Complete farce!!!! They need to sort out the playoff structure first. Not revert back to a system that has failed in the past.... P&R isn't the problem and its certainly not the answer.

good move, frees up 4 weekends.

start season 2 or 3 weeks later , restructure CC rounds evenly spread, have an internation warm up game 3/4 way thro season?, get rid of 2 "dead wood" teams, leave P and R as it is with review of franchise every 3 years getting rid of the "dead wood" reardless of area, stop trying to sell the game at top level to areas that have no interest, cut play offs to top 3 , top going to GF, 2 and 3 contesting other spot, this would also free up weekends and stop the ridiculous spectacle of meaningless play off games that hardly anyone attends, scrap the farce of friday/monday over easter (the games tougher than used to be, before the traditionalists shoot it down)....have i missed anything out?



going for a lie down in a darkened room

There's no way any weekends will be freed up or the season made shorter. There'll either be a mis-matched fixture list as there was previously with a 12 team league so you play some teams 3 times, or there'll be this split in to 3 leagues of 8 which adds 7 extra fixtures. There will still be a maximum of around 35 games a season as it is at the minute.

I do think 12 teams is the way to go, but going back to automatic P&R has been tried and failed before. The franchising idea was a good one, it just wasn't applied and policed properly (unsurprisingly, given who is in charge).

Promotion via on-field performance is all very well, but isn't sustainable without also taking into account things like attendances, facilities, youth development etc. Perhaps some sort of conditional promotion, based on minimum standards in the other categories, something similar to the old "framing the future" concept?

I agree but on a technical point we didn't have franchising but licensing. In franchising there is a set number of franchises that occasionally change hands and could theoretically move elsewhere in the country when they do but the main difference is you don't even have to re-apply every three years.

I think that would have been even better to be honest - if they could police it.



Well exactly. We are stepping back in time because they are already talking about exactly those things. We could once again see the situation where one year the bottom club isn't relegated because the top club in the lower division isn't deemed fit for promotion. That is IMO an awful situation because it flies in the face of the main reason for P&R which is sporting achievement determines it. If it does not do so 100% of the time the whole argument for P&R is undermined IMO.

I presume you mean the money left over goes to the remaining 12 and the relegated two operate on the same basis as the Championship sides?

If so we are back to the situation others have mentioned because it seems P&R is on the way back and it doesn't work between such disparate leagues.

What I fear is they realise this and the solution is to simply divide up the money 24 ways instead of 12! All on an equal footing then but of course on half the cash per club unless they double the money coming from Sky or wherever.

If they did that then unless they reduced the salary cap accordingly you would IMO simply see Leeds, Wire and maybe Salford (eventually) dominate as they have the most money available from their owners (Salford and Wire) or other sources (Leeds) than just about any other club.

Couldnt agree more. The 6 team playoffs were far better than the current system that basically rewards a team who finished below half way with an end of season comp. It also rewarded the team that finished top with the opportunity to get to old trafford with just one win. It would actually make league position far more important than the current set-up. Great that promotion and relegation is back too. A fantastic opportunity for heartland clubs to be rewarded for strong championship seasons.

Friday's Sheffield/London game showed the stupidity of bringing back P & R.
No sooner had they announced SL changes than this game proved that it is a futile excercise. Sheffield on a 15 game winning run, top of the Championship v the bottom team in SL who have barely won 15 games in three season. If there was ever to be an upset this was it.
Yet from minute one to minute 80 Sheffield never looked like they could win. They just couldn't take the heavy tackles by the London forwards.
That game made the idea of promotion and relegation the daftest thing for years.

For the bottom end clubs who are strapped for money it will be back to dumping youth development and bringing in NRL jouneymen to ensure (they hope) Super League survival.
So who is in favour of P & R? The RFL, SL Clubs, who?

One thing your missing though is the Eagles are part-timers as is every other team in that league but arent they looking to change that too and turn them all in to full time clubs?? Surely they can only improve for this. And when all said and done we still need a competitive league to do away with the " tonights game doesnt matter its only the regular season tactics" Id say theres benefits from either side of the fence.

We need a few minted entrepreneurs willing to lose a bit of their cash maybe get onto bannatyne and ask him to start up a scottish team in edinburgh, do what Russell Crowe has done in oz and koukash is likely to do buy a team fit to comepete at the top.

Where is the money going to come from to fund that?

The last time we had P&R it was between a part time league and professional league and it was a farce. I don't see any mention of it being any different this time.

We'd need [iat least[/i another 10 clubs capable of paying to the current level of the salary cap to make up two leagues of 12 (given 14 are already supposed to but not all do).