6 of 8 still leaves a quarter out.

You can keep asking who knows what next year will bring, but what about the year after? the year after that? the year after that? are you we going to fall lucky every year? Like it or not, maths tells us that it will only be a small minority of years that their is a realistic competition between all 8 sides for a qualification place.

My point was that there are only about 16 clubs who could realistically sustain a Super League side and then I'm being generous.

It's fair to say that "franchising" was better for the clubs that were lucky enough to get the nod but, not for the clubs in the lower leagues.
ANY system will have dead rubbers, especially towards the end of the season but, apart from 2 or 3 clubs in SL, the rest of the clubs in the Super 8's and Middle 8's still had plenty to play for.
At the top, it was all about getting a home semi-final, then there was fighting for a top 8 spot which, but for Salfords points deduction, would have been even closer and then the battle to avoid being drawn into the bottom 4.
The one thing that this season brought was unpredictability.
A new challenger (Hull FC), Leeds and Huddersfield, who's collective wheels fell off and some great rugby league.
And in a final twist, KR losing the MPG when they had the game won.
I'm still uncomfortable with the new structure, where we have the possibility (albeit a slim one) of a club getting promoted from 4th in the Championship and getting relegated from 9th in SL, both of which just seem ridiculous.
However, there is now interest at both ends of the table until the last 2 games (GF and MPG).
Just as others have posted, there have always been dead rubbers and there always will be and maybe it was the tag line of "every minute matters" that was wrong, as it clearly doesn't.
The major flaw in the system is that we have lost the drive towards clubs producing more youngsters. Indeed, the academies, the very thing that we need more investment in, are reducing in number and the best that Leigh, the newly promoted club, can manage, is to share with Salford - this has to be a backward step and let's not even think how we genuinely try to expand the game.

Dude, even by your standards that is rhetorical omninonsence. Let's look at some other possible causes of these issues, and see how likely it is that the 8s system is the cause.

Crowds are falling - we've been stuck in austerity for nearly a decade.
Youth development - offers poor return on investment to most clubs.
Saving the lower leagues - I don't remember that specific promise, but as it was happening before the 8s, they are hardly to blame.
Playing standards - there's been a brawn drain to the relatively cashed-up NRL.

Basically you're saying that anything other than a wondrous success and cure-all is an abysmal failure.



Yes, but equally I could choose a metric of success that sets up any system I don't like for 'failure'. And point at the maths, as my supposedly independent arbiter.

The possibility of a team being relegated from 9th is no more ridiculous than what we had previously where a team who'd finished 8th could end up as champions.

Dewsbury did win it from 8th in 1972-73. That year it was top 16 straight knock out play-offs.

There's all sort of systems we could adopt, and when RL realises that none of them is a silver bullet, maybe we'll stop trying to test them all, and stick with one for a while.

It does often come down to the bounce of a ball. That is the joy and pain of following a team. This isn't professional wrestling - sometimes the outcomes might not be optimal for the next sponsorship deal, or TV rights. But if you try to manipulate outcomes to remove uncertainty, you destroy what makes sport a compelling spectacle.

The problem, potentially and IMO, is that the RFL doesn't seem to have the stomach for negative consequences. To the point that they don't even like to think about them in advance ('no but seriously, what if a club like, I dunno - Bradford, just as a crazy example - ran into financial difficulties?'). And every choice is a sacrifice. One year, I dunno - Saints, just as a crazy example - will finish 9th and lose a couple of games in the 8s, imperilling their SL status. Then we'll most likely have another change in the interests of 'fairness', and managing Eddie's concerns that things are not as they should be.

I enjoy the Super 8's concept. It means the top 8 SL teams have a lot more competitive games at the back end of the season. Yes.......a few games may be 'dead rubber' but those games still influence how the top 4 looks? For example, Wakey finish 8th, no chance of getting Top, yet could beat Wigan which means Wigan cannot now get top spot? So they all have an effect.

Middle 8's is probably the best thing to happen in a long time. Automatic P and R does not work. A team coming up could never hope to compete in SL. This system allows Championship clubs to build and maintain a good squad. It means they have to beat SL sides in order to get to SL. Which for me is key. The SL sides are supposed to be better so they come into this competition as favourites which has been proven right over the past 2 years.

MPG game is great for the sport. If you finish 9th in SL and end up 4th or 5th in the Super 8's, tough luck. Only yourselves to blame. For the Champ clubs it's a great opportunity to get promoted. People have been wanting promotion and relegation back ever since it was discontinued. It happens in pretty much every sport. Except this is a second chance saloon, without the MPG Salford would be relegated. They took their chance in a dramatic finale.

As the supporter of a team who dominated SL and won 3 World Club Challenges nigh on 10 years ago, it breaks my heart to see us where we are. But that is part and parcel of the game. We don't deserve to be in SL, we didn't take our chance in 2015. We murdered Salford but then lost to Halifax?? That sort of consistency isn't worthy of an SL place. And we also didn't take our second chance in the MPG either.

In regards to people inquiring about relegation from League 1 and promotion from NCL, my opinion is that no semi pro/pro club should be relegated to the amatuer leagues......come on, that just doesn't make sense? However if a top NCL team decided they wanted a crack at being semi pro then they should have to win the NCL Premier Division for 2 seasons in a row and then have a season in League 1 to see if they can compete. That way there is a pathway from NCL up and it helps to grow the game.

I really like the Super 8's concept.

Yes, there are dead rubbers at the end of the season, but so what? That happens in pretty much every league structure in the world, there will always be teams that year who are not good enough to challenge, but too good to go down. Look at the EPL; Stoke, Everton, Southampton fall into this category this season, no danger of going down, but they won't make the Champions League either.

