Indeed. Also, with relegation being on the agenda, it would be no surprise to see clubs going into panic mode and overspending towards the back end of the season, so financial problems could easily sort out who might get relegated. With the current punishment being 6 points and half the sponsorship money for two years [and who knows, it may well go up] and with those fines being carried over to new owners, I can see a few of the lower end clubs being put under extreme pressure to continue at all.

Afaik the half sponsorship for two years was only applied to khan. It isn't a standard punishment. It wasn't applied to Green. He's just suffering affects of second year of khans punishment.

But it is a bit misleading isnt it to look at Bradford and London as 2 of the 'SL' representatives in that league when they have been nowhere near SL level.

Leigh to London is a much smaller gap than Leigh to Hull or Leigh to Hull KR.

Could be interesting times ahead for clubs in the promotion/relegation zone as yo-yoing between the two leagues can have massive implications for clubs and owners. Cloth is going to have to be cut a multitude of ways to cater for the two alternative scenarios.

Well yes, I was just showing an example using this year (as the latest available league table data) to show its not impossible, yes the Bulls and London have not been up to scratch, but that might equally be true of whoever is bottom next year, for whatever reason as yet unknown. If one club could be seen to have a chance in one year, why not another club in another year?

Also, Leigh will be stronger next season than this due if only to going full time -as the Bulls and London will be, and the funding and cap available gap between the leagues, whilst still huge, is not quite as massive as it was this year. Its not an exact guess of course with no-one able to see into the future, and it might well turn out that the 4 SL sides win out in the middle 8, but I'm merely pointing out that IMHO I dont think its the forlorn hope some seem to think it is.

No doubt the advocates of P&R will blame the convoluted system rather than the principle when teams hit the panic button.

Should just be 2 up 2 down, bottom of SL auto relegation, top of Cship auto promotion (with cship trophy),

at least winning a trophy for agining top spot is there unlike how its planned come top and win nothing for effort.

10th & 11 th in SL play each other winner stays up loser = relegation,

2nd & 3rd in Cship play each other winner gains promotion,


***or*** thats being said scrap that aswell and just straight 2 up 2 down lol

Wouldnt it be funny though if infact all 4 Championship teams gained promotion into SL, surely that would leave some serious egg on the faces of the RFL

Thats what i thought - back to the drawing board for another idea a bit more inline with RFL standards then

Let's face it. Unless another SL team does a 'Bradford' and implodes massively, the likelihood of a Championship outfit hitting the big time is very minimal. They might as well just not bother with all the crazy end of season shenanigans and lock the leagues up.

With the RFL also showing a penchant for awarding bonus points as well as the points gained by the middle 8 in the playoffs bonus points should then be awarded such as extra 2 points for iconic ground status, possibly extra 2 for dropping any legal cases against RFL, extra points for number of season tickets sold, anybody think of anything else.

The problem with a 2 up 2 down set up is that in a year where the championship is poor the two going up are much worse than the two going down and will have no chance. This new system simply means that the best 4 teams in that bunch of 8 will go up. The RFL are explaining it all in a press conference today.

A post earlier got me thinking. What if a team goes into admin just before they drop into the championship play-off’s. They get 6 points deducted which means they are in the SL bottom 4. Are they still 6 points worse off at the start of the play offs or are they then wiped off?
I can see why the traditionalists don’t like the new ideas but I am starting to look forward to it. How many people actually enjoy the games on TV. I am starting to not watch them as they mean nothing till August if you are in the top eight. There are the top games that are good but the rest are boring and meaningless. Right now SL is just going through the motions. The game needs a big shake up so that more games mean something.

Next year the championship clubs in mid table will be fighting to get into the top four. There will be a season long battle in SL to stay out of that bottom 4 and if you do drop into it you still have a 7 match play off to save yourselves. Those play off will be far more interesting than the SL games.

In the pub at the weekend a chap said he had just read about them and thought they were a great idea. I can’t wait to watch something different. On TV yesterday a chap said it will be very hard for a championship club to beat all four SL clubs to go up. I might be mistaken but we don’t need to beat all of the SL clubs. We need to beat the other 3 Championship clubs plus 1 or 2 of the other to grab that 3rd spot. It is going to be really interesting with some big crowds up at Odsal. If we can’t win 4 games then we deserve to stay down till we can.