The problem is that a bad deal, may have been the best deal the RFL could put on the table. I can understand the frustration that clubs may have when they individually have some pretty good relationships with some pretty big brands but the best deal the RFL can find isn’t all that good.

Gary Hethrington seeming to lack a backbone.

Or he cant understand why lenaghan and co have decided to throw ther hissy fit now

Ah yes, the utopian dream.

The best six clubs playing each other week after week, the intensity would be sublime, the crowds growing year on year.

What could possibly go wrong…

19 pages and I still don't understand what this is about? What is Leneghan's gang trying to achieve, is it just knocking back the restructuring?

Let the top SL clubs sow the seeds of their own destruction by running their own elite competition.

Bradford to be thrown to the wolves first is my tip.

Greed and selfishness always leads to an implosion from within.

seems the clubs have now changed their minds on the restructure.. the top super league clubs feels they should be getting more money and the championship clubs less...

also this splitting into 3 leagues thing is a farce i hope it doesnt go ahead and for this reason im pleased some of the clubs have called a meeting.

the RFL havent got a clue, no sponsorship money is a joke...another thing the chairmen at the top clubs are unhappy about

Jean you often talk sense but Scottish RU has two teams and Wales not many more, think all of Ireland has six

In an age where franchising has brought us the Celtic, Bradford, Wakefield, and (pre Koucash) Salford debacles and to lesser extents the catastrophic overtrading at London, Cas, and HKR, and when a third choice Kiwi is wearing the England number 6 shirt, I don't think this is one of your stronger arguments to be honest.



Do you seriously expect people to pay £16-18 to watch other Clubs reserves and kids, week in week out? Come on, think about that one. Once the novelty of having an Adrian Morley or Lee Briers in your shirt has worn off for the sycophants, the rest of us have found something else to do on Sundays instead.

Your idea also assumes those outside of SL will maintain their current structure and commitment, sufficient to give a sound platform for the SL Clubs to send their kids. Judging from the damage in the Championship Clubs have faced since franchising, I'd give you 5 years until those same clubs were on a par with Wigan St Pats or Leigh Miners. The structure will at worse fall apart and at best be akin to Conference rugby and slowly the development pathway from community clubs to Super League (and back again) then has a huge gap in it.

There's a happy medium somewhere between franchise and P&R - and I think the 3/8 system is probably the best of a bad bunch because it provides a series of smaller 'manageable' (for want of a better word) gaps rather than one huge one.

Those same chairmen voted for the no sponsorship money deal with Stobart.

Or had you forgotten?

Yes Bullseye, I actually do. If, for example, if we looked at the "middle" table we would have using this years results, we would have:

Wakefield Wildcats
Castleford Tigers
London Broncos
Salford City Reds
Featherstone
Sheffield
Halifax
Leigh

I think that Halifax would have a better chance of finishing in the top 4 of that league than they did finishing top of the Championship.

Compared to the Widnes, Oldham, Oldham, Halifax, Halifax, PSG, Workington, Leigh Wakefield debacles, and the catastrophic trading at pretty much every single club we had, the dire state of many clubs youth development systems, Wakefield fielding a side of 15 overseas players to avoid relegation, Hull KR getting pretty close to those figures, the piss-poor state of facilities and infrastructure throughout the game pre-franchising it looks a lot stronger.


no, i dont. The kids wouldnt be another clubs kids, they would be the lower league clubs kids. Those kids wouldnt be affiliated to any SL side until they were put forward for the draft. Take Zak Hardaker as an example, comes up through youth rugby, goes to Fev. Plays for Fev as a Fev player aged 18 and 19. Then goes forward for the draft, is drafted by Leeds. Plays for Leeds as a Leeds player. If he needs some lower league game time, or can't get in the Leeds side, he plays for Fev and he can only play for Fev. He wouldnt be playing for Fev because it is near Leeds or because they have an agreement with Fev, but because he came through at Fev. The same would apply to say Richard Whiting.

Clubs outside SL would be properly recompensed for doing so, they would also have access to 'free' players in the example shown above to complement their existing squads.


that gap isnt the biggest problem the game faces. It is the biggest problem a few championship clubs face in being SL clubs, but it isnt the biggest problem the game faces. The biggest problem the game faces is lack of money, and that is evident in a huge number of areas of the game. It shows in youth development, marketing, expansion, facilities, playing strength, the player-pool and pretty much every area. The focus of the game should be on tackling the lack of money, then tackling the areas where lack of funds have damaged the game. Then we can look at that gap because that issue will be so much easier to solve.

The clubs are just as much to blame on that front, given how some have cheapened the product so drastically through an inability to market and a reliance on cut-price deals.

You can't charge Third Division prices to attract Second Division crowds and then expect Premier League returns.

I wouldn't argue with much of that other than if someone has a terminal illness, telling him to stop smoking and excersize a bit more isn't really going to do much. Syaing 'yeah this is bad, but that was baderer!' isn't really a basis for sustainable improvement.

The problem as you rightly state is cash in the game, or lack of. Strangling the middle tier (Championship) wont help that one bit.

The collective turnover of Championship Clubs (at an approximate guess) is in the region of £7m per annum perhaps? Give or take 20%?

Kill that middle third and that money is pretty much lost because its income generally from your more traditional (nee parochial) sources. If my Club went under of ended upon a par with Miners or Easts then I'm not suddenly going to spend that cash watching Salford or Saints just as if Leeds went wonky you wouldn't be spending your cash at Odsal or your flatcaps arn't going to go the Wheldon Road.

The game doesn't have enough players as it is and loses to many adult players who don't make the SL grade; how does removing a huge chunk of its development pathway (foodchain) help that? Slimming down to what is available is simply reaching for the lowest denominator - if we're doing that lets have £100k per club and operate a £400k salary cap - and wait for the game to die a painful death.

The Championhip Clubs are just as vital to the game and its pathway as the Community Clubs and the Super League clubs. The game simply isn't strong enough to cull them.