Sheffield and Doncaster deserve promotion

Quote: wiganermike "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

Decent post Wiganermike

If there is to be promotion from the CC into SL, it must be transparent and equallt if teams are to be relegated from SL, the same applies.
This is the problem with the current licence system. Although clubs are graded based on certain criteria, the grading has proven to be worthless.
Far simpler to set minimum criteria in the important aspects of the game (whatever they need to be) and then allow the comp to be run within those guidelines.

So, if there are a number of clubs that are eligible for promotion, based on non-playing criteria, ie ground, attendances, junior development etc, then give them a big grren
tick and then allow promotion at the appropriate time, but this should be based around success on the playing field.

If we are to have relegation to make way for a promoted club, again, this should be based on playing performance.