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).

No idea im sure it was part of the RFL's plans though or maybe it was just hearsay, having 2 strong leages??

Eitherway the state of the game over here is ridiculous, if you compare the wages the lads are getting for putting their boddies through hell week in week out and what soccer players get paidjust proves on a business level the RFL have no idea whatsoever! The premier league get billions in sponsorship deals and rfl get to RENT 7 stobart wagons with pictures on, absolutely crazy piece of business. Id let koucash run the rfl at least he has more business knowledge

Also makes sure you are always at home in the playoffs if you finish top. It was ridiculous a few years back when we finished top and Leeds finished 4th and we had to go to Headingley. I'm convinced in the Noble years we'd have got to a GF with this top 8 playoff format farce.

If and its a big if they had the money to have two string leagues I'd actually go for the one that ends up three lots of 8 at some point. BUT the trouble is I don't think the RFL have a clue as to where the extra money that is required is going to come from.



I completely agree and have been saying pretty much the same thing for years. You can't expect the players to behave like professional sportsmen with it as their only job and career and yet be paid semi-pro wages.

The average wage for RL Championship player e.g at Leigh is £12K as their salary cap is a mere £300K a season (based on a squad of 25). How can you have players earning that competing with the Sam T's and Charnley's of this world who are paid to train full time and have all the benefits of top class conditioners etc?

Don't get me wrong I still think SL players are under paid as well. There will be players getting regular games in our first team who earn far less than many very average non-premierhip soccer players. The current issue though is how do an extra 10 teams suddenly find around an extra £1.5M and even if they did where are they going to spend it? There aren't enough good players to go around as it is.



Well we aren't going to get more money into the game offering free sponsorship compared to the likes the RFU and NRL who instead negotiate top dollar TV deals that is for sure.

You never know maybe the RFL are going to pull a rabbit out of the hat and will announce a massive cash injection from Sky to fund the two leagues of 12. I am not holding my breath though and instead just think Nigel Woods is fiddling with league structures while RL burns.

My real concern is they will dilute the money across 24 teams and actually lower the salary cap. Clubs like Wigan, Wire and Leeds would then have to offload players for the benefit of ex-championship sides and it would make their investment in these players seem pointless.

This is why, IMO, two leagues of 10 was the best option. That why we would only have to fund 20 clubs. We fund 14 as it is so we would only have to fund another 6 clubs. With Fev, Leigh, Fax and Sheffield already got good business models that already takes us to 18 teams. We would only need to find 2 more then. 10 in SL1 operating at one salary cap limit and SL2 operating at a lower cap limit but high enough to be full time. Than the transition between SL1 and SL2 wouldn't be so great. Promotion to SL2 is then decided by licensing.

My view is you can't really have any large difference in salary cap between SL1 and SL2. While it may be true a relegated club may lose it's best couple of players because that's just the way it goes I don't think any large disparity between the wages offered between SL1 and SL2 is workable.

In order to offer as stable a career as is possible we can't have the situation where players contracts get ripped up on relegation and you can't have teams dismantled because they are relegated either. Who like Koukash would take over the likes of Salford if after having bought Morely etc had to release them six months later? Why would Morely etc agree to take a risk on losing their jobs and join a side like Salford who may be relegated rather than stay where they are on maybe a lower but more guaranteed wage?

So even two teams of 10 does IMO require at least another £9m to be found to fund these clubs and that is before we consider the fact some clubs in SL aren't fully funded anyway.

It's better than going too 24 in that sense I'd agree but I will be pleasantly surprised if there is [iany[/i extra money behind any of this.