You don't watch the NRL if you think that, the Bulldogs this year are nowhere near the same standard set in 2012 mainly due to injuries, suspensions and Ben Barba discovering alcohol and gambling. As for the Broncos they are battling to stay in the top 8.

so, you say the top 4 are a class above, last year the bulldogs and broncos were doing fine and the roosters werent, this year its all turned around. Most years are different in the NRL not like over here. You might say the top 4 but thats just for this year.

Really? When did P&R make a division competitive whenever we have had automatic P&R since the game went full time and SL began?

The promoted team usually went right back down. They weren't competitive at all and were in fact cannon fodder.

Widnes who spent three years or so preparing for promotion finished bottom in their first season back in SL despite all the preparation. Should they have been related straight back down?

P&R has proved to be unworkable between leagues so far apart financially and with so few quality players to go around. Tony Smith is right to favour licensing over automatic P&R.

Why do you think options 1 & 2 are completely reasonable?

Given P&R has been proved not to work between SL and the championship and given option 2 that would mean 20 full time clubs when there isn't enough money or quality players in the game to support 14 teams never mind 20.

What is missing is option 4. Leave things as they are! The problem is NOT the structure of the league, it is money. That is what needs addressing, the amount of money coming into the game.

You can adopt whatever option from 1 to 3 you like but they are all stupid IMO. They either have us revert to something we know doesn't work (option 1) or involve RL trying to sustain more full time clubs when it can't sustain the ones its got already.

For what it's worth I've always kinda been on the fence about this. Going full time proffesional to semi proffesional and vice-versa in the course of an off season is quite hectic. It's a shame that there's little to play for near the end for the lower teams, but the NRL's the same and it's certainly not struggling!

I don't think hectic is the right word to describe it. Going semi-pro form pro means you effectively lose all your players.

So for example that three year deal Burke has just signed is ripped up and he becomes a free agent. So all the money invested in him is for the benefit of others. The same applies to all players at a relegated club.

Relegation is not just sporting ignominy (which it would be if it were between two compatible divisions) it actually boils down to the forced destruction of a clubs squad. It's is just not feasible and is counter productive in that weaker teams who may face relegation simply will not risk developing young players and playing them. They will do whatever they can to survive instead and buy in players to try and stave off going down.

We saw all this before and these things were put forward as why we went to licensing so God knows why they suddenly don't apply any more.

The only way P&R can work is if its between leagues with clubs able to spend to the same salary cap level.

That may be the idea and maybe they will spread the Sky money between 20 or 24 clubs and work to an even smaller cap. I doubt it though. I think they will go for option one (12 team league and one club promoted/relegated each year) and we will be back to the promoted club going back down again every season.

If you make Super League a cartel then you deny Championship clubs the opportunity to compete ON THE FIELD.
One of my most enjoyable nights out last year was going to Featherstone where they gave us a hell of a game and then chatting to their fans afterwards they just wanted their club to get the chance to compete.

The basis of ALL sport is to allow players to compete and get their just rewards. If you win the Championship then you get promoted, simple as. If you come bottom then you go down. Widnes spent 3 years getting ready for Super League but they never won the championship once. Fev, Halifax and Barrow were consistently better. How is it fair to deny them the chance of playing Super League simply because Widnes have a better ground (which they never even get close to filling by the way) or because they might get relegated? Hull KR didn't.

I love to go to different grounds to see rugby. I don't want to watch us play Saints and Leeds 4 and 5 times a season - and I don't think others do either. Look at the crowd for the first Saints play off game in 2011. People get bored with watching the same teams.

As for the point that there isn't the talent to go around. Name names. That's an insult to decent hard working rugby players at the likes of Cas and Salford. Incidentally I assume you remember the Cas game this season, the same Cas that beat your Super League CHAMPIONS at home as well. Widnes who came bottom last year beat us as well I recall. Wigan fans can be accused of arrogance over this. We all assume that however small the league that we'll be in it. Might not have been the case under Ian Millward though might it?

It is not a cartel as Widnes proved. The NRL is more so despite the odd addition every now and again such as Melbourne but they also have have the Toyota Cup which is a successful competition in its own right. The Toyota Cup sides are semi-pro now just like our championship sides. That system works and there is no P&R and they would laugh at you if anyone suggested they should have it.



It's totally unfair to promote sides when all that will do is basically bankrupt them. Barrow is in crisis now. A few years ago when we still had P&R Whitehaven won the championship but declined promotion. They knew they could not support a SL team and that is true of virtually all the championship sides. The ones who might be able to such as Halifax know what they had to do to be considered for a license.

You are just living in a fantasy world if you think the financial side of the sport can be ignored and it's all about fairness and what happens on the pitch.



