i remember at a giants supporters association meeting where Blake Solly was the guest, he alluded to the Xtra steaming games and said then that it was something that was being looked at, in fact it seems to me they are only going to show one live game a week (on a thursday) and the rest of the games will be available to stream online, i believe SKY have the rights to show premier league games on fridays now?

i honestly believe that SKY don't give a damn how many people are at the games as long as they get people watching online?

That seems a strange thing to say when at the moment some weeks you can watch 6 games and only 2 are on line, but saying that my wife who is now no longer in to watch since we moved down south would be pleased and i would have to watch on my laptop but how would i tape them if i was going out or away

I consider the Middle 8s to have largely been made up of dead rubbers. For me, what you have now is an 'exciting' battle between Bradford, Leigh, Halifax and Sheffield of which championship side gets to go lose at Wakefield.

It is a faux promotion system, but it wouldn't surprise me if Salford's implosion at Bradford was to be used extensively as 'proof' that it works.

I can see that and Sheffeild running them close, would also see the Fax win at Leigh as further proof for the RFL to trott out and show how good an idea it is, thought it wasa good idea on paper but its by no means level and that makes it seem stupid that is the best viable option, a 2 year P&R would have worked better imo

I agree with your post apart from the obvious fact that, if we show games live on TV, especially Thursday night, there will be a negative effect on crowd numbers.

I don't necessarily agree on the structure but I absolutely do on the other points.

We are a sport that has no leadership whatsoever. That doesn't mean we have to have 1 single figure who dictates what the game should do, the clubs are always going to have a big say in what happens, but there's no RFL executive shaping the direction for the sport to head in.
I applaud the new entrants into League 1 and the Embed the Pathway scheme but that's pretty much it in terms of trying to shape the future of RL in this country, and that is nowhere near enough.

The short-sightedness of many of the clubs needs to be over-ridden or at least tempered by the RFL, and it's not.

Damn these super 8s are dull.

Just wish they would stop interrupting play with split screens. Show the score but leave the tries till half time or full time.

Four teams going for top spot with one game to go, every minute matters

Leeds & Hudds draw, Wigan lose, Saints win by about 150. If that all happened, then fair play to them for getting 1st.

Pretty unlikely I agree, but not completely impossible. 62 points difference at the moment, so if we rout Wire on Thursday And HUdds win by a couple of points then Saints will be top. Obviously assuming Wigan lose too

Yes. Ridiculous decision by Sky. Especially the one at the end where they went split screen to show us the Hull/Huddersfield players shaking hands.

Still mathematically possible for Saints to finish top, in much the same way as it's still possible for Wigan to finish 1st even if Leeds win v Huddersfield.

Both situations very unlikely though.

Yeh. It requires a close win for Huddersfield and us to kill Warrington.

Personally I can't see it.

I don't know why the scenario that in each division the team that finishes top is the champions.

I suppose it's a difficult concept to grasp.

Look at the crazy NL1 scenario. The top 2 teams have to play off for promotion . Whats wrong with the top team getting automatic promtion, but then this is RL where crazy is the norm.

The complaint is that players have too many games , but then introduce systems that ensure it happens.

Why not have a single knockout competion that is open to all and a league system that rewards success for the season.

Yes I realise this is radical but I believe it has potential