Some laughable over-reactions on here, as if a change what happens after a full season of SL games is going to force you to stop watching the sport entirely. Super League still has a complete season of 23 games before the split, what happens afterwards seeks to address some problems specific to RL - the disparity both within SL and between the top SL teams and the championship clubs, and the genuine and upsetting disaffection with the sport felt at many clubs for whom the aspiration of getting to Super League has been destroyed since licencing came in.

In an ideal world, 12 teams, straight promotion and relegation would be the answer. Teams would go up and be competitive and go down and be able to re-organise and fight another day. Fans wouldn't abandon clubs who have a poor season and relegation wouldn't mean bankruptcy.

But there's the world as we'd like it to be and the world as it is. Introducing some gradient, some smoothing to the promotion and relegation process, trying to find more even competition for each club, trying to make each game have importance in its own right. These are laudable aims. The solution isn't perfect, but the alternatives, in my view, are less perfect still.

The whole focus of the regular season will now focus on who finishes 8 th. For the vast majority of SL clubs you could predict now before a ball is kicked whether they will be in the top eight or out of it and they will just tread water until the play offs begin.

The points carry forward to the 2nd stage, so whoever is in 8th will have little chance of making the playoffs (the top 4 after the 7 game round robin).

On redvee there is a poster who has posted about why they are coming round to this idea and it's a very well written argument.

I have to say the last few seasons have been pretty dull in terms of the main set of league fixtures.

Did anyone not expect Wigan/Leeds/Saints/Warrington/Catalan/Huddersfield/Hull not to make the top 8.

It's been a cake walk for these teams for years. Now 7 into 4 does not go. So you would imagine the intensity will pick up now that top 8 is not the aim and you can't spend weeks just going through the motions as a win or a loss makes little difference.

Again at the bottom, you could probably predict the bottom 2 clubs in the last few years.

Now the aims of the clubs are to get higher and not just coast as coasting will lead to decline.

I very much doubt this drop off in fans. But lets see the profit and loss accounts come 3 years time.

How about the clubs that voted/supported it market it. After all if they don't they will struggle and the RFL will not be to blame.

Yes they put it forward. But clubs have pledged their support or at least a majority of them

Bizarre that they can vote on something with the funding to be sorted out later. Licensing was never done properly, I think we have to get rid of the historical baggage that the game has and have proper licensing as in Aus and merge teams like Wakey and Cas.

I agree the top part MAY become more exciting. But the problem I can see is similar licensing, meanings games. If was the Bradford coach and realised we won't going to make the 8 cut with 4-5 games to go.
I'd send the senior players to have their operations and clear outs, couple weeks off, come back for the "exciting
" second tier fresh to beat our part time colleagues to make sure they were back in SL the following year.

To do what you mentioned above, we could have done exactly the same with a 12 team comp and a 4/6 team play-off with relegation. Then every team has something to play for until the end of the season and all teams are on level playing field.

This is just the worst of both worlds for me. Yes top
Part may become exciting in the split, but he long term finacial state for clubs yo-yoing between the split could hurt.

But better the last 4 games than the last 15

I'd be alot happier if they change the top 8 league's 1st round playoff format into 1 v 8 2 v 7 3 v 6 4 v 5 otherwise even before the top 8 split of you have the potential to have 4 teams with nothing whatsoever to play for other then finishing between position 5 & 8 in the table.

If everyone has a shot at the (actual) playoffs where's the point of playing 7 more games after the split? Top 8 playoffs don't work.

Basically everyone wants a system that suits there team best - outside of super league? We want a promotion to play for. Bottom of superleague? - we want something to play for after the 8 is decided. Now it's placed between 5 - 8 and you think there's nothing to play for??? No wonder the rfl picked the most ridiculous idea it can't win!

Also I can't remember when there was a 14 point gap between 4th and 5th

MS the playoff is the top 4 AFTER the 7 games

Exactly, my response was to the person who suggested after the 7 games to still have a top 8 playoff ...

I did write something about this somewhere.

But basically this would not happen as there is no history of the team in 9th being so far behind they can't make the 8 with 4-5 games to go. When the league was 12. Sometimes there were only 3 points covering 8 -11.

Even in the years of 14 teams it would be only at the last game when people would know they can't make the top 8.

This is my point about some of the negative responses to the SL clubs decision. Scenarios are being thought up that actually have no basis in what has gone before. So yes you could ease off in some years for the last game. But most years you would still be in the running for the 8. The point of cutting the league to 12 is to make those teams closer. They still get a full season of matches against SL opposition, the only difference is that teams outside of the top 8 will now have an extension to their season.

Sorry, missed that

I bet youd be happy if you were still floundering in the championship days of down and stay down.

