FTFY

There are a lot of nutty Leigh fans on this forum. Lowly Leigh represents the parochial past in Super League and the future in the Championship, along with witless Widnes.

Laudable London, terrific Toulouse, and turbocharged Toronto represent the future of Super League.


That is why we must restore licencing and get the progressive teams into Super League.

Ste, do me a favour and refrain from quoting the pseudo frog because I've got the clown on ignore.

Your written English is very good considering you are French, I am very impressed

Unfortunately the content leaves a lot to be desired - but do carry on

A nutty Leigh fan - from Leigh ooops thats Lowly Leigh

Ok so I've come up with an idea which may seem a bit wacky at first, but I think it could potentially work.

For this theory I have used the current 12 super league teams, and also hull kr, London, Toronto and Toulouse.

So rather than a league of 16, we have 2 groups of 8. Each season the two groups are picked by a random draw, however for at least the first year I would have 3 pots of teams.

Pot A
Warrington
Wigan
Widnes
Salford
Saints
Leigh

Pot B
Leeds
Huddersfield
Castleford
Wakefield
Hull fc
Hull kr

Pot C
Catalan
Toulouse
Toronto
London

Each group of 8 would consist of 3 from pot A and 3 from pot B, with 2 from pot C. This will ensure that each team has equal trips across the Pennines and make sure the visits to the 'expansion' teams are equal.

Now the starting groups are sorted, each team plays home and away, 14 fixtures each. Once these fixtures are complete, the top 4 from both groups come together, likewise with the bottom 4 from each group.

Now in their respective groups, 1st/5th start with 4 points, 2nd/6th with 3 points, and so on. Now obviously there will be 2 teams on the same points so their starting position will be based on their points difference. The reason that the starting positions is important is the fixtures for this section will remain in the grid used to calculate the super 8's fixtures currently. This is a further 7 games.

Once these 7 fixtures are complete, in the top group, the top 4 have the playoff semi finals then grand final.

In the bottom 8, teams try to secure safety. The bottom team at the end will be replaced by the winner of the championship (providing that the championship winners can match certain criteria, mainly that they can secure the step up financially).

This will reduce the number of fixtures and we can remove the double fixtures at easter, freeing up space for internationals or a separate competition etc.

Now I know it may sound similar to the current format with me talking of 8's and splitting, however if you actually think about this it's quite a different format that I think could work. There will always be people that say there will be dead rubbers but it's impossible to get a system where every game means something.

(As a side note I would make it compulsory for every team to run a reserve team, who's fixtures would be the same as the first team until the split, and have these games played as curtain raisers to the first team game.)

I'd be interested to hear other people's thoughts on this.

But the RFL are much more likely to have Cas playing away in Toronto on Saturday followed by Leeds on Thursday night

i hate pies is onto something here. It's not new but it should have been developed a decade ago.

Split into two conferences of 8 (Super league Europe and Super League International) with teams applying for a place in one of them. After playing everyone over 14 games, the top 4 of each conference plays the corresponding top 4 home & away. This is mirrored by the bottom 4.

Points won against the teams in your four are carried forward and so by the end of the 22 game season you will have played everyone home and away in the top or bottom section and determined the LLS or relegation places.

All 8 in play off for championship and bottom 2 in relegation games v championship teams.

Simple, and with the added benefit that there is no place for the "Magic" weekend.

Call me old school but, why not just play everyone home and away and if you finish top, you are champions

We can then have a top 6/8 play off to have premiership winners and if we want the bottom half clubs involved, we could have a "plate" competition for the bottom 6/8 clubs, with their "final" played as a curtain raiser at Old Trafford, maybe include the top 2 clubs from the Championship in the plate ?

The conference idea may look good on paper but, we already have too much repetition of fixtures with some clubs playing each other 4/5 times a season.

I honestly don't understand the absolute desperation some in RL have to devalue the biggest game and biggest prize we have. Huge numbers of people watch and attend and talk about the GF it gets relatively huge coverage and exposure and for some reason people want to turn it into an end of season secondary comp.

There's too much people are trying to achieve with the structure that simply cannot be achieved under any structure whether it's a brilliant one or like this a terrible and stupid one there is only so much that can be achieved.

Franchising is clearly the better 'business approach' but some are still clinging to what they perceive as the romance of P+R. That bridge will never be divided. So either we watch the damage of the slow motion car crash that is P+R unfold or we rip the bandage off and go for franchising. Whether it is 12 or 14, conferences, splits or whatever is playing around the edges. There is no magic format that solves the problems. There are certainly some ideas that don't help, like a third of your season been planned on a week's notice clearly is a dumb idea.

If the game can't choose one or the other, choose both. Franchise clubs who meet high criteria or strategic aims and exempt them from relegation and the clubs who don't are relegated through one up one down.

Leeds Wigan Wire saints Hull Les Catalans Toulouse and Toronto would go through the franchise system. Everyone else wouldn t have standards to meet but also would be at risk of getting relegated. So clubs can chpose which system they operate under. If you get relegated from 8th because the clubs below you were franchised. Tough your fault for not being meeting the standards. If you want to guarantee you don't get relegated. Be good enough to join the franchised clubs.

P+R in 1 up 1 down is past its sell by date and wouldn't work unless we had more players and more money in the game. The way forward to grow the game is franchising in some form.

You may have to put some meat on the bones of that one.

Other sports, notably Football (automatic relegation and promotion, with additional promotion through play offs), Cricket, automatic promotion and relegation. even, Union has automatic promotion and relegation (although there is minimum criteria for promotion, which can "save" a relegated club).

However, IF we are to expand the game with the likes of Toronto and Toulouse, then some form of Franchising/Licensing makes more sense as it would give the "expansion" clubs time to develop.

The current system, although less than straight forward, does involve just about every club something to play for throughout the whole of the season, even though it has some obvious faults.

If we do want Toulouse and Toronto in our competition then, I agree that some form of Franchising seems a better option but, this will put us back to where we were before the current system was introduced.

Maybe Franchising, with a 5 year review and defined targets for growth etc, allowing new clubs to join and failing clubs to be dropped ?

The '3 year licence' part of the previous system was a ridiculous idea. It removed s big part of the stability and introduced a competitive element which was completely unnecessary.

The big paradigm shifting aspect of franchising is that it changes the off the field competitive focus from clubs competing with each other to RL competing with RU football cricket etc, and on the field it changes the focus to winning from not losing.

Having a 3year or 5 year time frame removes that. Also it make a no sense to delay a club who is ready for 3-5 years or prop up a club which is failing for 3-5years.

Franchising. Done simply. Add clubs when they are ready, remove clubs when the fail. Admittance on one single criteria can a club grow the pie by more than their slice. If you do, your in. If you don't you aren't.