Exactly, my response was to the person who suggested after the 7 games to still have a top 8 playoff ...

I did write something about this somewhere.

But basically this would not happen as there is no history of the team in 9th being so far behind they can't make the 8 with 4-5 games to go. When the league was 12. Sometimes there were only 3 points covering 8 -11.

Even in the years of 14 teams it would be only at the last game when people would know they can't make the top 8.

This is my point about some of the negative responses to the SL clubs decision. Scenarios are being thought up that actually have no basis in what has gone before. So yes you could ease off in some years for the last game. But most years you would still be in the running for the 8. The point of cutting the league to 12 is to make those teams closer. They still get a full season of matches against SL opposition, the only difference is that teams outside of the top 8 will now have an extension to their season.

Sorry, missed that

I bet youd be happy if you were still floundering in the championship days of down and stay down.

Bottom line if your teams in bottom 4 its theyre for a reason.So instead of teams malingering at bottom knowing season is dead now they have to fight to stay up and the top4 of the championship have warrented their right to see of the bottom 4 of the super league gives them hope knocks complacency out of bottom 4 of super league whats the prob?

If the top 'championship clubs' could afford to go full time, I would have brought back promotion/relegation. 1 up/1 down....but as my club have been stuck in the 'RL Wilderness' for years, this is better than leaving it as it was.
Guess we'll have to wait & see, but splitting into 3 leagues of 8 seems a little odd, and unbalanced. As for league 2, right now, if (part timers) Fev, Halifax, Leigh, Sheffield, Batley etc were to beat a SL side in the challenge cup it would be a shock, never mind winning a few, so that you can get into the top 4 of the 'mini league'.
Time will tell.....

Those teams in the championship now can only spend £300k on player salaries. The SL clubs will spend along a range of £1.1 million - £1.8 million so even the top KPC clubs are limited to 20% of the budget of a team in the mid range of spending in SL. From 2015 those clubs in the second 12 will be able to spend up to £900k (treble what they have been able to spend up to now). The spending power of the top 12 will remain unchanged so the gap could lessen for the top KPC clubs significantly. In recent years Cas who, no disrespect intended, are likely to be one of the bottom 4 in the top 12 in the early years at least were beaten by Barrow and Featherstone and were very lucky to beat Halifax, Huddersfield, a top half of SL team scraped through against Batley. Though those are rare instances they were involving teams with at best 27% of the budget of their opponent. When that budget is 75% of that of their opponent then the difference is hardly stark. A club coming into the middle 8 from the 2nd 12 beating one of the 4 sides coming from the top 12 is not likely to be so rare an event as those past cup shocks. A "SL2" team may only need a single win over a "SL1" team to gain promotion in any given season particularly given the presence of the 4th v 5th playoff.

As you say time will tell but the raising of budget potential for the second tier largely removes the forced chasm in finances. A club with three times the playing budget may not be wholly part time but have a core of FT players. Nobody knows what will happen but the drastic changing of the (potential) spending power of the top KPC clubs bringing them much closer to the lower end of SL means that even the recent past is not as accurate a yardstick as many seem to think it is.

For me a floundering Rovers in the championship is better than no Rovers at all so yes, I'd still be happy.

I still think you will get yo-yoing of super league teams with this format as well. Whichever 2 teams drop at the end of the forthcoming season I would assume would be in the top 4 of the championship the season after. So in reality you have 6 SL teams fighting for 4 SL places. I don't think the current championship teams will get a look in.

This.....

There seems to be a focus on the top of the championship being competitive with the bottom of SL as if that would make the system a success. It wont. If the top of championship is competitive with the bottom SL because the bottom of SL is miles away from the top of SL in terms of quality, the majority of the bottoms SL clubs season becomes entirely meaningless and will be filled with blowout scores.

If the top of the Championship is competitive with the bottom of SL because they massively up their game, we risk seeing the same thing happen at the bottom of the championship.

This system working necessitates that the bottom of the championship are competitive with teams who are competitive with the top of SL. If it doesn’t we will see massive gaps in quality, a poor league and huge blow out scores.

There is no-one arguing we are likely to see the Swintons and Whitehavens competitive with Leeds and Wigans. Its all very well cherry-picking a few close results, but it ignores that the majority of results in SL v lower league games are blowouts-, in recent years we have seen Wigan put 60 on Leigh, Bradford put 70 on Donny, London put 70 on Dewsbury, Salford put nigh on 60 on Whitehaven, Catalans put nearly 70 on Sheffield, Huddersfield put 52 on Swinton, Leeds put 60 on Leigh, Wakefield 50 on Donny, Wire 112 on Swinton, Saints 70 v Fev, Wire 80 v Keighley,

If they hadnt brought in this league restructuring,I think the lower leagues demise wouldnt have been far away,how a lot of clubs have survived until now on pitiful crowds is a mystery.I think your club would have been just hanging on with Halifax,leigh and thats it.