loverugbyleague.com/blogpost_602 ... ction.html Well said that man! Absoulutely spot on IMO

loverugbyleague.com/blogpost_602 ... ction.html Well said that man! Absoulutely spot on IMO

I really like Peacock, despite his not so great presence in front if the camera, I think he is a very intelligent man, who has real drive and ambition. When he does hang his boots up I would love to see him go into a real administrative position with the RFL not a token appointment either.

Knowing the RFL though they will fall over themselves to give John Wilkin a role because he looks good on TV, despite having 0 substance.

Spot on but we've not got anybody with the balls to make it happen. The people in charge at the RFL are living on easy street looking after number one whilst the game slowly fades.

When Wigan RLFC are a feeder club for other leagues and even another sport you know there's a issue. Our chairman does leave us slightly open to these raids IMO but still his hands are tied sometimes.

We need 2 divisions of ten, we need less games but with higher quality in the regular rounds. We need a proper and fair play off system. We need promotion and relegation. We need the challenge cup final brought forward to May/June with regular rounds before to build up interest. We need a rise to the cap so that teams who can afford it, spend it and if you can't then have an official in charge who can control your financies properly and not get you in to trouble.

There's so many changes the game needs to make its untrue. We've spent years trying to please everyone rather then worrying about the overall health of the game. We need change and quickly, it would pi*s some clubs right off but sadly there would have to be casualties along the way to make the game stronger.

Where's Maurice Lindsay when you need him!

My estimation of Jamie Peacock has gone up a thousand times.

But look at some of the goons responding to him.

All the usual bitterness and drivel of a tail that is determined to keep on wagging the dog.

That's the problem. The game will never move on because we're sh*t scared of upsetting the little guy.

Spot on. A very good argument that ought to be listened to by the powers that be.

What a quality article.

Shame about the responses which basically plead poverty for the lower clubs.

Sometimes I wish Thatcher would have been a rugby administrator than a PM.

Sick to death of those with zero ambition holding back the people with the vision to shoot for the stars.

At the end of the day, of course, it's in the interest of the poverty row clubs to see the game's top stars keep defecting. It gives them more of a chance to compete.

I sympathise with their predicament to a degree - I hated it when Wigan were in the Second Division, I despaired when we were facing relegation all over again - but I totally agree with Peacock that the game as a whole is losing its gloss, and maybe soon will lose its appeal to our TV benefactors.

This idea that there shouldn't be winners and losers is ridiculous frankly, and alien to the basic concept of professional sport. Why everyone the game as a whole has to suffer because three or four clubs continually can't get their act together is beyond me.

Spot on.

It's fanciful, head in the clouds bull cr@p from the RFL to think we can seriously move the game forward with a level playing field.

All it ever does is create a situation where the teams that could be world class become simply good and the average teams remain average but the gap they have to bridge becomes smaller. BTW none of them ever go on to win anything anyway.

What the RFL should be doing is backing the sides that could be world class and creating British power house clubs like Wigan, Warrington, Leeds, Saints & Hull FC. If clubs like Salford get sound financial backing then let them come along for the ride as well.

That's where our game should be. It should be a game where everyone strives to be the best club in the world and not simply satisfied they are in the top flight.

Well said that man! Someone who knows how the future of this league will go if we carry on down this path!

Someone needs to bite the bullet and risk upsetting the status quo for the future of our game.

Spot on, except I'd have everyone playing each other thrice, which would result in the same amount of games as we have now hence no lost revenue

How do you decide which teams get the drop to initially set-up the two ten team leagues? Would they all agree? Would Sky fund both? If so, that's a further dilution of tv money, not an increase. If Sky only funded the top league where does that leave the second tier? We've struggled for sponsorship for the league now, what happens when you double the problem?

I see the draw of a smaller top tier with regards to playing 'big' games. There's no indication that the Club's at the lower end of that league will not form the exact same thing that happens currently. Strugglers and and non-strugglers. If it was to be drastically changed in structure how do you level the playing field so that the initial top ten teams start on equal footing? If you don't give everyone an equal start you're left with 'Big' Clubs and 'Smaller' Clubs, just like now. A smaller number of teams will have exclusive access to the already small pool of quality players available in the UK resulting in stronger squads. How does that level the playing field for teams that gain promotion? How does creating a ten team SL not isolate every other professional RL Club? SL is already elitist in its current form, reducing the teams makes it even more distant and selective.

Testing times.

What JP's proposal does is allows the big clubs to use their money to buy/retain quality players rather than letting them all go to union/Australia. I'm convinced there's enough money at Wigan, Saints, Wire, Leeds, Hull FC and Salford to make this work. Will it be 6 great teams and 4 strugglers? Possibly, but that's no worse than what we have now. This is our best chance of stoping the rot IMO

the problem is we are not letting successful teams retain the best players. In sport there are winners and losers, not everyone gets a gold medal for just entering the olympics. Sponsors like to be associated with winners, it is up to those that are not winning to improve and raise the profile of the sport as a whole. The way we are being led by the RFL is to drag the best teams down to the level of the worst in order to create this "eutopia" of a level playing field for all teams to be able to win the Grand Final.

I wasn't suggesting it was a bad idea, I could just think of lots and lots of reasons why it would never come off. As it currently stands anyway. Raising the cap to 2m would barely make any difference with regards to the exodus of talent. The cap is already way bigger for both NRL and Union. Although, imo, the big reason British players will always go down under is the fact that their product is simply better than ours and they want to play at the top of their game. You couple this with a raise in cap levels in the NRL, and now you have teams looking to bring in the cream of British RL because it's value for money. It's almost as if raising the cap has helped richer Clubs retain the world-class pool of players to everyone else's detriment. Who'd have thought it eh?

So the knock-on effect is that lesser NRL teams skim-off our best players. Raising the cap over here will have to be done to stop the rot, but it will have the same effect of pooling the best players to a small elite of clubs. Therefore passing the problem down the line again. There's no real solution I can think of, but part of me feels like neglecting teams lower on the rung will only ultimately bring about our own downfall.