Totally agree

Agree with your thoughts about out club Seb, our clubs success and the move to the HJ has been fantastic and shows what can be done. Finance is a large part of the process and without a crystal ball
no one could have predicted what would have happened to the Crusaders. I believe they have become the attention of a process which is short-sighted and slanted outside of the heartland area for no other reason than just that. Widnes (despite their problems before the last franchise announcement) should have been included as they had successfully filled the criteria in all aspects except one which they couldn't change.

Several flaws to your post.

Even if you cut the number of Super League clubs to 10, you'll just end up with the same number of Aussies at each club. Meaning less opportunity for the young English players, and many of the overseas players do add to our competition we just need to strike the right balance. Also, a vibrant Rugby League scene needs as many professional teams as possible, providing encuragement and chances for young players to establish themselves. Finally, once many of the pre-2008 players start to move on the number of overseas players will reduce.

Typical elitist comment, that shouldn't be appearing on a forum one of the games great underachieving clubs!!!!!

I saw an article a while back in 1 of the papers, with the following idea;

Two 10 team leagues, Lancashire and yaaarrrkshire, with Catalan, Crusaders & London being divided.

You would play each team in your league twice, and each team in the opposing league once, therefore still having a 27 game season. At the end of the season, the top 4 from each league goes into a play-off system.

This idea would promote a few clubs with alot of history back into top flight RL, and would generate more local derbies within the season.

Sky could even then expand a little, replacing the thursday night game with a superleague game !!!!

Any thoughts on this idea?

Nail on the head there.

Our board really should come with a Sally Cinnamon health warning, that many people get caught out...

RL is not big enough or rich enough to sustain two full time divisions. Nor is it rich enough to sustain two divisions (one FT one PT) close enough financially so that clubs can swap places easily. In addition, it appears that precious few clubs are run anything like responsibly. Franchising helps to keep clubs in check and I don't see there's any other sensible alternative. As SEB notes, it's to save clubs from themselves. Now, the way it's been dealt with is hardly ideal but that's another argument.

As for this utter drivel that all the RFL cares about is expansion and doesn't care about the heartlands; get real. Yes, expansion is an important aspect but the RFL are acutely aware of the value of the established clubs and their importance to the game as a whole. All this crap about 'we should have a team based in Cumbria' or 'I'd like to see Featherston given a shot'. Why? Because they've been there a hundred years? Leigh are an excellent example of a heartland club that got promoted and died on their . Everything about them was a joke in Superleague from the stadium, to the team, to the nonsense with the squad numbers (Darren Abram...sigh). And why? Because they had about 3 months to prepare!!!

Similarly, widnes - for years they've been banging on and on and on about their history. Well, for years, that's all they had. Now, having been given 3 years to get their house in order, they are seen as automatics for promotion and most would say that will make a really good stab at SL.

Franchsing is here to stay.