Exactly the same for me.

Agree it was like the old days when Wigan were full time pros and the rest were not it is

Absolutely bang on.
RFL in short term fix shocker

IF we are going to have "satellite" clubs in France or N. America, which is open for debate, they have to be supported and protected.
The prospect of Toulouse or Toronto making it into SL is very real but, should they make it and get promoted and then relegated the following season, there is little benefit to the sport.
Equally, putting Toronto in the third tier, actually "deprives" another club their shot at promotion.

Although it may be unpalatable to some, the expansion clubs should be "fast tracked" to the top flight and then protected.

Of course, the pay off for this has to be an improved TV deal, if not, the jam just get's spread ever more thinly and when we aren't exactly blessed with cash, this would damage every club.

There seems little alternative that to return to a franchise based system and we should include KR in any expanded top flight.

Realistically, they are the only Championship club, aside from Toulouse, that will make the grade in the near future.
We could also include Bradford but, this may be seen as rewarding failure, although we all know that there is a fair amount of potential there.

I could not agree more, I have no problem with them entering the competition but hear we go again, unlevel playing field until we get them fast tracked to SL? Mr Nobel, broke the salary cap when coaching, Bradford, Wigan & Salford, I sure it will not matter with Toronto.

IMO atm there are possibly 16 clubs who could sustain an SL team/Franchise. So here is my 2 pence worth.

2 Leagues of 8 (Pool A & Pool B) Randomly drawn or seeded pre season.
Play each team twice in your pool then each team from opposing pool once. This would give us 21 regular league games.
Top 4 from each pool go into the playoffs.
Challenge cup to have a league stage.
If you want P&R then bottom 2 from each pool to play top 4 from championship in a similar format to what we have now in the middle 8s.

The only issue here is that we would need more funding for the extra 4 teams.

Shoot me down if you will but that's just my opinion.

IF there are only 16 clubs that could sustain a SL franchise, why have the play off with clubs from the Championship who, by your own definition, aren't sustainable in SL ?

We either keep P/R or revert to some kind of Franchise/Licence system, without P/R, unless a club goes into admin/goes pop, which should be automatic demotion.

One of the aspects of the previous system is that new clubs could have been added "when they were ready" (such as Leigh) but, this was never done and instead, we went for the hair brained scheme we have now.

This season is a bit of a one off, when they are in the Championship I think they will be a lot more competitive with upper teams at least. The issue of relegated sides being all conquering in Championship is a tough one but to be fair, the system allows a top 4 to have a chance - 1 up 1 down would be worse tbh.

I put the P&R in there to appease the clubs who may one day be able to build and develop a club who are good enough to be in SL. While this is not the case if there were 16 SL clubs, it wouldn't totally shut the door.

If you go for the franchise model, by definition, you cant have PR.
You can however, give a licence to a new/additional club or rescind the licence of any failing club.

The main benefit of the old system was the ability to develop young players in a "protected" league and this will always be more difficult when league status is on the line.

You can have P&R and licensing. A license can be awarded based upon performance on the field(along with other factors if required).

Surely the reasoning behind licensing was to give stability and allow the game to expand, originally with Paris and then with Catalan.
If these clubs are up for relegation, then, we may as well have 1 up/ 1 down etc.
This can be done with minimum criteria but, why would you need to grant a licence, we may as well stay as we are, which doesnt solve the problem of allowing new high spending clubs joining at the bottom of the pile and thrashing all and sundry, until they are able to gain promotion (twice).
Toronto, would have been better served, joining a "protected" top flight, just as Catalan did and developing from there, which may allow the game to properly establish itself in North America.
As others have said, what is taking place now, in league 1, isn't doing anyone any good whatsoever.
Even the Toronto fans wont want to shell out their hard earned dollar to watch a procession every other week.
Instead of "spreading the word", it's sending the game backwards.

I like this idea.

With the system I suggested, you get all teams/clubs who are capable of being an SL side in SL whilst not totally closing the door on the Championship sides. Granted not many of the rest of the Championship clubs could get promoted or meet criteria, but it doesn't close the door on any that could eventually meet the criteria.

What is taking place in the 2 leagues outside of SL isn't great. I go watch my team every week but I can't get enthused about seeing them beat a part time team by 50 points. Granted, we got ourselves in to this situation but by having clubs like Toronto, Hull KR, Toulouse etc. in the lower leagues trouncing teams doesn't help the game attract new support. It only serves to help the RFL say that the current format is working when all they are doing is holding back the game. If all or most of the championship teams were as competitive with each other as most of SL are, then I can see a reason for the current format but atm its pointless.

Also, Toronto are looking to have 10000 season ticket holders. How many of those will they have if they can't get into SL within say 4-5 years? All the current enthusiasm for RL there could wane and we have then lost all those potential supporters of the game. The same could be said for Bradford or Toulouse. And I know that Hull KR won't get the same amount of support if they can't get back into SL this year.

By getting all SL ready clubs into a revised SL, should help those clubs and the game keep hold of that support.

This is all my opinion of course.

Why not just let them in when they are ready. Remove them if they arent.

The only way to square expansion and p+r would be to have conferences. Some for licensed clubs not at risk of relegation, some unlicensed clubs who didn't meet the criteria who were at risk of relegation.