Quote: Katrina "Bring back promotion and relegation, give the bottom teams in SL the change to fight for their place in SL, and the teams in the Championship something to play for. It's all too stagnant, teams in SL know they will be in SL for at least 3 years, teams in the Championship know they have little to no chance of breaking into the SL, so what's the point? Put the SL back to 12 teams. We don't need 14. The current play off system is a joke, a team in the bottom half making the playoffs?? Yeah, that's sensible!! Should be a top 5-6 maximum.'"
To be honest, P&R will never create a top tier of super clubs. What it will create is a twilight zone between the two divisions, where 5 or 6 clubs will engage in an annual yoyo contest, which in its turn will prevent any of them attaining real Super League status.
We need to settle on the 10/12 best Super League candidates - on the basis of business acumen, stadia, competitiveness, finances, etc, all the usual stuff - and then close the doors, giving them adequate time to develop. Others can join this elite group as and when (if) a time comes when they too are able to satisfy very stringent criteria (i.e. not provide the sort of loose, empty guarantees that seem to have underwritten Bradford's access to the 2012 competition).
It seems harsh on those others who, as you say, have nothing to play for. But then professional sports throughout the world are filled with competitors who 'have nothing to play for' because they are nowhere near the top. I don't understand why British RL seems to be the only major pro sport where the solution to this seems to be to bring the top closer to the bottom.
