I accept and agree a large proportion of what you have written but lets just look at the championship on the last day of the season this year...York were relegated leaving Keighley, Swinton, Barrow and Hunslet going into the last match of the season fighting for retention of their ( see their not there) status as a championship club.

It brought a meaning to very game leading up to that weekends fixtures which you have to agree is completely lacking in Super league ( I hate that title..no reference to Rugby league at all) in fairness once clubs like Salford Castleford and London were knocked out of the Challenge cup what meaning did their season have.

I firmly believe that in all sincerity Rugby League is unsustainable as a full time sport which unless as you point out you get a benefactor who is prepared to splash the cash, once that happens you instantly get a two tier competition similar to what there is now.

Perhaps automatic promotion and relegation may not be best but to deny a club like Featherstone the chance asking them to wait potentially three years before being accepted is also very unfair, anything can happen in that three year window so which season do you choose as the one which grants them the chance. You say I am avoiding the question and to a degree I am since without looking the answer up I can't answer how many teams have been uplifted on each cycle but again I ask you how many have been dropped back down.?

Did you have this view last season when there was no relegation from the championship?

Yes absolutely and had Swinton finished the season in the bottom two I would still have the same view.

Well done on the spelling. Smart phones have this amazing ability to spell better when the mistakes are pointed out to their operators.

To business
Are you advocating going back to part-time then? Jeez. Bye bye Tomkins, Bye bye Chase, Bye bye O'Loughlin, Charnley, Hall, Watkins.... Bye bye chances of ever beating Australia.

We have enough funds to sustain a limited number of full-time clubs. We need to be looking to increase funding so more clubs can become full-time, not regressing to some "straight aht o' t' pit an' straight in t' team" rose-tinted part-time past, surely.

If not (and surely you aren't) then we're stuck with the two tier competition. P&R won't bridge that divide.


Under franchising, clubs aren't judged on one season, so there's no season to choose. They're judged on the three year period as a whole. Featherstone have, this season, ticked one of the boxes that was required for them to be considered for elevation and they aren't being denied anything. What you appear to want, though, is for Featherstone (or whoever finishes top of the Championship) to be elevated from a part-time competition to a full-time one on the basis of one solitary season, and on one solitary aspect of that clubthe club[/i that gets promoted, remember, not the squad (in fact, it's often the case that the majority of the playing squad gets left behind). So why shouldn't access to SL be based on the [iclub's[/i performance rather than the squad's?

It's also worth noting that you - in keeping with all advocates of P&R - see the P but not the R. You claim it's unfair to deny Featherstone promotion. No mention of the relegated team. What happens to them? What happens to a club that has a full-time set up but which has, on the basis of one poor season (or in Salford's case, on the basis of accidentally having an extra player on the field for 20 seconds or so) has to make umpteen people redundant so it can restructure to a part-time operation, only to reverse that entire process nine months later because they're promoted again into the full-time competition, but in a much weakened state. Where is your sense of fairness there?

Clearly you have your view and I mine, what you have overlooked either through ignorance or a lack of vision from anything other than SL is that Featherstone have finished top of the pile for three years on the bounce so really you would expect them to be rewarded wouldn't you agree.?

and who says they will not...
However, whereas Featherstone has done well and the club certainly deserves a chance in SL, you fail to take into account the costs of being in SL and the effects it has had on the other two clubs in that borough.

Lastly, Leigh IMO were ruined by their "season in the sun"

I accept what you say but by the same token teams who have fallen foul in terms of financial distress whilst in SL have remained making a complete farce of the franchise system.
Bradford spring to mind along with Wakefield and Salford who let's not forget till Koucash came along borrowed to the hilt to retain SL status.
Who's to say Featherstone or Leigh for that matter wouldn't have been better candidates.

I know lots of Salford fans who have an obsession with our club, it is good to see fans of other clubs are becoming equally obsessive....lol

He's a Swinton fan you dizzy get. And stop quoting him, some of us are trying to avoid the two-faced numpty. (Jesus, I sounded like MR there, get help! )

As for this thread, how embarrassing and utterly pathetic. The reaction from some opposition fans to the whole takeover, including mates who have show sympathetic tendencies towards Salford in the past, has been utterly laughable.

How are they not being rewarded? Aren't they being recognised as champions? If promotion is the only reward you recognise, then there's no reward for finishing top of SL, nor for winning the Grand Final. A bit ridiculous wouldn't you agree?

And while having a squad of players capable of finishing top of a part-time competition is a [inecessary[/i condition for elevation of [ithe club as a whole[/i to a full-time competition, by no means is it [isufficient[/i, as evidence from the pre-franchise past shows.

As for lack of vision or ignorance, I notice that, once again Marshy, you're all P and no R. What about the relegated club?

Can I have permission to talk about the concepts of P&R vs franchising with him? Not much happens on the Swinton forum and I think he's lonely.

obviously a glory-hunter who isn't aware they played at FARTown