the broncos cannot survive under this system, no expansion team can. Not at the top level. They are disproportionately threatened by relegation.

I agree. Not without a very, very rich backer anyway, which are rare in RL.

But without RFL help I don't think an expansion team will survive in any system.

We need both.

1. We have one.
2. Unfortunately he is unhinged and incapable of making a lucid business decision.
3. The RFL should never have insisted on Ian Lenagan dropping his interest in the Broncos. It could have been managed quite easily, but no doubt the idiots at Red Hall were too busy looking at ways to buy Iconic grounds in the North.


4. The game will reap what it has sewn nationally and in the south now, with London Broncos semi-professional and in Championship 1 inside the next 24 months......and yes, that's a London/regional slant on the new system and one of the outcomes so far, because god knows there's enough indignation at the lack of coverage our sport gets as a professional national entity, when the reality is we are more regional now than we have been in 20 years!
5. Under licencing clubs concentrated on development. The ones that were bad businesses got into trouble and should have been left to fend for themselves, but the RFL, rather than getting on with growing and expanding the game found something else to keep them busy for 2 years. No doubt when they get around to binning this system it'll be replaced with another new, extraordinary venture, but in reality it'll be the same stuff sold to the same fan pool.

You expect people to be swayed towards you're views when you post tripe like this?

Whether I, you, or anyone else , believes that Sheffield haven't got a chance of promotion doesn't make the game a 'dead rubber'. If it did then we may as well not bother with 90% of games, no matter what structure is in place, or indeed which sport! And as for the games involving Batley, Whitehaven and Hunslet? The fact that they will decide the second relegation spot from the Championship has escaped you says much.

Sheffield have no chance and the relegation is done unless you believe that haven will lose at home to Donny and the hawks will win at Batley.....I have some bad news about the tooth fairy and Elvis for you too......

That's what we need to change. The closer we get to achieving financial equality, the less crippling it is to exist outside SL. We have an artificial financial cliff in the sport and wonder why clubs struggle when they go over the edge of it...

Whilst possibly true. That equality will likely to be a levelling down than a levelling up which would be even worse because bringing SL down to the level of the championship is going to leave us with a competiton with the financial value of the championship and nobody has any money and it becomes crippling not only to exist outside SL but inside aswell.

Financial equality couldn't stop at the top 4 in the championship. It couldn't stop at the championship at all. Otherwise it wouldn't be equality.

The sad fact is that the majority of clubs outside SL are closer to the top amateur clubs than they are the top SL clubs and the bigger SL gets the bigger that cliff becomes.

I said when the 8's system was announced that it was only the illusion of P&R rather than the reality. The top Championship teams are at a disadvantage from the off for several reasons:

1. The standard of refs below SL. Now many on here will bag on the ref's at SL games, but the performance level of refs in the championship is much lower, meaning a much slower pace of the game, meaning the Championship clubs have to struggle to get up to speed when playing SL clubs in the middle 8 or get mowed down.
2. There is the financial gap between them. Not just in terms of central funding, but in terms of available salary. £800k is a big gap when you think how much the average player is paid plus there's now the marquee player thing but only for SL clubs. Surely it would be fairer to take the average salary of the bottom 4 SL clubs (which should be easy to work out, given we have a live salary cap) and say that rather than the £1 million cap limit, Championship clubs can spend up to that average providing that they can prove their income streams will cover it.

your problem there is that the rest of the championship is then on its trying to compete with teams spending 4-5 times more than them. We are already talking about a league where the top team lost 1 game and the bottom team won 1. On average Leigh won each game last year by 28 points. On average last year donny lost each game by 24. That isn't getting better by letting the Leighs and bradfords of the championship spend more.

The whole concept is very poorly thought out and as you rightly say, the disparity in income in the Championship next season may well pave the way for a club to gain promotion (if indeed it does not happen this season) but the whole of the league will be skewed massively in favour of the top 2 clubs, who, as you say, romped the league anyway.

So far from every minute mattering, the competition (Championship) will be utterly pointless next season.

Also, the bottom 4 in SL are heavily disadvantaged in terms of recruitment for next season, which will ensure that they remain as the bottom 4.

It has it's faults, but something had to be done to return the chance of promotion to the middle order clubs, this way it gives all the lower tier clubs a target, however it does away with the nonsense that the weakest top tier team is simply replaced by an even weaker team, the lower teams have to PROVE they are better than what they would replace.
No it's NOT going to be easy, and it shouldn't be, but unless we introduce a divisional NFL type system I don't see any other way.
Perhaps we could have gone with a straight play-off between the Championship winners and the SL wooden spoonests, I don't know, but this is what we've got and it's the same for all, so lets just get on with it!

Confirmation that you don't actually know what a 'dead rubber' is.

You may also like to ponder on the fact that history is littered with ruined men who put their shirts on a 'dead cert'