Correct.

m.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/34434439 You'd have thought the brain cell would have kicked into gear by now. Apparently not. He's not doing himself or his club any favours.

m.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/34434439 You'd have thought the brain cell would have kicked into gear by now. Apparently not. He's not doing himself or his club any favours.

If they stick with the middle 8's concept maybe they could tweak it by having the top Championship club promoted and the bottom SL club relegated, they could then have 9,10 & 11 in a league with 2,3 & 4 from the championship. This would make sure the bottom club in SL doesn't just give up after 10 rounds and start prepping for the middle 8's

I like what you say so in what you say 2 clubs might come up and 2 go down i dont think the super league teams would put up with that do you

Unfortunately Lowes came across in a childish and bitter way which is a shame as hidden in there were a couple of reasonable points.

If I were a Bradford fan I would be very unhappy over a couple of major decisions but that happens in games and all you can do is concentrate on your own performance which wasn't good enough to beat a Wakefield team there for the taking.

One of the biggest reasons the RFL went to licensing instead of promotion and relegation is the fact that few championship clubs can afford to run a full time squad. Now we have the possibility of promotion and relegation back (which I think is a good thing) we have to find a way to change this.

I don't know the details of players contracts but I would of thought many from clubs such as Wakefield will have release clauses in case of relegation. We are then playing with people's livelihoods which I don't think is right.

There needs to be an increase in championship funding to allow teams there to run a full time squad.

That’s just what has happened this year.

Just like Muhammed Ali, Shaky Wakey have been on the ropes all year, plenty of the squad didn’t have the guts to see it through & with the finish line in sight a couple more decide to take the rise.

Unfortunately for Bradford they couldn’t find the killer blow & the buck has to stop with their coach, he picks the team & he made the decision to attempt to square up the game late on.

I’m sure I read that Bradford were near to full strength yesterday, maybe they were, but with reasonable fitness? Gaskell wasn’t at the races & Blyth was stuck out on the wing, (though I’m sure if Gaskell hadn’t been included in the seventeen, there would have been howls of derision from the Odsal faithful)

This was definitely the year for the new system to promote a Championship team, but the said team blew it.

I’m pretty sure (based on forty years of misery) Wakefield will be in the Middle Eights again next season. Will they be as appalling as this year, surely not.

But what I still don’t understand is, why the Championship clubs have to have a S.C so much lower than S.L? It’s not like their wanting a bigger slice of Red Halls beloved Sky money & if they can raise the cash internally, go for it I say.

Only twepeaks should be a 1 player per month signing deadline from May onwards and possibly a look at the SC, although im not really in favour of that without a further increase in central funds to all Championship clubs

Rugby league is a 17 man game(16 for Leeds)
Moore, Yates, Mulally, Sio, Smith, Locke and Tupou were all signed at the back end of the year and helped Wakefield stay up.

Hopefully the game will take some time to fully evaluate what has happened over the last few weeks - what worked and what perhaps didn't.

For me you do need to do something to even up the middle 8's - 1 win out of 17 is not a very good strike rate.

As for the comments from the Lowes - At best they seemed to be those of someone caught in the moment. I wasn't entirely sure what kind of system he was pushing for. Any leagues with promotion and relegation is always going to have an impact on players livelihoods - it comes with the territory. He also seemed to conveniently forget that without the MPG they wouldn't have gone up anyway as without the split beaten by Leigh and with the split they finished 5th anyway.

What's Lowes gripe?

Leigh won the League and would have got the P&R slot had it been one up one down. Bulls made it to the million pound game and got a shot at Wakey which they blew.

I dont understand where the careers at risk, livelihoods argument comes from. Now they are going PT. Its all a bit bizarre

And what about players who jumped ship or weren't up for the fight throughout the season, and the players ruled out for the season through injury, are we not allowed to replace them?

As already said, 10 of the starting 17 were with us from the start of the season, Joe Arundel was signed after round two...

We got a new coach in Brian Smith and he had a look at the squad and looked where he thought we needed strengthening a little....Tupuo was brought in at centre as we were light there as one of our overseas Dean Collis returned home earlier in the season....Sio was brought in to cover back row initially as we had long term injuries to Kirmond, Ashurst, Molloy and Lauititi.....Huddersfield signed Daniel Smith from us and instead of waiting for next season he left early so as part of the deal we got Mullally (who had already signed for Leeds for next season) on loan until the end of the season.....Cas signed our first choice hooker Paul McShane in similar circumstances so we got Scott Moore as cover in return...

That leaves Yates, Smith and Locke......Locke was a gamble that at the time looked worth the risk...with what we got out of him on the pitch he was probably more of a negative than a positive, especially with the impact of the off the field issue of a few weeks back.....Lee Smith has been quality but played no part against Bradford and I reckon Andy Yates was a player who became available and was probably signed at the time with one eye on a possible plan b if we were to lose the game and be relegated...

Now please tell me how any of those signings are wrong....are we just supposed to allow players to leave or get signed by other clubs and not replace them? And when bringing a new coach in is he not allowed to assess what he has and signed a few players to freshen things up?


I thought it was an excellent game and an excellent occasion....Bradford were given the opportunity and failed to take it....the two decisions Lowes was moaning about were both the correct calls as far as I could see....just a bad loser...the best team on the day won the game without any question whatsoever!

There may be something in the salary cap issue and an advantage to Super League clubs....that is possibly to look at in future to try and level it out a bit....still think it's too early to write off the concept just because the team everyone seems to dislike spoilt the party!

The signing deadline should have been at the very minimum 2 months earlier than it was this year.

I'm sure it's something the RFL will look at in the off season.

I'm sure they will Gronk!, can't have sides 'giving up on Super League' then planning for the 'middle 8's' months ahead and then releasing/signing loads of players. it might not have worked for Wakefield, but it did....this time.

So who would Bradford have played in the centre instead of Nielson?

Wakefield started planning for the middle 8s after 7 games. Considering Brian Smith's comments No doubt they will be planning for the middle 8s now.

You can tweak as much as you want but the idea we can have a competitive league stretching from Leeds to Doncaster is idiotic. And that's what is necessary for this concept to work. 24 clubs of relatively even standing. Otherwise we will continue to get what we have. 4 clubs at the top of the championship being miles ahead of the bottom of the championship losing to 4 clubs at the bottom of SL miles away from the top.

Last year the top of the championship lost 1 game. The bottom of the championship won 1
The bottom of SL won 3 games.

For their to be meaningful competition in the middle 8s, that team who lost 1 game all year need to be better and the team who won 3 on SL need to be worse. That isn't good for either the championship or SL.