a low grade Queensland Cup style competition packed with players who can't get a gig in the NRL.

young players always need that introduction and they won't get it whilst those spaces are taken up by overseas players. How is a 19 year old English player supposed to he blooded learn and improve when his place is taken by a 25 year old Queensland cup player? The answer is they don't. They stagnate and never reach their potential.

Didn't really happen under the previous set up though, did it? The interest and excitement among supporters of those sides being battered, I mean. Compensated as they were by being able to view the struggles of youngsters often well out of their depths.




You're right to the extent that it doesn't make the game any more exciting. But neither does it render it less compelling. What it does, at least in my eyes, is go some way towards addressing the perception that clubs aren't doing all they might to improve overall performance. And if the number of inferior imports does give rise to serious concern then there are bound to be measures that can be taken to address this specific problem.

If Michael Sio and Dane chisholm are clubs doing everything to improve performance then we might as well give up on pro RL in his country.