Bottom line if your teams in bottom 4 its theyre for a reason.So instead of teams malingering at bottom knowing season is dead now they have to fight to stay up and the top4 of the championship have warrented their right to see of the bottom 4 of the super league gives them hope knocks complacency out of bottom 4 of super league whats the prob?

If the top 'championship clubs' could afford to go full time, I would have brought back promotion/relegation. 1 up/1 down....but as my club have been stuck in the 'RL Wilderness' for years, this is better than leaving it as it was.
Guess we'll have to wait & see, but splitting into 3 leagues of 8 seems a little odd, and unbalanced. As for league 2, right now, if (part timers) Fev, Halifax, Leigh, Sheffield, Batley etc were to beat a SL side in the challenge cup it would be a shock, never mind winning a few, so that you can get into the top 4 of the 'mini league'.
Time will tell.....

Those teams in the championship now can only spend £300k on player salaries. The SL clubs will spend along a range of £1.1 million - £1.8 million so even the top KPC clubs are limited to 20% of the budget of a team in the mid range of spending in SL. From 2015 those clubs in the second 12 will be able to spend up to £900k (treble what they have been able to spend up to now). The spending power of the top 12 will remain unchanged so the gap could lessen for the top KPC clubs significantly. In recent years Cas who, no disrespect intended, are likely to be one of the bottom 4 in the top 12 in the early years at least were beaten by Barrow and Featherstone and were very lucky to beat Halifax, Huddersfield, a top half of SL team scraped through against Batley. Though those are rare instances they were involving teams with at best 27% of the budget of their opponent. When that budget is 75% of that of their opponent then the difference is hardly stark. A club coming into the middle 8 from the 2nd 12 beating one of the 4 sides coming from the top 12 is not likely to be so rare an event as those past cup shocks. A "SL2" team may only need a single win over a "SL1" team to gain promotion in any given season particularly given the presence of the 4th v 5th playoff.

As you say time will tell but the raising of budget potential for the second tier largely removes the forced chasm in finances. A club with three times the playing budget may not be wholly part time but have a core of FT players. Nobody knows what will happen but the drastic changing of the (potential) spending power of the top KPC clubs bringing them much closer to the lower end of SL means that even the recent past is not as accurate a yardstick as many seem to think it is.

For me a floundering Rovers in the championship is better than no Rovers at all so yes, I'd still be happy.

I still think you will get yo-yoing of super league teams with this format as well. Whichever 2 teams drop at the end of the forthcoming season I would assume would be in the top 4 of the championship the season after. So in reality you have 6 SL teams fighting for 4 SL places. I don't think the current championship teams will get a look in.

This.....

There seems to be a focus on the top of the championship being competitive with the bottom of SL as if that would make the system a success. It wont. If the top of championship is competitive with the bottom SL because the bottom of SL is miles away from the top of SL in terms of quality, the majority of the bottoms SL clubs season becomes entirely meaningless and will be filled with blowout scores.

If the top of the Championship is competitive with the bottom of SL because they massively up their game, we risk seeing the same thing happen at the bottom of the championship.

This system working necessitates that the bottom of the championship are competitive with teams who are competitive with the top of SL. If it doesn’t we will see massive gaps in quality, a poor league and huge blow out scores.

There is no-one arguing we are likely to see the Swintons and Whitehavens competitive with Leeds and Wigans. Its all very well cherry-picking a few close results, but it ignores that the majority of results in SL v lower league games are blowouts-, in recent years we have seen Wigan put 60 on Leigh, Bradford put 70 on Donny, London put 70 on Dewsbury, Salford put nigh on 60 on Whitehaven, Catalans put nearly 70 on Sheffield, Huddersfield put 52 on Swinton, Leeds put 60 on Leigh, Wakefield 50 on Donny, Wire 112 on Swinton, Saints 70 v Fev, Wire 80 v Keighley,

If they hadnt brought in this league restructuring,I think the lower leagues demise wouldnt have been far away,how a lot of clubs have survived until now on pitiful crowds is a mystery.I think your club would have been just hanging on with Halifax,leigh and thats it.

So what should we focus on? top of super league is that it?thats not what this is all about,its about HOPE .Hope because even if a club hasnt got a cats chance of gaining a foothold in the elite crop it can have a damm good fight to get their and back by sponsors who are willing to back a club(they wouldnt touch stuck in a league without hope) .sleeping giants can rise,wouldnt have been saying that if wigan had been relegated 6 years ago

Hope is a pretty dumb way to run a business. Sponsors arent going to want to be involved in a sport which is boring, where the winner can be known 99 times out of a hundred. People are going to tire of watching sides run up scores. Swinton losing by 112 points isnt going to attract them sponsors or fans.