Do you think that is enough of a reward for finishing 9th not last? System is flawed in my opinion.

Comment reported for swearing.

So in reality much like the premiership in soccer since forever?
Teams even a 1/4 of the way through are very predictably going to be in the drop zone come the end of the season barring some out of the ordinary turnaround. The same turnaround that happens on occasion in all sports incl RL.
You don't know much do you sonshine

But we binned the franchises because wanted thrills and spills.....we may get them, but not until September now, because we already kow the make-up of the 8's.......no difference and now Delboy has gone with his 500k, they can shut the door again.......as for what I know or don't know, I know that clubs will overspend to stay up.
And again...stop with the soccer comparisons......we're a million miles away from them...."sonshine"

It's not the system's fault it's either a team being too good (Saints) or a team playing doge (Catalans). It is literally impossible to have an "every minute matters" scenario. Even before licensing you had the same three clubs at the top.

Re. The Toulouse v Halifax game.

Fax played their cup game on Tuesday night at the insistence of the RFL even though they had to fly out for a game in France on the Saturday night. Obviously we would have preferred to leave it until the following week.

Due to the Annual French Air Traffic Controller's Strike their flight was delayed so they didn't even have chance for a training session prior to the game.

Toulouse caught Fax cold with 3 tries in the first 12 minutes before Fax could reply. There were no further points for the next half hour. Around 10 minutes into the second half, with the score still at 16-6, Fax had a try disallowed for offside which video footage showed to be a perfectly good try. Toulouse then scored at the other end shortly after and we then entered into the last 20 minutes where the Full-time training and 2 week rest kicked in and they then ran away with it.

Not saying we would have won anyway, without all the buildup problems, as Toulouse are the best team I have seen in the Championship this season. I just wanted to stress that it was by no means the thrashing that the final score suggests.

Fair comment.

Alright, use tennis as a comparison then, or pretty much any other elite sport!

OK.....our good old buddies at TW2 Towers!

They started their 12 team Professional Premiership over 20 years ago.....after some growing pains where London Scottish and Richmond were shafted by London Irish and the RFU, they have gradually grown, all the while keeping the same 1 up 1 down scenario, losing Bristol, London Irish, Orrel, West Hartlepool, Bedford, Rotherham, Harlequins, Leeds, Northampton, Worcester, Newcastle & London Welsh.

Of that list, 3 are clubs that have also won the thing. They only once had no relegation and the denied side didn't whine, but instead got their ground up to standard and were promoted the following year......all in 9 sides have won their comp and all 9 are still in it and of the 3 that haven't won it, 2 have lost the grand final

Over the same period we've moved the goalposts countless times, from promoting London and PSG at the start, protecting Catalans, 12 sides, 14 sides, Licenses, top 5, top 8, middle 8........and we've had 4 winners with one of those bankrupt more times than RBS and at the but-end of the structure and the other 3 all likely to be involved come the business end of the season......it's predictable and as such we can't attract headline sponsors or fans to games.

Maybe London, Toronto, Toulouse, Catalan, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle and NYC in a 10 side "super dooper league" is the answer, or maybe it's not, but this middle 8 nonsense isn't, that's for sure.....crowds are down, Viewing figures are down.....it's a good job nobody is on performance related pay at the RFL

The game is at a long time low, you won’t see me argue against that. Elite sporting honours though will more often than not be battled out for by the top 4-6 top clubs/athletes. Thank goodness Bolt, phelps and Farah have retired, it was getting a bit tiresome.

7 teams have won the RU Premiership final, 3 more than SL. If you’re going back to late 80s for your 9 RU ‘league’ winners you can add a few more to RL too.

But Union are having the issue of the top league being too far ahead of the Championship. Bristol last year, London Irish this year, both promoted, and both going straight back down.

At the end of the day, there is no perfect system to satisfy everyone. I personally am a fan of the current structure. No matter how fair the salary cap is, you're always going to have a crap team or 2. See the NRL, NFL etc as examples. I'd rather see those crap teams challenged, than plod along waiting for next season. And I think most fans would too.

What Union have which we don't is the European cup qualification, those teams who aren't going to win, but aren't going to go down, still have something to play for.