What ever was being discussed 12 months ago was obviously open ended, and certainly the idea of reducing to 12 clubs had been well trailed, but what hadn't been mentioned, to the best of my knowledge, was the idea of bringing back P&R on a bottom out basis [though I'd assume some clubs will be rightly excluded from that]. It is that aspect I disagree with.

I disagree with P&R in SL in principle though as there were numerous sages screaming for it as the saviour of RL there can be few complaints if the RL & chairmen voted for it. Presumably Sutcliffe lobbied on behalf of the Bulls.

I don't really think P&R is suitable for the top division and never will be when there are only part time teams in the division below. Whilst franchising has had quite a few problems as well, it has rid the game of the the problem of teams coming up a going down the following season - a situation which does no-one any good in my opinion.

Maybe we could split the difference and have a season of P&R and then consider them in situ for three seasons to allow the promoted club to get up to speed. A bit like now but instead of the licensing committee, you win your three year deal in SL by being fortunate enough to be the top team in the appropriate year. It must be a better idea than one up and one down every season.

The problem I see with that is everyone would throw their all at year 3 rather than build gradually which is the current intention. If there was no other criteria other than getting most points I cannot see how most teams could survive on crowds of 2,000. The present system is imperfect but I cannot come up with a better one.

That, sadly, seems to be the crux of the matter. Is there really a significantly better system? I've not heard or thought of anything for sure. Straight P&R certainly isn't the answer.

Going back to my previous suggestion which, incidentally, if you hadn't guessed I know has no chance whatever of being adopted, why not give an incentive for each year by totalling up the league points over the three seasons to decide which team is promoted? or maybe use the league positions over the three year period with a total of 3 [first in the league 3 times] being top mark?

I can, and over the years, repeatedly have.

The league could be based on a similar sort of arrangement to the NFL Conference system. Not exactly the same, but on those principles.

That way, you can admit within reason pretty much as many new SL sides to the party as you like. And nobody ever gets relegated.

The only downside is that you don't have an overall league ladder any more. That would be a big issue for some. But as finishing at the top of the pile, however hard, is no big deal any more, I have to say I can't think of a convincing reason to mourn the loss of the league table. It would eliminate at a stroke all the complaints about the hub cap winner being devalued. As there wouldn't be one.

It must be fact that the PRIMARY title will be the playoff winner. We would still have playoffs and a GF winner.

And we would have (a) a number of division winners, and runners up (if you know the basic system in the NFL those positions are important so in a league of 5 or 6, most teams have something to play for in their mini league for a long time); (b) 2 major Conference winners, there would be more interest for more clubs and more chances to win at least something.

We could off the top of my head have six divisions (split into 2 conferences) of 5 clubs in each division, thats 30 clubs.

Six of them would be divisional champions and would qualify for the playoffs. The big difference is, unlike now, there would be no complaint that a team could "win it from 8th" and this was unfair, since (a) there was no league in which to finish 8th and (b) each team was in on merit (there is a "wild card" system of the teams which don't actually win their division but have the best record at the end, to make up the playoff numbers).

If this was the new scheme introduced, then suddenly you can have as many non-SL clubs as you like in. As long as there's an even spread of fixtures, it doesn't mater if they initially all get regular floggings.

I've in the past actually written in to the RFL with detailed suggestions based on this. Never had a reply.

The idea of two conferences is a almost a throwback to the old sixties and seventies RL situation, where we had a Yorkshire league, playing just Yorkshire clubs and a Lancashire league playing mostly just Lancashire clubs.

There was a slight imbalance in the number of clubs [more Yorks clubs than Lancs] which meant that a couple of Yorks teams volunteered to play in the Lancs league, which also included all the Cumbrian teams and also the then new Fulham club, though there were odd variations on the make up from year to year.

The situation then, was that the two leagues were separate but all the results were put into one league table, and you could easily have a situation where [say] Wigan were top and Leeds were second a point behind, but not only had they not played each other through the regular season, they had played a totally separate set of teams in the league fixtures. That system also rendered the 'league table' irrelevant and back then no-one questioned the need for play-offs.

Back to the future?

I think that's the point, in a conference mini-league system, as long as the spread of fixtures is reasonably fair (and of course you'll never get a consensus) then there HAS to be playoffs to find the. Because there is no league, and can't be, as not everyone plays everyone twice home and away.

So to me it would kill practically all the current arguments.

Why not go with P&R, but the bottom team of super league plays the top team in the championship as a playoff game at the end of the season. That way the best team is in super league. Would the super league team always win, not sure. The championship team will have all the confidence from finishing top. The super league would be down on confidence having been the whipping boys al season. Could be some interesting games

In the old RL system, the league table was used to determine the play-off teams and this varied as much as the modern one, using at different times either 4, 8 or 16 teams.

I think the full table might be better for us, than the 'mini-league' alternative, in that it gives a reasonable number of season ticketable games before the play-offs start and clubs start dropping out. In any case, I believe the mini leagues in the USA were introduced largely to cut out much of the longer distance travelling which would have been necessary over there, but which to be fair isn't really and issue in the UK - even if you include the annual trip to France!

At face value, it sounds fine - but how often do Championship teams beat SL teams in the cup?

To be honest there is too much of an in-built advantage to the SL team; full time fitter players, professional training and coaching facilities, a team costing the best part of £2m which is playing against higher quality opposing teams on a weekly basis.

I'm not sure I'd consider having better players as an unfair advantage.

The plan is that the top 8 in SL will carry over their points from the first 23 games but the bottom 4 from SL and the top 4 from the division below start again with a clean sheet. They will then play a further 7 games with the championship clubs getting 4 home games. A tough ask but they will see an increase in central funding so the gap will perhaps become closer than it currently is.

Didn't actually say it was 'unfair', it's just a fact, and in that promotion/relegation play-off scenario it pretty much prevents any change taking place. Which imo, rules it out as a way of deciding ups and downs.

That's the bit of these proposals I have the most difficulty with.

All I can see is four SL clubs vying to stuff four Championship clubs by the highest margin so as to win the division. Loads of uncompetitive matches, indeed, [iexactly[/i the sort of games we thought we were getting rid of when we brought in SL, and during which I'm going to be spending time wondering if this is what I thought I was paying for when I bought my season ticket.

Actually, the only way to get any sort of competition might be to let all those clubs keep the points they got in their earlier league, so the Championship clubs would start with more - a bit artificial, but it at least puts the end result in some doubt.