Ah, the old ED reg, I can see you must have been a keen number plate spotter in your youth. Dad had two Morris Minor 1000's when we lived in an eastern suburb of Warry many moons ago. I am sure the first was DED and when he sold it the guy who bought it tipped a large bag of notes onto the dining room table. They were all brown 10 shilling notes and I had never seen so much money in my life. I think I must have been about 10 years old. In retrospect he was probably the equivalent of the Bulgarian mafia and moved out to Stockton Heath a few years later.

Still one or two old council special buses with ED. Well there was til fairly recent if they haven't now.

I've always thought this is a bit weird. We're playing in the same competition now, but everyone will always say that the SL team (Wire) beat the Championship team (Fax).

This isn't a whinge, but I guess the differentiation is that Wire et al are still receiving SL level funding?

Wouldn't even say it was a case of automatic relegation/promotion these days, more a case of invitation, as you could win the MPG, but if all the other boxes aren't ticked like ground, finances etc, you won't get the invite.

Here is another complication. The clubs are discussing increasing SL 2018 to 13 teams next year (and 14 the year after). It is at the stage of the accountants looking at the financial implications, because the remaining 12 obviously don't wish to see their Sky money diluted. So e.g. HKR could see themselves admitted back to the top tier without actually getting promoted. Or e.g. if Warrington lost in the MPG we might still be allowed back into SL 2018. Did HKR lose their status last year, because they have not been promoted back ? Has HKR regained their status if they didn't win promotion, but instead were allowed back in ? Would Wire have lost their status because they never got relegated to the Champ ? If half of SL split from the top half clubs and played in a 12 team comp with 6 Champ clubs, would the SL clubs have lost their top tier status ? If SL and the Champ was combined in one league, would all the SL clubs have lost their top flight status ?


When you start changing the format of a competition like the RFL have with this one, discussions about top tier status become meaningless. We have to accept that the nature of the completion has been changed. The only 'solid ground' that connects this situation to the old SL league is whether teams are playing in the Championship or SL in any given year.

True. I like the test definition given previously.

Assuming no relegation before 1996, if we have played in every single round of SL since then - status retained, else status lost.

Mr Winslade, i think your theorem style response just goes to prove what we & most other RL fans know...the Wire are a top team.
QED

This is simply one of those issues that rival fans will use to annoy us irrespective of any arguments or evidence...much in the same way that we would with them -given the chance.

Very true, if it was Saints in this position with an identical history to Warrington we would be saying the record has gone for sure. I think we all know deep down it has.

Yep and Agar should go with it.

For me it's an akin to the football play offs but in a mini league. The football clubs remain in the division they're in unless promoted. Same for us- if we remain in the same division at the start of next season then we've retained our top flight sstatus. The mini league is just an elongated play off system so we should, by of the season be able to still claim that we've always been top flight.

We have not lost our superleague status.
If we had. The rfl would of mandated that we take the superleague badges off our shirts.
The qualifiers is basically a 7 week play-off to retain superleague status.

We've not been relegated. We won't be relegated. We've not lost Super League status. It was Super League Warrington against Championship Halifax at the weekend. Does anything else really matter? I'd say the fact we've not won the league since 1955 and the need to rebuild for next year are more of a pressing matter personally.

We still haven't been out of the top flight, I.e the highest division. All that has happened is the top 8 of the top division has entered into a comp from which the champions will emerge, we are not part of that. We are in a competition to remain in the top flight. We cannot claim to have been in the 2nd division anymore than a team that has never been in the top division but is in the qualifiers can claim they have been promoted

No. In the same way Halifax Featherstone Hull KR and London can't claim that they were promoted to the top flight at the end of the first part of the season in 2017. Unless we do get relegated obviously.

Not really d about the "record" either. What does it even mean? Nothing. Hardly a measure of success when we havent won the league since 1955.