That's just one way you get to [deljames[/del rule.

Wouldn't it make sense if the 7 games were tied in with magic weekend? Either by having the magic weekend in the last 7 games, or by the team which is at 'home' in the magic weekend getting the Extra home game in the 8s section

I meant for 2015 but fair comment.

So exactly which challenges does it solve?

I would say that it:
makes the season more competitive - more games that mean something.
Gives us a decent play-off series
Provides a means to have P&R
Spreads more money to the lower leagues
Gives teams in the lower leagues something to aim at

Any changes to Dual registration. Dual reg for SL /Championship clubs could now become an issue.

No can do regarding the last part. For financial reasons clubs won't want as few as 11 home games a years. This new system will see them with either 15 or 14 home games. That's a big difference to their finances.

Don't dissagree, but that highlights exactly where the problems lie. Finances is number one, the product down the list. Those believing this is a monumental change in the right direction from a top level point of view are kidding themselves. From a lower level yes, top level no.

Yes, you may well see the first 10 rounds of the competition more meaningful than they would under the old system, but that will be offset by the meaningless fixtures at the end by 3 or 4 clubs. Possibly even worse, as by the 11th/12th round you will probably see at least two clubs already resigned to the bottom four finish and saving themselves for the play off format, therefore making their regular round fixtures meaningless again.

Where it will have a particular set back is on the development of youngsters into teams, as some won't take the risks, where they would have done previously, depending on when their easier games are.

That’s a fairly bold claim, there are pretty big match day costs and overheads, its pretty presumptuous to think there isn’t a break-even point simply on match day revenue versus costs. Leeds have about 10k season ticket holders and an average of about 15k. That would mean that another ‘free’ game would actually be a game where Leeds needed to open Headingly and have match day overheads and costs to cater for a 15k attendance, but actually only the ticket income from 5k fans. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a match like that make a loss.

Coming at this as a SL newbie and a football fan for 20+ years (and recently experienced relegation with my team) the idea is / will be that it is the worst of the SL v the best of the Championship. If the worst of the SL end up coming out on top v the best of the Champ, then they stay in the SL and it suggests the league would be weaker with the Champ teams.

If the Champ teams finish above the SL teams, that suggests they are better and thus (in theory) the league will be stronger next time. The relegated SL team will have seen they are worse than the best Champ teams and thus what they need to improve / develop to come in the top 4 of the Champ and then beat the (now SL) former Champ teams (or whoever else ends up bottom 4 in the SL the next year).

I appreciate premier league / championship football and SL / Champ rugby league are worlds apart in terms of money, coverage and support - but the likes of London, Widnes, Wakey and others have been poor with little ability to improve (due to finances, bad luck, management or whatever) but ultimately remain in the SL year after year. Conversely, teams consistently doing well in Champ have their progression halted as they can't go any further.

This happened a few years ago to my non-league home-town football team - they walked their league easily a couple of years consecutively but then couldn't go up because of not meeting ground requirements. They then made effort to meet requirements, but then didn't do as well (for whatever reason) and then their owner pulled out and they had no senior players. My point is at the time they were upwardly mobile, they could not progress any higher due to non-playing reasons. Players moved to other teams higher up the non-league ladder as it was the only way to play higher. The whole thing then went belly-up as the new sponsors pulled out days before the season so the club had lost the money it used to fund the staff.

The system will favour the four SL teams, but then the Champ teams (having won more than lost and presumably played well to be top 4) will have more momentum and belief and as i say, if they can't beat the worst of the SL at the end of good seasons, at least then they can hopefully identify what to improve and try again next year.

I know for some it could mean years of 'yo-yo-ing' between two leagues but the idea should be that each time they go up they improve a tiny bit more; then if they go back to Champ, they have a bit better team than when they last went up and so theoretically should come top-four and have a chance to go up again.

Rather than 8 good teams, 6 treading water and the however many are in the Champ unable to go up regardless of how amazing they are - you will end up with maybe 8 good teams still, maybe 8 teams across two leagues who are continually jostling to get better (whatever league they are in in any given year) and then 8 teams who are trying to put themselves in position to play against SL teams at the end of the year to see how far away they are from possibly challenging them for promotion to SL.

It should also mean a bit more money in / around the Champ as there becomes a point to it - even if Sky only showed Champ games after the split, it'd be more coverage (and consistently) than now. Hell, i know i would watch on if it was there to watch.

By no means will it solve things quickly and yeah, one or two may run the risk of winding up, but those teams are / have been treading water to stand still in SL.

It is possible that maybe i have got it totally wrong and am very naive / ignorant to the position RL finds itself in, in which case i expect to read some chastising comments!