Been thinking the exact same for a long time. We could big it up with historic test series documentaries such as the ones the Cricket showed before the Ashes. I hate cricket but even I was glued to them.

I have no bright ideas in terms of grass roots and administration, but I've a couple of ideas as a spectator that I think could go quite well.
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I'd like to see a third competetion started in place of the old regal trophy. It could start earlier in the year to give us something to shout about early on. Perhaps it could be a wednesday night floodlight trophy.

I would have groups that go into a knock out, a bit like the Football Champions League to make sure each team gets at least 3 or so games.
I would include the top 1/2 dozen or so NL1 teams.
The superleague sides would only be able to field a limited number of players over a certain age (say 24).
We would play the old 5 metre offside rule.
The extra games created may help us avoid playing other teams more than twice as in the past and the ridiculously longwinded playoffs (8 teams FFS!?)
I would look at getting it on Channel four or another non-sky sports channel (not sure what restrictions we'd have on this).
[iThe new dual registration laws may trump this idea to a degree.[/i
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I would change the playoffs back to the original 5 team set up. (i would look at perhaps excluding play off teams from the competetion mentioned above)
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I would organise Lancs vs France and Yorks vs France games mid season. This would give France some better games and give us a chance to compare prospective internationals.
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I would invite a Pacific Islands combined team to tour UK next year.
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I would, in vain most probably, try and persued the NRL to allow each club to have 1 european/SL trained player who does not count against the salary cap. This would see a few of our better players over there and competing at a better level, which would benefit us in the long term.

What do you think?

I like those two ideas. Not sure the others would work/go down well with clubs and chairmen.

Those who are advocating brand new competitions - when will they be played and what (apart from the off-season) would they replace?

[uSalary Cap[/u

The RFL should grant special dispensation to clubs promoting their players through their own academy. Allow say only 50% of the players wage to contribute to the salary cap. This would allow clubs to pay “their” own players more money and maybe keep them from going to RU or moving to a “bigger” club. I think this would encourage clubs to promote their own youngsters and this would be beneficial to the international set up. With more young English kids coming through hopefully we would stop signing overpaid Aussies.

[uOverseas Quota[/u

IMO teams should be allowed no more than 5 players born outside the EU in the squad. This would be reduced on to 3 for match day squads. Again this would encourage teams to promote their own or British players. I don’t know how that would work with the employment laws but it could be worth a shot.

The "born in" bit would fall on its backside.

If a person has the right to an EU passport through ancestry then where they are born is irrelevant, they have the same rights as an EU born person to be able to work within the EU.

Effectively it would be no different to the old system prior to the introduction of the federation trained rule, with teams scouring NRL reserve grades looking for players with EU grandparents to get around the quota.

I was working on the fact that we still play some teams more than twice, but on reflection, is that still happening since we moved to 14 teams?

My extra competition would also mean the teams were made of mostly youngsters, some of whom won't be first teamers, and the 5 metre rule will probably mean there's less wear and tear physically on the players competing.

Sounds a great idea. BUT if they introduced it, the teams who would benefit most by a long way would be Leeds and St Helens. That would make them stronger than they are at present, thus making the gap bigger.

What they should do is separate the club academies into regional RL academies based at a leading sports college/uni which produce the players. From there they should have a televised draft pick, enabling the lowest placed side the chance to get the best youngsters each year, thus levelling things out. That or ban the top 4 from applying such salary cap reductions for a certain time period.

Another flaw in your plan is that only about 4 clubs in SL could financially cope with an increased salary cap. Leeds, Wire, Hull KR and Huddersfield potentially the ones capable. All that would do is either bankrupt some other clubs or mean that Saints are replaced by Warrington. It wouldn't improve anything.

Overseas Quota.

This would benefit RL in genral rather than just British RL. French players should not be counted on the overseas quota. The reason NZ are so good at Test level is because so many Kiwis play for the Aussie clubs not just the Auckland club. At the moment, French players only play for Catalans, they don't play for English clubs because English clubs would rather use the quota up on Aussies/Kiwis. If every English club had just one French player, it would improve the French Test side a lot, which in turn improves England RL. If possible we could do the same with PNG/Fijian players until France/PNG/Fiji are getting to a good standard. Problem with PNG/Fiji is they have the same rights as Aussies/Kiwis in terms of employment, but if we could just do it for the French it would be a start.

[uOverseas Quota [/u

This is nothing but a front for political correctness. Scrap this horrendous rule and let anyone play for our clubs. The winning combination always is hometown talent mixed with international super starts from the southern hemisphere as shown by Leeds over this decade.

Leeds could easily have a group of academy trained players playing for the first team but every team in rugby league must have at least a couple of export - it’s the same in all top flight ball competitive sports. Its all to do with equal opportunities and that. Its something that doesn’t get talked about openly.

Now some may be calling me racist - I couldn’t care less who plays fo Leeds as long as its an entertaining side. We can have a team of Australians for all I care. It just needs to stop this political correctness!

Pre-season and they would replace friendlies, obviously.

Coaches and players already complain about the number of games played.