I liked the concept from the first day it was mooted (and all the pundits were dismissing it as raving lunacy). But, and it's a HUGE "but",[i where is the money going to come from?[/i Who is going to broadcast the middle 8 for example? Assuming Premier Sports are on board for 2015, are they & Sly going to share it out between them?
I really hope it does work, but I simply don't trust the current set of jokers in charge to get it right.

It's not rocket science. We should have made some tough but necessary decisions about what i call no ambition clubs and then when we had a solid group of teams we should have implemented longer licensing & forced quotas of academy produced players onto clubs.

We should have closed SL up and kept the licensing system for a minimum of 10 years imo. Like the Grand Final or Magic Weekend it needed a prolonged period to really bed in and become the norm. How can you judge something in so little time? How do you know the long term impacts and benefits?

Going back to a hap hazard promotion and relegation system isn't good for anyone. In previous seasons with P&R in place all we saw was the yo-yoing of a couple of teams being promoted and then getting relegated the season straight after. Add into that the sides were jam packed with 2nd rate Aussies who once relegated signed for the promoted team the season after made it laughable.

You only have to look at the development of Widnes to see the positives of a having time to build without the threat of relegation hanging over you. In their first season they stayed loyal to the young lads who had been with them in the Championship. It let them properly evaluate which lads were good enough to make the step up in class. Do you really think anything like that would have happened if they had to fight relegation from day 1? They progressed in a slow and steady way in every 3 of the seasons of the licensing system.

We needed longer to let the stability that it offered sink into the league. Long term investment in youth without the fear of relegation is how you improve standards. Look at a club like Cas who have now got a settled and talented side.

I, along with most give the RFL a substantial amount of criticism but surely in the deal signed with sky there has to be a contracted number of games shown from the second teer during the weekly rounds combined with a selection of matches from each of the three groups after the split.

It is a proposal from the RFL for the 4th and 5th teams to play off to decide who finishes 4th regardless of the points position. They called it the £1m game because if you win you gain and extra £1m on the salary cap if you are not already a SL team as you will be going up (and presumably lose if you are a SL side if going down - back to the old problem of P&R between pro and semi pro leagues with players contracts ripped up no doubt).



At 4th they could finish several points better off than the 5th placed side and have beaten all sides below them in the mini-league. It's not just about only doing well enough to finish 4th its about whether finishing 5th despite being potentially very poor in the league is reason enough alone to give them a pop in a one off final.

It is a totally contrived fixture all about trying to manufacture a situation. It's got naff all to do with merit.



I have no idea what the relevance of the above statement is.



You are ignoring the logistics. Only a few sides will get an increased salary cap to cira £900K and so the rest will be expected to play against these sides in the lower 12 before the split on a peanuts budget. As I said above if we do get movement between leagues the former SL side will lose circa £1m in salary cap spend. This is no different a situation in reality to relegation as was under the old system. You can't just shed £1m off your wage bill without sacking players. It is no way to run a so called pro sport.

You are also ignoring what happened in Switzerland where they ran this system in soccer which crowd wise is very similar to RL in the UK. Crowds dropped to around 7K a game. Sponsors did not want to be associated with two the two second tier competitions. They scrapped it and crowds went up 40%.

Spot on. At least someone recognises that this new system is in reality the return of P&R with all the negatives.

I'll guarantee you won't see a promoted side doing as Widnes did. In fact I reckon Betts would have been replaced by a more experienced coach never mind half the team were the new system in place rather than being given time to develop as a coach and build a team as he has been.

I also forgot to mention how immunity from relegation helped stabilise Catalan as well. Like Wines they were allowed time to bed in at this level. They were given time to gamble with unknowns such as Bosc, Fakir, Elima etc. I can't for the life of me seeing any championship side doing the same with the threat of relegation looming. Its obvious that they will take short term strategy and live from season to season.

That short term thinking, for me, devalues the competition.

History is littered with the failures of P&R.

You read what you want to read. You obviously ignore anything positive I write.



And you talk about me having a downer!

So why, with an even bigger league and a top eight playoff is the NRL so successful? That tells you it's not the format that is the problem.

TV companies are chucking money at a competition with a format you have dismissed. There are epic games during the season. Apparently this should never happen as they will all play the %'s and over here games like Saints-Wigan on Good Friday should not happen either.

The format is not the problem, in a nutshell, its the fact half the SL clubs here are not up to fielding strong teams. Altering the format won't change that.

Fix SL at 12 teams with no P&R (i.e. licensing again) and divide the £40m a year Sky money between them you end up with a £3.3m salary cap minimum. Possibly higher if as now the cap isn't expected to cover the entire wage bill.

Then you will attract the best players and have a realistic chance of actually having good players in all the sides. At the moment there aren't enough good players for a 14 team SL never mind a competition predicated on a 24 team basis.

Go for a 12 team SL funded like that and you will get intensity in the league and you will get it because if the clubs adopt the attitude they can coast into the playoffs not only will they risk not doing so they will also lose the paying customers. As I keep saying RL is not a computer game "RL manager" where all that matters is the points at the end of the season were deliberately putting out weak sides or trying to play the %'s affects no one but you playing the computer game.



The top eight is clearly good enough to get you into the top eight. Then you have to get into the top 4 but those outside the 8 will know their fate as quickly as those outside the top eight do now. Those in the top 8 may also know their fate pretty quickly if league points are carried over. The 7th and 8th placed sides may already have no chance of making the top four for example. This system does not solve the issue of teams with nothing to play for.

If the middle 8 is decided by the £1m game what precedes it is no more relevant for all but two teams as anything we have now. If it isn't decide don one game then it could all be decided pretty quickly. The bottom 8 is a waste of time for all concerned with eight teams waiting for next season already. I have also read one proposal for the middle 8 is all league points are wiped and they all start on zero. Well all that means if if you are not going to make the 8 if in the top 12 you may as well give up and rest players and ditto if you have secured a place in the middle 8 from the bottom 12.

I don't understand why people can't see there are really just as many anomalies if not more in the new system than the old closed shop.

'"

There's positive stuff

(don't call me Shirley)
You've actually obliquely hit on one of the problems with all thisis [/igoing on? We can all speculate & gripe as much as we want, but until washday comes nobody has a clue what will happen.

(or which one of us runs out of metaphors first)

This is the first I've heard of this proposal, do you have a link to an article or something confirming this?
As a Bulls fan you can probably see why I might take a bit more interest than most!