The cap is certainly an interesting point here in all this. Squads are unbalanced, lack depth in some areas accross all teams, standard effected. It should be increased imo for various reasons, it's been far too low for too long.

There's other things to get right first. Increasing the cap will not increase squad sizes but will increase payments to players (although that may not be a bad thing).

There is no enough talent for 12 teams let alone trying to increase squad sizes. Lreeds seem to prefer project players to pad out their squad rather than a couple of extra decent players and then juniors being given an opportunity.

Yup, which os why SL should be 10 teams, unpopular opinion I know

10 teams with increased cap. We need to pay our players better and also attract top talent to showcase the game in it's best light which will in turn grow the sport.

The quality of the product has to increase, there is no doubt. Squad depth across the board, so teams/positions, is generally paper thin. Improving the depth of quality in fewer teams, to mitigate the impact of player loss, would help in that regard.

whilst I agree the thing I find most boring is playing the same team 3, 4, or even 5 times a season.

Play each team once,home and away.

Use extra time/ calendar space fir internationals or another event and support them long term to build it

Spot on. RL needs a strong international game it’s a farce at present. International success helps with wider press exposure too which should in-turn generate greater sponsorship

Which clubs will be willing to reduce from 27 games to 18. None could afford the loss in income. particularly as an increase in the SC is also being suggested.

something needs to change. What we've had for the last 15 years or so has slowly made the game over here worse. The bigger picture needs looking at.

It is difficult for any other pro sport in the UK to get traction outside of soccer. Rugby Union has the benefit of the old boys' network and ex players in senior business positions etc., and it has had a much stronger international calendar for as long as I can remember.

We can tinker around with the format of the game, and there is an argument for it, but ultimately there are bigger forces at play I think. I do think the cap needs to be raised or got rid of, but you'd have to look at crowd data etc. Even attendance habits change with the advent of streaming services etc.

Should we be looking at say 2 mini leagues of 8 to be played home and away =14 games.
Top 3 in each league play home and away =10 games
Top 2 play in the GF.
That leaves the other 10 teams to maybe do something similar i.e straight knockout or another mini league and play on the same day as the GF for the GF Plate.
You would then be including 4 Championship teams based on the IMG gradings such as Wakefield, Bulls, Toulouse.

The 2005 WCC against Canterbury came up on my YouTube feed, so I watched it for the first time in a long time. Honestly, the speed of the ruck and lack of wrestling made for a far more entertaining product. They could improve the product in a few weeks by getting the wrestling out of the game and speeding up the ruck.

I think the only way to even partly achieve that would be to ban more than 2 players in the tackle. Otherwise how do you judge? Players are coached to let the attacking player make short yards after impact, but slow them down as they do it, and ideally flip them on their back to slow the PTB further. Judging when a tackle is complete is difficult when they do that - the only way I can see it is to reduce the strength advantage of multiple tacklers.

Reducing the number of teams is a really bad idea. There's not enough variation as it is. I'd forget these weekends off for the cup except the final as well, the season is far too disjointed.

Just my view, but I think for the good of the sport the SL teams need to be in the CC earlier, and maybe even try to fix the draw to make them play lower league sides (seeded draw maybe). The cup isn't worth squat as it is, and it would give lower league fans a chance to see SL sides, or visit SL grounds. Wouldn't people rather have a cup tie at Whitehaven or have Dewsbury visit than yet another game against a SL side?

Who knows, we might even win a game.....

You're right about the cup. I'd even consider having a group stage format, which would force SL teams teams to play lower league teams. I'd also fix the draw/format so that SL teams had to play any lower league team away from home.

As for policing the number of people in the tackle. I'm not sure it needs to be that complicated. Just penalise teams for slowing it down like they did for decades. Hopefully, the new rules next season will help eliminate some of the grappling.