I would take those 7 named clubs, get Lenagan to convince Catalans to come on board, and then make a move for a breakaway Super League of 10 or 12 clubs, with Toulouse invited as number 9 club, and one or three spots left open as dangling carrots for Leeds, Bradford, and one other club. Licensing will be retained.

Sky will go for that, and so will Leeds, and probably Bradford and Salford.


Then its bye bye to Wakefield, Castleford, and Widnes.

Wasn't Nigel Wood running Halifax when it went under financially about 10 or 12 years ago?

Are we to guess London are one of the seven?, ....and oh what a surprise you pushing Toulouse again!.

Are you a players agent working in that area?

Ps. cannot wait for France to flop again in the World Cup

The breakaway will hurt initially then turn out to be the best thing that every happened to RL
Completely isolate the breakaway clubs and make the amateur clubs in those towns choose who they affiliate to, those with the breakaways only play each other under the new body
Move the season back to winter and the CCF to May as you will not compete head on initially

This game was incompetently run before Richard Lewis took over. He revolutionised the administration with licensing (which is so successful in the NRL) and bringing a French team, the Catalans, on board. He realised that rugby league had to expand its horizons or die. But some of his efforts were stymied by the provincials, and his work was never completed.

Once Lewis became head of Sports England he delegated some of his powers to Nigel Wood, and we saw the downward slide begin. Once Lewis departed completely, Red Hall reverted to pre-2002 idiocy. The financial mismanagement returned. There was no naming sponsor for Super League in 2013!

The Wood restructuring policies, which include abandoning London, will revert the game back to a northern provincial pastime that the vast majority of British citizens know nothing about and care even less for. There will be less opportunities for commercial sponsorship of the game. Outside of Wigan, St Helens, Warrington, Hull and Leeds, the game will slowly wither and die in the face of the much more competently run English, Irish, Welsh and Scottish rugby unions.

Those who say otherwise are just making excuses not to go.

Whilst I agree with you and HX sparky, this puts us (the fans) in a position where we could be taken advantage RL in the UK is drifting like a rudderless ship at the moment and the self interest of the big boys in SL is not doing the game any favours.
The folk in charge should be giving direction and working to a plan, instead of all the utter nonsense about meaningful fixtures !!!
We have a 27 round competition to qualify for the end of season tournament, how meaningful is that ? especially when 6 out of the 8 are pretty much guaranteed a play off berth and as we have seen over the past few seasons, as long as you finish top 4 or 5, you can be crowned champions.

IF another expansion club (Toulouse) is to come into the game in the next 2-3 seasons, the RFL should grow a pair and tell folk what they expect will happen, because it is highly likely that they would want to play SL and this would mean having a mechanism for "helping" them get there, which naturally would be at the expense of one of the heartland clubs.

I feel the same way but the key words to me are "whatever league they're playing in".

I used to be a RL supporter, now I am a Halifax RLFC supporter. I used to go to all the internationals, Challenge Cup finals, Premiership Finals and, if Fax didn't have a game, I would choose what looked like the best game available to attend for my RL fix. Now, if Fax aren't involved, I'm simply not interested. When Sky dropped Championship RL I cancelled not only Sky Sports but my entire Sky package and subscribed to Premier Sports. This may seem pathetic to some, for that I make no apology, but I no longer feel a part of a RL "Family".

I now feel that crunch time has come. The SL clubs are holding the game to ransom as they have had plenty of time to voice their concerns without leaving their rebellion until the last minute. The top-end Championship teams have already invested heavily in next season's squad as the death of licensing and the return of P&R was already supposedly agreed. The only issue was 2x12 or 2x12 going to 3x8. If we are now back to "as you were" it could have a serious financial effect as the climbdown is bound to further reduce attendances.

I believe that the time has come for SL to break away entirely. Let them run SL as a circus if they wish. I have asked the question on these forums several times: "If SLE is a separate company run by it's members and responsible for sharing out the Sky money why is it left to the RFL to bail out their member clubs when they are in financial trouble?" The question has been met with a deathly silence. If they wish to break away then so be it but they can then do their own bailing out although I suspect that if a club gets into difficulties they will not take a cut in their money to help one of their members but will rub their hands with glee as the club goes bust and then split their share of the Sky money between the remaining members. So it begins until the next one and the next and so on.....

The international game is key to the profile of the sport. Look at the last few weeks, we have had more coverage of the World Cup squad selection in the mainstream media than the whole Super League playoffs did. We have had a players (well 3 players') mum being interviewed live across all national BBC radio stations.

Before the SL clubs think about a breakaway, or any restructuring, they need to consider the international as the pinacle of whatever is created.

So the only thing which draws sponsors into the game is SL? If that's the case where is the major sponsor?

I would suggest the opposite. The reason we can't attract a major sponsor is because of the joke the game has become.

The lack of international success in this country is the reason we can't get major sponsors on board, hopefully if England win the World cup we will & can.

remind me of the millions spent sponsoring everything else?

Can someone remind me which clubs chairmen voted in favour of the Stobart deal again?

is that relevant?