this season, with a quarter of it to go, 3 teams would have all but qualified for the play-offs, and 3 are realistically too far behind 5th for the play-offs and too far ahead of 12th to be relegated. 6 teams would be playing for neither the playoffs or relegation for a quarter of the year

This won't have an effect on that.

Yes, it was completely unsuccessful and stupid, that's why it was changed in the first place. Championship leagues will not 'thrive', 'the dream' should not be to earn promotion to a league that the club is unsuitable for and then face an inevitable year of floggings, only to return to a part-time league in a much worse state and start all over again.

Where was the boom/bust scenario in any of those?

Not a problem as long as they have to stick to a salary cap, if not then it will destroy the integrity of the Championship 2015 season

Most of the championship clubs will not be able to sustain full time RL. Championship RL never thrived during the P & R years and it won't now in the current financial climate.

Oh, and I'm the fan of a so called 'top' team and I think this is madness.

Free money. Most of the clubs aren't ever going to be troubled by relegation. To them it's just free money.

Good day for the game, 2 leagues of 12 (with an added wish of a 1 year exemption for the promoted team) is the answer.

Any luck and in a few years we may have a comp where every round is exciting until the final day of the regular season.

Irrelevant.

If it had been 12 teams from the start, with relegation and top 5 playoffs it would have totally changed the mentality of teams. Do you think you'd get catalans bending over at huddersfield and letting 60 in if their very place in the playoffs was seriously on the line?

You can't just take the results in this environment and say ''well this is what it would have been in that environment'', it's just not a valid comparison.

But that's not the proposal.

I'm not too happy about the reduction in numbers, I know times are hard but the top flight should be expanding. It's a shame because it's going to mean a lot of job losses for the pro players.

I do love the excitement of a promotion and relegation battle though and in my opinion, the team that finishes bottom of Super League should have a play-off against the winner of the Championship, it the Championship club wins against the Super League club then it shows it is good enough for the top-flight and this would make the second tier clubs that bit more ambitious.

Something had to give. The correct decision has been reached. Rejoice, my friends.

the point is that a league of 12 with a top 5 and bottom relegated would still leave large parts of the season 'uncompetitive'. Do I think Les Catalns would have taken a spanking from Hudds if their play-offs were seriously on the line? No. But this season, with these points totals for 6 of the 12 teams, the playoffs and relegation aren't seriously on the line.

Agreed. This is a good move.

Again, it's not a valid comparison because we are comparing results in one environment with a hypothetical environment which is different.

With the playoffs you have the usual suspects - wigan saints hull catalans leeds wigan huddersfield warrington. You have a clique of title contenders and then you have teams that know as long as they don't totally f*ck up they'll get a gig in the playoffs. With top 5 theres not enough room at that inn. This is going to massively increase the intensity of all those teams. I don't see how you can argue otherwise, and to use this seasons results and point totals to do so, when it's under a different format, is just nonsensical.

You then have the situation at the bottom. These teams obviously aren't very good, but if relegation is on the line you sure as hell won't get some of the surrenders these put up because deep down they know theres no serious consequences.