Well Paris,London,Barcelona etc was surely what SL was meant to be? So if it hasn't worked in last 20 years cannot see it working now. Have to agree with all the comments above but no doubt the fat controller has his own agenda

I thought that a long term objective of the current system was to narrow the gap between SL and Championship, and they put their money where their mouth was, but until just now not would not let the Championship club owners, which corrected the major flaw. So has competition overall improved in the Championship? More full time clubs, and us 5th are a bit of an indicator of improvement. Getting more competitive clubs in such as Toronto will improve that. and a few years ago there was one French SL side, if Toulouse got promoted that would be two French clubs with big fan bases. Ideally the gap continues to narrow to the point that promotion and relegation is justified. If Leigh get automatic promotion by beating all other Championship sides and two SL sides, then to me the system works, by filtering out only those ready to compete in SL, and justify receiving a bunch more money to improve their side even further.

You think? I don't think the Bulls are an indicator of anything, except perhaps a case study of how NOT to run a club.

How is Toronto a "more competitive club"? Toronto hardly exists, and at the moment are busy scrabbling around signing ho-hum foreigners to pad out a squad! I presume what you mean is "a club with some big money backers behind it".

Big fan bases ... in FRANCE. I repeat the question I posed, what is the plan with this French sides? Are we to eventually have 3? 5? 10? Or is the plan to end up with a French SL (as it should be)? I think we should be told, but I don't believe there actually is any plan, fag packet backs excepted.

We are already, clearly, at that point, the final piece in the jigsaw was levelling up of theoretical salary caps.

Indeed, but meanwhile, in the real world, no Championship team has any realistic chance of promotion, at least not by its own efforts alone, which is kinda the main point. And even if it did, to me the very idea that even in theory, the team that finished 4th in the Championship COULD replace the team that finished 9th in SL is plainly barking mad.

I would be equally happy with Hull KR, Hudds and Salford. I think it would be funnier with Wakefield but they're in the top 8

I'm caught in two minds as to what I want - I want Leigh to get promoted on the basis that they should have been promoted years ago and have been consistently the best side in this league for as long as I personally care to remember. I think the majority of their fans deserve it too, particularly the ones who have stood by them when they hit their own rock bottom. However, for some reason, that owner of theirs grates on my to the point where I'm not sure I'd want them to get promoted. It seems daft now I think of it.

The only team I would LOVE to see come down is Leeds, but that won't happen. It would have been particularly interesting to see if Red Hall would "let" Leeds be relegated!

The plan with regards to France is clearly not create a French SL. The aim has always been for a European Super League, with more geographic diversity than the traditional hotbed, and probably to grow French international rugby standards. Getting a 2nd French team in will aid in the development of French rugby as it will now be spread to an extra town, where hopefully they'll encourage more youngsters to take up the game etc. Then that in turn will boost French rugby standards. Perhaps even one day they'll provide a team worthy of playing a worth-while international vs England!

I don't think the focus would ever be on creating a French SL, given the objections the RL fanbase has to expanding, developing and creating an English SL.

For the latter point - 4th in Champ replacing 9th in SL is a pretty simplistic way of looking at it. They've played an entire league round-robin competition since those places were finalised, and to be honest if you can't finish in the top four in a ladder featuring clubs on half the funding, and with crowds less than 2k, then they don't deserve the right to be complaining about your replacement

OK let's run with that outrageous proposition for a second

WHERE is this plan? If there is no plan, then how is it "clear"? It doesn't exist!



Er, nope, it has always BEEN the "ESL", and risible and pathetic in equal measure for that ludicrous fact. The addition of Catalans if anything only emphasized the absurdity. If you are serious that they really "aim for" a true European SL - given that there are a couple of dozen countries, which 50% would be excluded? Given even at 1 per country there are not enough spaces, are you saying that the RFL's "aim" is to have ONE or NONE English clubs in an ESL?

Do you not see that such a concept, from the present position of a bankrupt provincial backwater, is laughable?

Why isn't there an ESL in soccer, then? How would that work - Leicester are the only team in the European top flight?

Where would all the rest of the current English clubs play?

I don't think you've thought this through, have you?


WTF has the development of French rugby got to do with the RFL? I have no issue with offering them any reasonable assistance, that's a different thing, but here we are talking about our MAIN LEAGUE. So what are we doing - do we have a plan for our showpiece competition, or is it to be used as some sort of a gallops for random low-level teams from random countries, giving them a leg up, at the expense of established clubs?


What objections? Nobody I know ever objected to sensible expansion / development, but the RFL have been largely useless at it, and have no real idea how to expand, all we have is a sequence of financial disasters.


In other words, you agree that the comp is pointless and unfair as the Championship teams in truth have no actual chance.

Even after all of this discussion Leigh are effectively now one win against Hudds or HKR away from automatic promotion. Yes I am assuming Leigh will beat Fev and Batley.
All this talk of "it is impossible to get promotion" is not correct - but it is very, very difficult to be promoted and probably won't happen in my view - but Leigh "could" now get 10 points.
I still think KR are vulnerable if they lose their scrum half as well as Campese still being out.

As far as the Bulls, I think we need to look at 2018 as possibly the year when auto promotion returns when Toulose and Toronto are in the Championship. I just can't imagine Toronto agreeing to join the league without a quiet reassurance that there will be a clear promotion pathway for them when they enter the championship. It may not have happened but would I spend all that cash without someone from red hall having a quiet word with me beforehand? That's why I expect something to be announced early next season saying it will be the last in that present format. as they did say it was initially a three year trial.

But Leigh aren't, 'ready to compete in SL'. Not by any stretch of imagination.

The have a good side for the division they are in but have far too many misfits, 'old lags' and 'journeymen' to be anything like competitive over a full SL season. If they manage to up their performances to achieve the holy grail of promotion through the current system, they'll certainly get my praise because it would be a tremendous achievement, but once the party is over the next step would be to try and put together some sort of team which can play at a higher level consistently for the whole of next season - just like all promoted teams since Adam was a lad, in fact.

Is that right that it was announced as a 3 year trial? I must have missed that does anyone have a link to the original announcements to save me some googling?
And I know what you mean regarding the rfl and Toronto, thing is I'm not sure the rfl can even get that sort of underhanded logic to work, i don't think theyve thought it through that far.

But to be slightly fair to the rfl with regards the Toronto thing, it wasn't the rfl who went looking for a team in Toronto and then wondered where to stick them in the league structure, it was the other way round and probably quite rightly the rfl have let them enter at the bottom to see how they go, like any expansion team could do, but it might cause issues without correct strategic planning, and that's where we as a sport so often fail. Also what would have been the reaction if they'd turned Toronto away out of hand?

Cumbrian RL would have been saved!

As for me, I believe that they have accepted that sugar daddies wherever they are are an acceptable short term way of getting more money competition and fans into the game, and that will have benefits down the chain for the non sugar daddy, local clubs that care to share in it. No histrionic melodrama for me.

The last 3 seasons

Indeed, if that question had been asked before then the answer would have been Featherstone.

Like I said, as long as I care to remember. I only cared when we got relegated.