I don't want us to play Saints and Leeds 4 and 5 times a year either but enlarging the league to include clubs who aren't even as good as the ones at the bottom of SL isn't going to make the competition any more exciting. It's already true we expect to win against all bar about three or four teams and that is not arrogance it's fact as you can see from the results now we are half way through the season. The issue is competitiveness and while it's nice to win games do you really think beating Salford 42-0 and 46-6 reflects well on the games competitiveness? The draw v Wire was 100 times more exciting than either of those games and I don't see what reintroducing P&R will do to address this issue.



An insult to decent hard working RL players? Don't be so ridiculous. SL is losing its best players to the NRL and it doesn't matter how hard working they are, there aren't any Sam Tomkins hiding away in Barrow's first team. There might be the odd upset result throughout the season (we could come a cropper in London with our half backs out for example) but you know yourself Salford and Cas won't be contesting the grand final and probably not even the play offs. Adding more sides to SL by going for a 20 or 24 team league which the other two options mean isn't going to result in Cas or Salford being any better.

As to assuming we will always be in the league who has said that? I certainly don't assume if we had P&R we'd be immune and when in 2006 we looked like we could face the drop I was doing my nut about it because I for one knew the consequences of the drop.

Back then you got people coming out with tripe like it might be a good thing and a wake up call or its only fair if we aren't good enough etc and they seemed completely oblivious to the fact it would wreck the team and make Wigan release virtually every player on its books. Harrison Hansen and Lockers would have spend the last seven years playing for the likes of Leeds and Wire!

They also ignore the effect it has on the players in that they essentially become redundant and contracts they thought they had for two, three or more years got ripped up. An RL players career is short enough and insecure enough as it is but the idea they won't be able to have even the security of a three year contract as their team may get relegated is crazy. If you are concerned about the "decent hard working rugby players at the likes of Cas and Salford" have you thought about how P&R will affect their livelihoods? No one will be chasing the "decent hard working" rugby players from these clubs. One or two will move on like Chase at Cas but the rest will have no choice but to accept a huge pay cut as their club is restricted to a puny salary cap. What a fantastic professional sporting career RL offers!

I guess we are coming at this from totally different angles and probably won't agree on much. You make your points well but to me sport is as much about romance, passion and hope than it is about business. We ignore the games heritage at our peril. Clubs like Cas and Fev are the lifeblood of the game and need to be encouraged. That's one of the reasons I believe in the salary cap, ensuring a more equal share of the talent. I think that I'm more interested in fairness. Promotion should be earned on the field of play not in the boardroom. People turn away from the game if they see their dreams dashed and decisions made that are to do with business and not performance.

Yes under P&R clubs have financial problems, but it does seem like the tide of opinion is changing on that. Unlike in Aus and the US our sport has always had P&R it's part of the fun at the end of the season.

At the moment can you see Sheffield, Featherstone, or even Hunslet or Swinton contesting another Challenge Cup final? It would be impossible under the current system. By keeping Super League to 10 or 12 clubs with no hope for those outside earning promotion through their own efforts we are ruining the game for fans of all but the elite clubs.

By the way you seem awfully dismissive of 'decent hard working players'. RL players work harder than almost any sportsman both on the pitch in the game and off to maintain fitness. I'm sure that isn't your intention.

so the alternative answer is have P & R, but a team that gets promoted has to have a minimum stardard of facilities. Then they are given a 2 season exemption from relegation so they can build the club and academy set up...if they finish bottom in year 1 or 2 they can't be relegated and the next team above them without an exemption goes down..... so you could have the team in 12th and 11th who had been in the league 1 and 2 years respectively could not go down and the team finishing 10th gets relegated as they had been in the league a minimum of 3 seasons anyway....

I wished that Workington, had the same 3yrs grace as Catalans, things may have been different for them.

Great post. 1up1down just decimates the squad going down, and puts the club coming up in a position that they can't necessarily handle. The sport doesn't have the money to prop up things like that.

It's fine for clubs to aspire to hit the top. But if you think it's worthwhile to aim for a fleeting moment at the top at the cost of the club long term, it's madness.

Minimum stadium criteria isn't enough to secure that clubs stay where they won't self destruct, especially when finances are still sh/t for everyone at the moment.

Oh, and as for guaranteeing the club that gets promoted 3 years at the top, that just means we could be propping up a team that can't sustain themselves for three years at a time, whilst decimating 3 SL squads in the meantime. Rather than yoyoing 2-3 teams, we'll end up yoyoing 4+ at a time. That would create a cartel.

Surely it's for the promoted club themselves to decide if they take promotion. They've won that right on the pitch and no-one should be able to take away that right.

If you worked hard and got promoted at work but someone came along say from the board of directors, and looked at you and thought"No the last fellar who looked just like him made a hash of it, so for his own good I won't promote him. He can stay were he is for now and maybe in 3 years time when he's bought a better suit and he looks more like it I'll let him have his promotion".

Honestly, how would you feel?