Yes, in this scenario Fev certainly are the strongest team in the Championship.
Top of the league 3 times on the bounce, plus one GF win and 1 runners up is still dominant.
Although the current system involving a short play off series decides the seasons champions,
finishing top of the pile is the only measure of the strongest team in any particular season.

Although we havent had a team winning the GF fro 8th, if this were to happen, you would most likely have
a club that had lost as many games as it had won regarded as to "strongest" team ?
Even Leeds finishing 5th in SL calls the playy off system into question but, WTH each to their own.

You are getting ' club ' , mixed up with ' team '

I think you are being pedantic, but hey ho.
I'm sure that a man of your stature could easily understand the point I was trying to make.
With the title of the thread, it brings the issue into clearer focus. Should we consider promoting a team that finished 4th in the league,
but won the GF ?

He's not. They are quite different. The first team is a big part of a club, but far from the entirety. It's important to understand that, particularly when thinking of franchising and P&R, where the intent is to decide P&R based on the club not the team.

It doesn’t call anything in to question. If there wasn’t the possibility of someone who didn’t win the qualifying comp, winning the entire comp, we wouldn’t bother with having the play-offs. If Fev were the best team, they would have won the competition.

I know under the rules, the Champions are the the team that win the play offs not the league leaders (unless you're in Champ 1 when it varies from week to week).

I think the debate here is whether people agree with that.

Luckily for me, my team did both this year, but I am a lot more proud of us finishing 1st in the table than winning the play offs

Congratulations !
If you win both, there can be no arguement

Me too!

COYD

I fully understand and concur with your point , its smokey's that is full of holes

But essentially the team has nothing to do with where any particular club should be playing , its all about the money

I said

To which you replied



Now despite the fear that this makes me agree with Wrencat.
The Club and team who won the qualifying comp were the same. There was no difference. The answer to the question which club won the qualifying comp is Fev, the answer to which team won the qualifying comp is Fev.

The club and team who won the entire comp were also the same, there is no difference. The answer to the question which club won the entire comp is Sheffield, and the answer to which team won the entire comp is also Sheffield.

As both myself or Wrencat were talking specifically about what had happened on the field, to differentiate between the club and team was not only pedantic but completely irrelevant.

Perhaps a club should be automatically promoted to the league above only if it both finishes top of the league AND wins the play-offs Grand Final in the same season?

Using that criteria, Fev would already have been promoted, its not how things are done in the modern era, well, at least not as far as Super League is concerned.
It's almost a closed shop.

Promotion (and relegation) can happen without too much fuss between Championship and Championship 1 at the moment as the playing budgets required are not massively different and the teams in both divisions have semi-pro players. This means that a club can move up or down and retain most of its squad (if they so wish) with slight tweaks to the amount of money they can expect. As both divisions are semi-pro a team coming up also stands a better chance of being able to compete enough to avoid going straight back down if it retains essentially the same playing roster as the difference between the bottom of one division and the top of the next is not too stark.

For a club looking to move up from Championship to SL it needs to increase its playing budget by 3 or 4 times to even stand a chance of competing. Whilst proportionately that may not be much different than between the two semi-pro leagues (100K to 300K) in the case of a step up to SL instead of a couple of 100K you are looking at 1 and a quarter million pounds (London spent full cap and couldn't compete). The club heading down faces the opposite problem in having to downsize its costs by 3/4 to comply with the rules. Also moving from pro to semi pro means that players have to leave as they can't earn what they want from RL alone and don't have (perhaps never have had) any other job (and would be uncertain of getting one to supplement earnings at the moment). Whilst for a club moving up they will have players that would have to give up their day job to stay as the club needs them to train full time. Why would they give up the security of their job for the rugby when come season's end they could be heading back to the championship (and having to get a second job) again. So that club loses a chunk of its successful team as they can't take the risk. Would the chairman, facing a possible relegation want to risk staying loyal to his semi pro squad, or would he ship them out and bring in 'big names' to try to stay up. For whatever reasons in terms of individual players etc. the clubs moving up and down between SL and Championship would have to line up for the following season with a playing squad that bore little if any resemblance to the one that completed the prior season just as was the case when we still had P&R. For that reason the fact that they won on the field in one season should not result in promotion as the players that earned it would not see the reward for it. They would (currently, due to finances) be playing themselves out of a job. The club, but not the team would go up. Until the disparity in playing budgets is reduced to the extent that a club could move up and down without the need to demolish its squad due to finances unfortunately then P&R at the end of every season (by any method at all) is not feasible.

Given the massive gap in finances and what it necessitates some form of security is needed for teams moving up so that they can if they wish reward and retain players that helped them go up without risking going straight back down. With a 3 year cycle they get that, knowing that they don't have to risk it all in season 1 but can steadily build and improve over 3 years to get to the point where they can compete and make playoffs, cup finals etc. The licencing process is far from perfect but the 3 year cycle is the best way to manage movement between those two levels given the financial chasm.

Here is a possible alternative that keeps security but rewards on field success. If over the three years an aggregate Championship league table is formed with all league points for each club plus points added for playoff performance in each season (GF winner=10pts, GF loser=8, ESF loser=6, QSF loser=4, 1st round loser=2). Then when looking to promote a team start with the team that tops the aggregate table first, if they meet criteria then they go up, if not look at 2nd place and so on until someone meets criteria and they then go up. Only consider the top 6 in the aggregate table (just like for playoffs) and if none meet criteria then none go up. Team that is bottom of aggregate table for SL is replaced by promoted team, then start new 3 year cycle. An aggregate table could feature in SL papers, fans could easily see where their club was in the pecking order and consistent performance would be rewarded whilst the need to meet clear criteria would mean that whole clubs rather than just first teams would need to be built for success in reaching the SL to be achieved.