I'm with Mr C on that - can't see the need ot split into 3 leagues of 8 part way through a season. The cynic in me thinks it will be so the top 8 get to play against each other again and once you're in you are guaranteed another couple of big home games and play off rugby. The other 4 from the top 12 then play 'lower league' teams and they must envisage these 4 teams keeping their places back in the top 12 for the start of the next season. I can see no other reason for it. Although I hope ourselves or some of our championship rivals can upset that particular applecart.

2 straight forward leagues of 12 is far simpler and would leave a genuine relegation battle in the top 12 as well as the battle for play off spots. This is in addition to who would win the league leaders shield. The Championship 12 then have a genuine all out battle to get in to play with the 'big boys' the following season.

Can anyone point me to a 'link' that clarifies this? (i.e are the 'top 2' numbers one and two in the Championship table, or the two Grand Finalists, who could, theoretically, be numbers 7 and 8 in the Championship table?)

It would be really good to know this - certainly before the final Championship fixture!

Think I heard a while ago that pretty much all the Championship clubs wanted it to be the top two in the league that got the money, which would be the fairest.

I do think this structure was the best option, (would have prefect two full time 10s then a separate competition with all 20 teams in for extra games but that wasn't on offer). Straight P&R didn't work before, it got clubs into too much difficulty frantically trying to get promotion which was too difficult then struggling to stay up and being left in trouble when related again. This new structure allows teams to be promoted but they have to show they're better than the teams they'll be replacing, seems fair enough so long as everyone is full time. It'll allow clubs to grow at a natural pace and get a good guide of what level they're at and what they need to work on to improve instead of going all out and becoming unstable the moment it looks like a weaker team is relegated for their one and only chance at promotion.

I hope there's a decent prize money for the Championship shield though, otherwise it's a bit of a "Well you tried, here's some more games to kill the time" type competition. Would be good if you got the same amount for winning it as finishing somewhere in the bottom 4 of the SL qualifier group, makes the next season more interesting, you'd have 5 teams on equal financial footing competing for 4 places, which makes the Championship a competition worth winning.

We seem to have a lot of 'I heard' posts, would any of them like to say who told them or where they heard it?

As far as I can see Alan there is no grand final, Im sure Derek Beaumont and Steve Openshaw said that it was supposed to be on league rankings.

They did.

But that would mean no games for 5 months and I'd like to see our lads win a playoff game.