So we have now come in a full circle and you are making my argument for me. P+R was a large reason behind, and a big driver to clubs looking short-term. It is a reason why HKR neglected their youth development for years whilst spending heavily on overseas players, it is a reason why Wakefield did the same thing. It’s the reason why clubs like Wakefield and HKR were spending big big money on overseas players whilst playing out of stadiums not fit for purpose. It is a reason why the game got itself in to a position where clubs with clear and obvious structural problems, clubs with a clear need for investment in youth development, coaching, marketing and facilities were neglecting these areas and spending hundreds of thousands if not £1m+ some pretty average overseas players .

1eagu3

No the reason for that was because any player would be barking to look to a none SL acadamy.
That means ANY club in the league below are massively behind the 8 ball even if they got a SL place.
Taking away promotion+relegation wouldn't stop that, the teams below would STILL get the crap that was left and still not have the finances to implement a fulltime acadamy so they would get exactly what Widnes got for their first 2 years which was a right good slapping regulary (Yes I know we got a good tonking by Wigan last term but that was because our coach pretty much gave the game away with his player choice).

Also the RFL royally shagged up the none P+R route with their handeling of how it was implemented.
I can't see anyone falling for that again.

Both HKR and Wakefield have had these problems whilst in SL. The excuse for HKR's faillings in other areas was the prioritisation of promotion and then avoiding relegation. Widnes didn’t need to bring in as many overseas players because they could afford to finish bottom, to spend their first season investing in their youngsters and some from elsewhere. HKR didn’t, they played a lot of overseas players who had experience but weren’t very good before they were never seen again. In their 2nd season Widnes earned only 1 less point that HKR with all their overseas players did. Widnes now have a younger, much more settled squad than HKR did in their 3rd season.

We needed to get up and stay up as it was well known that the drawbridge was being drawn up.
NH at the fans forum just before the 2006 season said in not so many words 'It's now or never so we have had to prioritize on the first team squad'
Building from the bottom up wasn't available as an option because it was a one year deal.
The following year the relegated side were Salford. They got the SL spot over every other non superleague side so NH was on the money there.
If that wasn't the case then I seriously doubt we would have been so keen to throw all our eggs in one basket.

I'm glad you brought Widnes up as they were a SL side in waiting everyone knew this including junior players. So making that comparison isn't strictly a level playing field as you had 1 club who had only shortly before lost their spot and even through their hardship very likely kept most of their structures in place, compared to a club who had been bumming around the anus end of RL for 10 years and then had to bin off anything they had done with Juniors in the hope of getting up and building whilst they were in the top league.

In fact it could be argued that HKR are proof that P&R CAN work as apart from our first year we have never looked like finishing in bottom position.

Widnes were an SL club in waiting because they set themselves up to be an SL club in waiting. This didn’t happen by magic or coincidence, it happened because Widnes got the stadium, youth development structures, marketing, and financials right. HKR didn’t. Halifax, Fev and anybody else in the lower leagues havent.

So when HKR came up they then needed to rush and put all that stuff in place, this cost them more and left them relying on overseas players. They were having to build a youth set up from the ground up and didn’t and don’t have facilities up there with the best in SL. This glass ceiling your CEO talks about is a legacy of the way HKR were promoted. The CEO talks of a club which isn’t able to challenge, that needs more growth and is losing money hand over fist. This isn’t a success for P+R, it highlights its failings. HKR are a success of money.

The fact is, whatever system we put in place, if any of the lower league clubs have a SL worthy stadium, and are able to pay the full SC and build an academy, even if it meant losing £500k to £1m a year they would be in SL regardless.

I find it quite amusing how quiet Smokey was on the restructure until Mr Ian (greedy, self centred) Lenaghan upset the applecart. "No one outside SL is having any of our money". Just about sums up SL clubs view of the game in general.

At least 3 clubs will go belly up if they walked away, they'd soon get fed up of bailing each other out without the RFL to do it.

Not really, I’ve consistently said what a stupid idea the 12/12/3/8 system is, and said when the initial vote took place regarding the size of the league took place it was a cowardly regression of the game. As for the other clubs getting sick of bailing each other out. Where do you think the money the RFL gets comes from? Where do you think the advances of TV money comes from? Its already the SL clubs bailing each other out.

What I do find funny is that clubs not in SL, expect to get SL money for doing nothing, and if anyone doesn’t want to give them free money its because they are greedy and self-centred.

Maybe some of the fans of championship clubs could tell the class about all the wonderful altruistic things the lower leagues do for SL clubs? Maybe they could let us know all the free money going the other way? The contribution the lower leagues are making to ‘the whole sport’? The attitude of the lower league clubs smacks of a petulant teenager stamping their feet because daddy has decided to pay the rent and told them to go out and get a job and stop relying on pocket money.

Francising was never going to achive that as there was no way a non SL club could prove they could spend the full cap in the championship.
You mention stadia as if it hadn't happened when it had in Leigh and they had the RFL give them the bird whilst clubs who had embarrassments for stadiums were given the green light.

Wakefield, Bradford, Crusaders and Salford have all gone pop SINCE franchising was brought in so this proves that SL clubs are still only a success of money so nothing has changed there either.

The top and bottom of it is that franchising was supposed to sort the ill's of the game out it didn't all it did was make the top league less accessable to the teams in the league below.

So do I, in fact that was my proposal on another thread .

It doesn’t say how promotion from the Championship would work though, I’d like to see the same set up as SL with the league winners straight through to the G.F.

Queue the "three weeks off" brigade.

Widnes did.
There is more to being an SL club than having a new stadium. Leigh do have a good facility. But in no other way are they set up to be an SL club.
Salford didn’t go pop, the rest is nonsense it proves nothing of the sort.

Franchising was never supposed to sort all the ills of the game. That was just nonsense from those who were desperate for it to fail so they tried to set it up to fail. No structure will cure the game of all its ills. It would be idiotic to pretend one could. What franchising was supposed to do was what it did. Give clubs the time and space to priorities their infrastructure higher and to demand more of the clubs off the field so that they could grow to a level they could compete on it. To help narrow the gap between top and bottom. For lots of clubs it has succeeded. We have seen new facilities at Salford and St Helens, improvements in stadiums at HKR and Les Catalans, We have seen a huge drop in overseas players, we have seen huge investment in youth development, seeing more and more high quality youngsters come through. We have seen a narrowing of the playing standards, more shocks, a more competitive league.

As if you couldn’t get a more vivid example of the successes of franchising and the failure of P+R the first two things to happen after the announcement was the Cas pretty much gave up on getting a new facility and are happy to just stay in their stadium which was out of date 30 years ago, and we have seen an increase in the allowance of overseas players.

Smokey and his quotathon starts again.
As much as I would enjoy continuing the conversation I must say bye as I'm not getting involved it.

Two submissions in a day, is Smokey going for some sort of record?