Possibly, but having a low on confidence ' losing mentality ' team up against a ' winning ' team will produce some potential upsets ( more than the current no potential whatsoever )

Those bottom clubs are not getting much more than that currently, especially at the end of the season

I agree

Everyone will have there own preferences but IMO the split would just be making the game a complete an utter joke.

I'd personally go for a top division of 12 and a second division of 10. However no matter which way it goes we need to make sure the game is picked up nationally and well sponsored and IMO neither is happening at the moment.

Premier sports have got the world cup for example because they dangled the biggest coin but IMO it would have being far more productive to have the whole comp shown nationally. Maybe we should look at expanding the Northern Rail cup too.

For me we don't give ourselves enough national exposure and that is why the game is dieing over here.

I am in favour of the season split over traditional '1 up - 1 down' P&R. The seasonal split method allows for a club that aims to break into the top 12 to do so with more steady progression rather than having to go from poor house to penthouse in a short period to have any hope.

Under straight '1 up - 1 down' at least five clubs that were in the top tier the previous year will be spending as close to the SL cap as they can to avoid the one spot that guarantees they will drop a level and the club that comes up has to spend a similar level to try to stay up as their future tenure depends on taking points off Wigan, Leeds, Wire etc as well as their rivals and spending such amounts can and has killed clubs when such a plan fails to work and they go down. Any club that drops down a division also then has to quickly dismantle its squad (or has it forcibly dismantled) and start a new, cheaper one from scratch. Also clubs under such a system find their promotion confirmed only after the very last game of the year so have to hastily assemble a squad capable of (hopefully) competing well enough to avoid last place from the unwanted players that are still available. Players can't take a punt on signing provisional contracts with promotion chasers as their livelihood is at stake. With anti tampering dates moved forwards the best players are signed by the top flight clubs mid season so any good ones will be snapped up.

With the season split option failure to take many points off the likes of Wigan, Leeds, Wire etc doesn't condemn a club to the drop as that is ultimately decided by results against their fellow strugglers and the best of the second tier in the middle eight. A club looking primarily to stay up (whether in its first season or its twenty first in the top 12) only ultimately has to compete financially with the lower half of the top tier and the best of the second tier in a given season. So a club like Castleford or Widnes if only capable of sustaining a spend of £1 million could spend that knowing that their squad though only costing two thirds of that of the top four clubs' squads can compete in the middle eight thereby giving them more ties against the bigger clubs next year to help advance their club should they finish in the top four of the middle eight. They can then look to increase spending on players when possible and gradually look to improve their squad and club year on year until they can make the top 8 on a more regular basis. This would apply equally to a club like Fev or Leigh should they make the top four of the middle eight and be promoted. Instead of having to look at increasing spending immediately by three or four times on going up such clubs could look at more modest increases initially looking at taking them from a club that may have just managed to sneak fourth in the middle eight to one that is capable of finishing more comfortably within the top four of the middle eight in year one (just doing enough to stay up). They could then look to build the club off the back of the fixtures against the bigger clubs in the first phase of the season to gradually step up all aspects of the club and make gradual progress to become more established in the top tier.

The difficulty in securing promotion via the middle eight is IMO exaggerated by some people who do not like the system. By no means does it guarantee a team will go up as straight P&R would but they do not have to top the middle eight to go up, just finish fourth. This could be achieved by winning just one game against one of the SL1 teams (a team that managed to beat two SL1 teams would have to mess up against the other Championship/SL2 teams or be very unlucky to not get fourth spot). Even if initially unsuccessful in the middle eight a club would have an idea of where it needed to strengthen to compete better with clubs at that level and to earn and maintain a SL1 place in future. For movement to happen more regularly there may need to be an allowance for the clubs in the second twelve to spend more than at present if they can afford to but even with the current disparity there have been wins by lower tier sides in one off games with other games where the SL clubs were lucky to win in the cup. With the second phase being a series of single meetings the games against SL1 teams in reality are one off games and a good second tier side like Fev or Halifax may only need to win one of their four to snatch the fourth spot.

