OK, OK, let's all agree, it's the power of The Championship clubs that have forced 14 SL chairmen to kill the game by bringing back P&R. Championship clubs also shot Kennedy and faked a moon landing (by cunningly using the Odsal ground at night).

Oh and Gilder when you say [i"Similarly, the intention was to set standards which clubs outside the top division knew they had to strive for in order to have a chance of getting a licence" [/i- do you think the intention to set those standards was achieved by every licence holder? It's OK setting standards for the great unwashed who live below stairs but when the toffs start reeking of fish it's a bit rich to start mocking the under butler.

If every licence holder was true to their franchise status and lived up to their "super" billing we wouldn't be having this discussion. It's they who have folded their deck, no-one else and certainly not the Championship clubs, holding their one dollar casino chip.

And before Headhunter trots out his usual boring retort FWIW my own club is not worthy of a SL place either and even on current form wouldn't be challenging for promotion any time soon. I don't have a problem with that. Unlike Headhunter, I attend matches and the view from down here isn't so bad IMHO. I enjoy it. Don't be dragging Championship clubs into the SL failure blame game - we're not even in it!

I'm not gloating, I just think it's rather funny that some (and I admit far from all) SL fans are now getting a tad nervous that their protected place in SL is under threat.

FWIW from me, "my club" is managing to operate within it's means (as are others in the Championship) without any funding from any TV companies, or indeed any major cash injection from individual sponsors. Perhaps if SL clubs learned that they need to balance their budget properly, the game might be in a better place?

...and before you start, previous administrations at Halifax have proved absolutely how to bring a club to it's knees...

Out of interest why do people think the SL chairmen have voted for this? I know our chairman has been going on about a smaller SL for years as he thinks it will mean avg players won't be able to command as high a salary if there are less employers.

I am guessing every chairman thinks they will be ok and avoid relegation but three are going to regret the vote. I wonder how unanimous it was?

IMO SL chairman voted for this because the amount of meaningless games is what is killing clubs.

I find this a very strange mentality. Playing to a avoid relegation adds very little meaning to each game for the majority of clubs. Every result has meaning, reaching the playoffs has meaning, finishing higher than your rival has meaning, winning the games you expected to lose and losing the games you expected to win has meaning. Only one team can win SL so revel in the week to week contest your club is engaged in.

Brilliant writing and absolutely spot on.

Meaningless performances more like.

Forgive my stupidity (I know, that's a lot of forgiveness) but why does it mean that three go down in 2014? There is no promotion of a Championship club next year so why are three coming down ??

Toulouse ?

When the worse side in super league which was weakened by injuries beats the 2nd team away in the championship shows the folly of bringing back P & R.

I agree with this. I did not agree with licensing as P&R under the previous system was so heavily weighted against the promoted team. All we needed to do was give the promoted team a fairer chance e.g. play the final earlier so that the winner could start to build a decent squad while good players were still available. As it was all the best players were already sigend up before the Championship grand final was played.

But, since we went down the route of licensing we should have given it a proper chance. We have not had long enough to do that. So we've experimented with a new system and are binning it off before we actually know what the results of that experiment are.

Let's be clear about who is wanting what and what has been voted not. The SL clubs have pushed for a reduction I numbers, it gives them more cash and makes things easier for them, we will drop two poorly performing clubs then crow about how the average attendance has gone up, we will split the money between fewer clubs and crow about financial stability. However fewer people as whole will be watching and less money as a whole will be coming in to the game.

Itistherfl pushing for a return to some form of P+R, pretty much every SL club which has come out publicly has been negative about this, so the RFL are pushing this idiotic half way house where P+R isn't P+R at all, it's a 7 game post season comp where the worst of SL with a 1.85m playing budget will play championship sides on a couple of hundred k, which will simply amplify the gap between haves and have nots in SL

It's the only way promotion and relegation will work. You can't expect a part time club to go full time in a matter of months and flourish. The last few teams who have been promoted have operated full time squads in the championship.

[iAlthough the financial detail has still to be ironed out, it is thought Super League clubs would receive distributions in 2015 and 2016 that are broadly similar to what they receive now, which is around £1.3million a year.

Under the split option, the Championship clubs would receive payments ranging from £150,000 to £650,000, depending on league positions.[/i

rlhttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyleague/10173356/Super-League-to-be-cut-to-12-teams-from-2015-season.htmlrl

That's a very strangely worded article. How can the SL clubs be receiving broadly the same payments, plus additional money? They are receiving more money, why pretend different