and reducing the number of professional developmemt academies, with player pathways to full-time careers from 14 to 10 will definitely get us more British players of quality. Not.

where?

So you think you can dump 4 teams from SL but the size of the player pool will remain the same? How can you argue that you need a SL presence in the expansion areas in order to get people interested in the game yet believe that where interest already exists you can lose the club but maintain the interest?

Because that player pool would become of a higher standard, losing alot of the players who arent quite good enough and the overseas has beens and never weres, wont be in SL. The ten teams who would be playing would all be better, meaning the competition would be better and of a higher standard producing even better players and we get a bit of a virtuous cycle going on.

As for the expansion argument. The difference between losing say London is, if we were to lose london, anybody who supported RL, or anybody we wanted to attract to RL would need to travel hundreds of miles to find a pro club. If Cas were to go people would need to go 0 miles to find an SL club in Wakefield. If both were to go you would need to travel between 10 and 15 miles to find a pro club. We are much more likely to be able to attract and keep people who have to travel between 0 and 15 miles to see a game, than we are able to attract and keep people who would need to make a round trips of 500 miles to see a game.

In a crafty Senator Palpatine type of way, get someone rich to build a 12-14k stadium in Normanton, tell Castleford, Wakefield and Featherstone they can all ground share in this nice new stadium(because they'll always false promise on their own stadium), thus losing Bell vue, Wheldon Rd, Moyles stadium or what ever its name is. Give them a few years under their own identity then just merge all 3 into [iThe Normanton Feathery Wild Tigers[/i eliminate 3 clubs and create a 'super'[sic] club.

Its Post office Road and i don't think fev are the ones that have been telling porkies for years.

Maybe 4.8 million invested in the Championship academies might make up the difference , at around 200K a year you could run a decent junior set up

It's still only 2 small covered stands, they'd look nice in their own [size(Normantons)[/size new stadium

I'm only messing fella

Thanks to all who have mentioned teams....here are my ten.

Eight are existing clubs.....

Wigan
Warrington
St Helens
Salford
Leeds
Huddersfield
Harlequins
Catalans Dragons

Here comes the controversy......

Merged Hull club - playing at the KC with a potential to be the best supported team in the league.

Merged Castleford/Wakefield/Featherstone club playing out of a one brand new stadium within Wakefield MBC.

League format.

Season to commence on the first full weekend of March
11 home - 11 away games - 1 magic weekend - 23 game regular season.
5 team playoff - McIntrye system
No promotion and relegation.

There

My view is, 10 Clubs is too drastic a drop, At first.

In 3 years i do think the License system needs reducing to make a more elite league.

Hopefully by then, My club. Castleford will have a new stadium, We have the best commercial team doing amazing work off the field, That will pay dividends when we do, And we should be much stronger off the field.

On the field, We will have lost one or two of our bigger earners, Who tbh. We dont want, And should be much stronger on the field.

Hopefully. That would see us included in what my fiew would be. A 12 Team League. With 1or 2 Overseas players per team

12 teams that hopefully in 3 years, Could be spending 90% of the cap, And we could gradually see a much more open league.


The weak would be found out, And 3 years later. They could be dropped. But, Hopefully by then. There will be an ultra competitive Championship too.

When will folk realise 2 x 10 clubs in a FT structure is the only way to expand our sport.