Below is an example of how a club from the second tier can earn promotion from the middle eight by beating only one SL1 team (this has been done in the cup and has very nearly been achieved on a number of other occasions too in the recent past in the cup by clubs with a quarter of their opponents potential cap). Teams A-D are SL1, E-H SL2 top four.

...........W D L PTS
Team A 7 0 0 14
Team B 6 0 1 12 Losing only to A
Team C 5 0 2 10 Losing to A and B
Team E 4 0 3 8 Beat D, F, G and H
Team D 3 0 4 6 Beat F,G and H but lose to E
Team F 2 0 5 4 Beat G and H
Team G 1 0 6 2 Beat H
Team H 0 0 7 0

Even if Team E got their win against A, B or C and lost to E they could still take fourth on points difference. This is not the only scenario by which a team can be promoted from the middle eight without having to beat more than one SL1 team either. If they can win two of those one off games and avoid slip ups against the other SL2 teams then they will be promoted. Some people seem to think that the SL2 teams would need to win most if not all games against their SL1 opponents to go up but that is definitely not the case.

Great post Mike.
Exactly what I was gonna post.Honest.
Seriously I agree with most of that.
No one actually knows what is the best way forward,but I see the eight split as giving more teams more to play for.

Probably the best post I've ever read on an RL forum.

Why do people get so touchy about league formats? There are posters on here saying they will give up the game if the split comes in. Why? Does your club change? Does your home ground change? No. Only difference is most games matter, rather than few.

Pure licensing stagnates the league as shown now and in recent years. It also rewards mediocrity in a way. Its not fit for purpose.

Pure P and R bankrupts clubs and creates the yoyo effect. While giving some good games it doesnt allow clubs to grow. Its not fit for purpose.

Fans are unhappy, attendances are dropping, no sponsors and hard times.

In response the RFL come up with a blend of Licensing and P and R withh increased money to lower clubs to allow growth and in the hope the more meanigful, and hopefully more entertaining, games attract the money and spomsors thus allowing the game to grow further.

Im not the biggest fan of the RFL at times but at least they are trying. And who, honestly, on this board has the experience and insight to know what effect the split will have?

Noone. Three options, two tried and failed, time to try the other

licencing bancrupts clubs as well

Honestly Richie,if you think things have been equalised upwards in the last 4 or 5 years,thats fine with me,my opinion is they've not,my opinion is standards have dropped in the last 4 or 5 years.
You might think standards have risen because wigan and leeds have become better clubs ,but the rest of SLE hasnt changed one dot.
You might think more SLE standard players are being developed than ever before but you'd be thinking .
Nothing has changed,Its the same clubs that are producing the players

At least nobody has simply said: it is too complicated. You have to be pretty dumb to think it is.

I have a preference, but I can see both sides of the debate. There are obvious, and not so obvious, flaws and benefits to each league system.

What I like about this 8x8x8 system is how the play-offs will be structured. One of the main criticisms of the current system is that people can 'do a Leeds' and be tripe until September. I think this new structure addresses that as, from what I understand: points will be carried over to the split and then the top 4 will play-off for who would reach OT. This would give us a meaningful play-off system as under the current guise week 1 (for the top 4) is basically repeated in week 3, with the exception of Leeds replacing one team . For eg, we (saints) played Wigan twice and Warrington twice in recent seasons. It's just pointless for the fans to shell out for the same match twice and for the players who have to beat their opponents again. Last season we beat Warrington in week 1, but they beat us in week 3 and that means they go to the GF? It's pretty illogical.

I just hope that whichever one is picked will be the same system in 10 years time, especially if, as predicted, they go for the 8x8x8 system. That system has obvious long term goals for the Championship clubs and it would be a waste of time if people expect short term results from that and it is shelved when people moan after a season or two.

The way I look at it, is from a neutrals point of view. It is hard enough as it is trying to explain the play off system to them let alone explaining the leagues combine after so many games.