The only way to combat the dead rubbers is to reward mediocrity in some way, usually via an extended playoffs. Granting the 8th placed team a playoff spot like we saw in previous years is a joke.


Another joke is the way Smokey attributes falling crowds and other negative aspects he's put forward, directly to the Super 8's concept, whilst taking into account no other variables or outside factors. We get it smokey, you were for franchising, but it was fkn boring.

I didn't choose these metrics of success. These where the justifications for this system. Why wouldn't we judge the system on its stated aims, objectives and justifications?

The man/woman has a point

Not really.

If when measuring the success on those aims and objectives the only changing variable was the league structure, then they'd have a point.

But, it's not as simple as that. There are many other factors and variables at play which will effect those measures.


Crowds for instance, you have to factor in competition for peoples time & money, ticket prices, the teams involved, the day and time of kick off, the quality of players involved, whether it's on Sky etc etc. Even if you just isolated one fixture, it'd be nigh on impossible to attribute any crowd movement to any one variable.

Youth Development - is the closure of a couple of academies due to the league structure, or due to the player pool available at local amateur clubs? Has the non-fed/quota going up had an effect? Are the coaches at local clubs not up to scratch? When did the quality/quantity of talent start to diminish, or was it overnight when the league structure was changed?

Facilities - utter nonsense from Smokey, and nothing to back it up. Hull FC have invested heavily in facilities for 2017 for example.

Save the lower leagues - again, there's no basis to attribute the situations at Bradford or York to the new league structure, but a fair amount of blame can be thrown at the owners/directors of those clubs.

"playing standards and intensity at an all-time low" - subjective and there's nothing for smokey to measure against. Even so, did this suddenly happen with the structure change overnight or was it setting in way before that? Does it have anything to do with salary caps and money available in the NRL/.Union? No, surely not.


What you have to remember when reading one of smokey's posts about the Super 8's structure, is that they were a massive supporter of the franchise system, and are coming at the argument with a very one-eyed view and see it in either black or white vs seeing the bigger picture.

No, but you've interpreted them, and your interpretation is neither definitive or even, IMO, sensible.



Firstly I don't recall many of these justifications - at least I don't remember them being presented as absolute and guarantees of an glorious upsurge in fantasticness. And I think I would have remembered laughing that hard.

Then, y'know... realism.

Even if you take 'every minute matters' literally, reading at as written rather than intended, what 'matters' is a subjective judgement.

When I was critical of licensing for abandoning its most fundamental and basic tenets, you were quick to defend despite that. Now you're upset over a little bit of spin?

I mean, if they'd actually launched it with '1 up, 1 down was a very hit and miss, and licensing as we implemented it was an abysmal and embarrassing failure, so we've scratched around for something new, and this is what we've come up with. It's a bit complicated, but apart from that it should be just about alright.', there may have been complaints the sport was underselling itself.

Why be so stringent with NCL sides applying to League 1? There's no need for them to be the best NCL side, as the best may have no ambition of ever playing in League 1 due to off-field factors. IMO any NCL Premier side is already good enough to finish in the top half of League 1, even before you give them the ability to attract better players by being allowed to pay them. See this year's challenge cup for prime examples of thisDivision 1, beat South Wales Scorpions who finished 13/15 in League 1.
Castleford Lock Lane finished 11/12 in NCL Prem, beat Oxford who finished 14/15 in League 1.
Pilkington Recs finished 8/12 in NCL Prem, beat London Skolars who finished 8/15 in League 1.
Kells finished 7/12 in NCL Prem, beat Hemel who finished 15/15 in League 1.
Siddal finished 1/12 in NCL Prem, beat Newcastle who finished 9/15 in League 1.

The question is, what happens then, do you expand League 1 to 17? Split into two Leagues? If you get rid of a team, who goes? The bottom half of the table is made up of expansion teams. It wouldn't seem just to get rid of the lowest finishing heartlands team - in this case Hunslet Hawks, who finished 7/15 with an overall winning record.

Your argument relies on these metrics being vague and subjective and it being my interpretation and opinion of them falling to meet them. But your argument is wrong these aims and objectives were specific and set down. The RFL'S aims and objectives for the new system was for it to provide SL with attendances of a set figure over 1 5m. It failed to meet these it then aimed for 5% growth per year from last season up to 2021. Instead of 5% growth we got a 1% fall. It aimed for 10 sell outs in 2015. It failed. It also aimed for an increase of 5 per year. Meaning we should have had 15 sold out games last year. It failed. The RFL did say the new system would improve intensity and quality. Whilst a subjective opinion I don't think we have seen many people claiming that. The RFL did claim we would see an increase in the pro youth player pool. We have seen it shrink. The RFL did claim it would secure the lower leagues and clubs are going bust at a crazy rate. The RFL did aim for an increase in visibility. It just hasn't happened.

These metrics are all measurable. They are definitive not because they are mine but because they are the RFL'S.

Your argument is akin to buying a second hand car and being told it can do 0-60 in 3seconds it only has 15k on the clock, it has electric windows and air con, then finding out it has none of these things and the salesman saying 'well you shouldn't judge it on these metrics, your interpretation of them isn't definitive'.

If not these metrics. What metrics do we judge the system by?

It was just an off the top of my head idea when I was typing pal! I'm all for your suggestion. I guess I still had franchising on the brain But yeah if any NCL Premier team wanted a crack there should be a process at least to make sure they are viable to do it first. It would be nice to see an NCL team have a crack at League 1! They would receive a bit of money for it too like.