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.

Your crazy ideas will never work

No no no that's far to complicated



What we need is a league of 12 teams that splits into 2 leagues of 6 after 22 rounds plus 3 Magic weekends. Points are reset to 0 and another 10 rounds are played in each mini league. The top 5 teams from each league then enter a 10 team play-off with the fixtures decided by a random draw. The two teams not involved play in the MPG with the loser relegated and the winner awarded a place in the Grand Final. The winner of the play-offs takes the other Grand Final place. The Grand Final is played at OT but regardless of the result the winner is decided by a public vote in a Saturday night style show hosted by Ant and Dec.

Just to add to the excitement, the viewing public could chose the winner, just using the actual score as a guide and then they could play the best team in the Universe in a three match "winner take all" series.

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.

Franchising made some clubs including HullFC lazy, we were quite content with getting an 'A' licence and plodding around in mid to low table with no fear of relegation while costs were cut from the backroom staff. When given the size of our crowds, stadium and sponsor/retail income we should be at the very least top half of the table. There is no way the 11th and 12th places we put in back in 2008 & 2009 would have been tolerated if relegation was there as a threat, the board would have had to invest.

It also was a death knell for the Championship, with no promotion on offer there was no point to that league. Whereas now there are several clubs Rovers, London, Toulouse, Toronto and even Halifax and Featherstone who would fancy their chances at winning promotion in the next few years.

It's too boring and RL likes to be innovative for media coverage which we cannot secure otherwise.

Some interesting ideas here - franchising with a twist, and here's my 2-penneth...

Grant SL franchises based on business plans and other criteria, but with rather more challenge on the credibility of the numbers put forward than we've had before. An A license makes you immune from relegation, but you automatically get reassessed if you come in the bottom 2. A B license means you get replaced by a top 2 Championship club who can meet B license criteria as well, with the same for C licenses.

Potential for 2-up, 2-down between SL and the Championship, but only if the Championship clubs have equal or better licensing criteria.

Go bust or into admin, then you're out. No points deductions, you just move down a division automatically. No parachute payments for relegated clubs either.