There's talk of a couple of clubs just buying their way in by bypassing the grading criteria and agreeing to not take any of the central distribution cash. So that will lead to them having teams that are totally uncompetitive and we will see at least a couple of games each week that are horrendously one sided. Which broadcasters will fancy that? 

Personally I'd go backwards, to move forwards and go down to 10 teams for a period of 3-5 years and set a date/year where we'll go back to 12 teams and then a date/year where we go up to 14 teams and let clubs outside the 10 prepare themselves long term and get in to a place where they can compete. As we stand at the minute, we just have a load of clubs scrapping for crumbs on the table and then cutting corners to survive. 

No need to expand the amount of teams, we just need to replace a few.


If you could swap out Salford, Cas and Huddersfield for Bradford, London and Toulouse - it would be a better balance. You get the London club that everyone seems to want, two big derby matches for Good Friday & an extra France trip each year.


One of the biggest head scratches of the last 20+ years has been Davey pumping money into the lame duck that is Huddersfield Giants. What's he realistically achieved?  Imagine if he'd put that into Bradford instead...

Absolutely stinks – while the loop fixtures are universally
reviled, putting in another 2 teams, does nothing for player welfare.


 


Relaxing the overseas quota because these clubs don’t have
enough home-grown talent is another backwards step. These rules were made to
improve the pool of British talent, which arguably they have.


 


And now onto the choice of clubs, three words spring to
mind, ‘conflict of interest’.


Where’s Toulouse? Consistently, the best Championship club.


How about the IMG rating points? Or are we just forgetting
these cos they don’t fit the current junta’s agenda?


 


Which raises the question, what’s IMG’s view on all this?


Why did we spend huge amounts of time and money getting into
bed with IMG to ignore their outputs and wishes when the long term partnership
has only been going ‘five minutes’?


 


There are people within the game who have a modern vision of
where the gmae needs to be, and are getting no support from the authorities, they
are forced to take initiatives off their own back


 


I’ve never been so down about the sport.

When has it ever been any different? We can all list the progressive money men that the sports has, at times, attracted and then lost because of it's backwards approach to development. 

That's before you even talk about the elephant in the room -30 years ago, Uncle Mo could have changed the game for the better. The anti Wigan agenda of RL put paid to that and it's declined since.


EVERYTHING has been sacrificed at the alter of so called  competitiveness. They'd all rather live in a world where Wakey can beat Wigan in a contest Vs having truly top teams. A sport where it's easier to sit back and let three teams produce academy lads and just poach them with inflated salaries. 


Get rid of the cap and introduce A teams into the championship. We can spend what we want and develop + keep the players we want.  

Already mentioned but the problem is that we have 2 or 3 clubs that you would easily remove from SL, and now Wakefield are up, there are no viable replacements.


Bradford, Toulouse and London are all 'ok' but don't really add a great deal to the sport's top league, in fact as pointed out probably drag it down for 2-5 years.


You'd argue that York are the best prospect but also have their flaws.

Excellent news

Nothing matters anymore now Wood as been made Chairman full time now, I would love to know the vote and if Wigan, Warrington and Leeds voted in favour of him. I had hope for this sport and potential NRL involvement but that will be out the window now.

It all comes across as being reminiscent of the 60s film "This Sporting Life" where the clubs were all about the chairmen/owners of clubs & their cronies while the players & spectators were seen as the plebs. But it isn't unique to Rugby League.


"A" teams in the Championship sounds a great idea where youngsters can be brought through alongside fringe first teamers or older more experienced players coming back from injury. It would be so much better than the present system of relying on under developed youngsters to slot straight in to fill first team gaps.


One of the biggest problems though is the lack of works & colliery etc teams these days , teams made up of lads who got plenty of bulking up doing physical work & enjoyed the rough & tumble playing for the works team at the weekend. Many of these teams provided ideal recruits  to bolster "A" teams & many made it to first team rugby.
And ,one of the worst days for RL was when Union turned professional ,especially where the Welsh lads were concerned.

If the NRL were interested and ready to invest in English RL. I’d hope the top teams would be looking to break off from the SL and join a new league under the NRL banner. It would be leaving teams behind but to be free of the incompetence of the RFL would be worth it 

I've always liked the A team idea.  You could easily get around the worries on size, by allowing teams to sign x amount of players who can train with the 1st team, but can only play in A team/championship fixtures. 


The Champ is full of either ex SL stars who don't want to retire, or young lads (like Hirst) who clubs would love to get a look at.  Harrison Hansen is too old now, but 5 years ago he'd have been a perfect example. Done at the SL level, but didn't want to retire. An A team contract, playing is the champ would have benefited everyone.

the increase in the quota is really a backwards step, was brought in to encourage home grown and make the home nations stronger.


If these additional teams to SL cannot immediately be competitive, give them a dispensation to have more quota for 2-3 years, not give everyone an increased quota....