Featherstone and all other Championship clubs will soon be able to earn promotion to Super League on merit when the new league structure and automatic promotion/relegation come in from 2015.

To let Featherstone or anyone else into SL for 2014 should London or any other SL club withdraw would smack of the old 'make it up as you go along' which, to its credit, the RFL is trying to move away from.

Should London or any other SL club withdraw from SL for 2014, their SKY money should be distributed to the Championships clubs pro-rata to their existing (pretty low) allocation. IF SL clubs need extra fixtures to compensate, play extra magic weekend games.

No, it wouldn’t.

If we put a club in SL it needs to be a club which will contribute to and improve SL. Any comparison between London and Fev is pointless, if Fev aren’t going to contribute to and improve SL then they shouldn’t be in SL regardless of any comparison to London.

Cas are miles away from competing in SL, they just aren’t even close to having the infrastructure to do so. Spending a bit more on wages next year wont change that. Cas need to invest hugely in their youth development, their ehole stadium, their marketing, improve their crowds, their balance sheet, their corporate sales. Pretty much everything. They are being left behind.

TOULOUSE


would bring something new to the game, could bring in extra money with a french TV deal and would strengthen French RL

NO. Expect SL clubs would put nearly 100 points past them, like Bradford did when they last played them.

Toulouse will get their chance to get to SL on merit from 2015 onwards.

No team will enter SL on merit post 2015. There will just be a big circle for 5 years of 4 teams getting hammered by the big 8, then hammering 4 semi-pro clubs. Then we will probably go to a 10 team SL. This will somehow be progress.

You have a very stange definition of a 'tiny village'. Im pretty sure Cas is a medium sized town and Fev is a v. small town.

I understand what you are trying to say but disagree with your point of view.



Yes they will. Just like in soccer where, for example in their case, three clubs each year are promoted into the Premier League



There is no such thing in fact as a "pro club" "semi-pro club" etc now and, certainly from 2015 when the distribution of SKY money to all clubs will be fairer and more equitable, the directors of all clubs will offer contracts to players that they think they can afford - whether such contracts are full-time or part-time for all or some players. i.e. it is players who are full-time or otherwise, not clubs.

Have you ever been? You could fit the population of Castleford in Elland Road, you could fit the population of Fev in Headingley and still have space for the Carnegie fans to have 2 seats each.

I agree with you on that ( but it was more a nightmare decade than just a season ) as for not being ready yet maybe not "although we have won our championship trophy for a record number again.
The problem with Leigh is that we are squeezed between Wigan, Warrington and St Helens, but things are looking up with a new BOM and a new enthusiasm in the club. Fev and Fax are also heartland clubs with a rich past who also deserve a chance in SL on merit alone and not because of the grand illusion of spreading the word and letting inferior teams ie Toulouse BUY their way into the SL on money given to them by the rfl.
The Broncos have been a disaster and a money pit for both the rfl and their owners but will anyone in Red Hall learn from the cock up..............I doubt it. ;(

Yes I've been to about 20 Cas home games. I can assure you it's a medium sized town with a population of circa 40k and draws support from surrounding towns and villages such as Normanton Garforth, Sherburn, Selby etc.

No they wont, 4 semi-pro clubs will play a 7 game series against 4 fully pro clubs with twice the funding, who had spent the preceeding few months playing in the top flight and being able to attract top flight players. They will then return to their semi-pro league.

As you say, Toulouse as any semi-pro side, wouldn’t be able to build a squad to compete in SL and would get 100 points put on them every week. The same will be true after 2015 only then they would get 100 points put on them for 7 weeks instead of 27, and be competing in some limbo league to be the 9th best team that no-one will care about.


No, there will be full time clubs, clubs who are attracting 10-16k fans per week, maybe more. There will be clubs who are turning over upwards of £12m, who employ full time players, coaches, nutritionists, physio’s, who have multi-million pound training facilities with access to the best strength and conditioning equipment, all-weather pitches, they will have a good marketing manager and a dedicanted corporate manager who can sell corporate hospitality to numerous big companies who will pay £25 for a cup of tea. These will be professional and organised set ups.

There will also be some clubs who will pay a player £40k instead of £20k, and that player will give his job, and he will train in the local fitness first, on his own or with a couple of others. He will go and play in a half-empty dilapidated stadium in front of 3-5k, for a club who have a deal with a local supplier of nutrients, with a full-time head coach and a couple of old boys helping out, on a paddock somewhere. And they will get many points put on them because they can’t afford to compete, they will overspend and get in to debt and this exacerbate the situation. They will then cut back on their investment in marketing the club and see a fall in fans, and they will cut back on investing in youth development just to get 13 guys on the field, and this will exacerbate the situation. These will be semi-pro clubs.

So why would Fev be competitive?
They will have to recruit a Super League calibre squad in weeks so to start pre-season training late November.
All the best SL players have been signed up by then.
We are simply back to the old system of P&R which was a disaster.
Fully pro clubs playing semi pro doesn't work.
What do Fev fans think the scores would be when the visit Saints, Wire or Leeds?

@SmokeyTA: I see; thanks for the clarification. You'd better get on to the RFL and the Super League club chairmen quick and let them know they've got their plans wrong. At the same time get on to the Chairman of Featherstone and the other championships' clubs' chairmen and just let them know that everything is fine as it is.

As do Leeds (Garforth, Sherburn, Selby, Rothwell), Wakefield (Normanton, Pontefract) and Hull (selby). Castleford is no bigger than small towns in what is realistically the Greater Leeds area and smaller than many like Batley, Dewsbury, Rothwell. Roughly as many students live in headingley as people live in Castleford.