I think what we need in Rugby League is to keep things simple and build on it, not panic when things don't go our way. I think P + R is essential for the sport to expand and grow, but I also see the financial difficulties in that.

What we need is more national exposure IMO and trying to get as many games on TV as possible rather then worry how it will look on TV. People would rather watch a game of RL then an omnibus of Eastenders on a sunday regardless of whose playing for example. National exposure will lead to stars being born and more players becoming household names which will only attract more sponsors. Let sky have the pick of the first two games of each round and then sell the rest off, even if they have to give some games away to broadcasters.

The problem for me is not only the downfall of attendances but the lack of a good feel factor we now get at most games, its like we are watching a game but only so many are allowed to know about it. We don't market the game properly and that is the downfall of our sport, everybody knows about the RUWC 2015 being over here but how many could tell you when the RLWC is ? We only market to our own fans and I feel its going to be harder then ever if we start putting novelty systems in place.

Add to this the rising prices of games (some tickets worth 61 quid on saturday) and the poor standard of refereeing and you see that is why we are in a poor state of affairs.

Why didn't you just answer the question?
Standards wouldn't equalise upwards by Wigan and Leeds becoming better clubs, but by the teams towards the bottom getting better. If only Leeds and Wigan improved, the the gap between clubs would widen, not equalise.

What does which clubs produce the players have to do with anything?

When people are complaining about a stagnation or decline in standards, they seem to have completely forgotten that over the last five years not only have we increased the league by 2, but we have also massively reduced our reliance on overseas players. There was always going to be at least a slowing in the improvement. As a game we are now producing more players, of a higher quality than we were before, the question is whether that we are producing enough to fill 14 sides as opposed to 12, and whether we can produce 15 or so ‘starters’ to fill those sides rather than 15 stand-ins to surround the 10-15 overseas ‘starters’ clubs used to have.

We probably aren’t at the moment so the options are either to give up and go back to what we used to have in the hope there will be a short-term increase in quality as we cut the number of clubs draft in the kolpak stiffs and bartercard rejects the game was full of in the 90’s and early-mid 00’s, or we put more effort in to doing what we are doing, keep investing time, effort and money in to coaching and development of our youngsters and put in place the long-term structures to increase our standards exponentially. Sadly, the game seems to have bottled it. We are seeing a return to the cowardly regression of 2000 and we are undoing a lot of the good hard work that got us to this point.

What we are seeing is what happens when leadership hasn't got the first clue what a strategy is. Random thrashing about in other words.

There is nothing random about what is happening right now. It is clear regression in all aspects of the game.

And what people seem to be forgetting is that when there is this steady progression of a club up, there will be the corresponding progression of a club downwards.
This is still the case for this league structure.

this would massively reduce the competitiveness of SL1. It should certainly not be encouraged.
I also don’t see how they can commit to progressively spending more money on players when we have a system which could result in their income falling a HUGE amount on the basis of a 7 game play-off series. Any club spending the full SC, who had a terrible run of injuries and got relegated would be pretty much destroyed. Their crowds would fall by probably a half at least. Their best youngsters would leave and their first team squad would be decimated. There is a good chance a club would never recover from being relegated.

Look at those league standings in your example again. Look how uncompetitive and uninteresting the VAST majority of games in this league would be. In this, your best case scenario.

You win 4 games you are done, you are through, your season is over. In your example, in a 7 game league, Team A have 3 dead rubbers, Team B have 2, team C has one. Team H realistically has 4, but if they lose their first 2 games to clubs from their league, they would be all but done with 5 games to go.

Realistically, if you are one of the 4 looking to get promoted you would need to win all your games against your fellow clubs fighting for promotion. If you don’t you are looking at needing to beat at least two SL1 sides. So as soon as you lose a game against one of those three clubs, you aren’t going up, fans would lose interest, players wouldn’t really bother. If all 4 SL2 clubs take points off each other, which if that league is functioning and competitive should happen every time, Then getting promoted gets a whole lot harder. The temptation then is for those clubs to spend more money on players chasing a payday in SL, and we all know how that works out.