Danny McGuire being mentioned, don't know what to think about that. I know it didn't work out with Mash but I think I'd give Lingard a shot.

The fuss will only arise when a Cat B team wins the championship but is prevented from coming up because a Cat A club finishes bottom (I think that's how it works). So, to get promotion, you have to win, but also get lucky with timing.

In the top flight, probably only really Cas who will be Cat B, and whoever goes up this year.

Salford Cat A club?

I think it will be a very long time before there are 12 cat A clubs. Fev certainly aren't. Not sure about Huddersfield or Salford either.

And winning championship literally gets you 0.1 less points than the bottom team in SL. If you win GF you get an extra 0.25 so not a winning score considering your engagement score will be lower.

Or Leigh
HKR are a high Cat B and are probably closets to making A grade out of the B's next being Hudds in SL (Wigan/Saints/Leeds/Warrington/Hull/Catalan being the nailed on CAT A's)

Cas will be going into next season in the same boat we sank in.

Correct
There’s talk of them cutting their playing budget for next season and so at the moment their squad doesn’t look great…
As the RWB Facebook post on here said .. they will be better spending what monies they have spare on doing their stadium up in an attempt to cobble together some more points

And that's why this whole new system is a joke. They only want clubs with cash and aren't as bothered about the quality of the rugby.

I’m not a fan of it either…
But we need to be all over the grading
The stadium and the investment gives us a chance

But the point is, great rugby without all the other stuff just degenerates.
You won't have a feasible enough club to pay for the great rugby. They'll all be playing in Oz or RU.

No, that's not how it works. Beyond the category A clubs (and I doubt there will be more than 5 or 6 of those to begin with) it's just who has the highest IMG points score amongst the category B clubs. So it could be, for example, the team finishing 3rd in the Championship replacing the team finishing 10th in SL (though in practice it will be hard for clubs that have been in the Championship to score higher than clubs that have been in SL).

What on earth has happened to the "sport".

The whole IMG idea, while potentially improving facilities, is ripping the soul from the game.
Success should never be about numbers of plastic seats or tweets, it should be about what happens on the field (results).

As for Cas, their ground improvements ain't gonna happen by the end of next season, which , under the new points system, could give them a huge problem.

It isn't about the number of plastic seats.
The criteria is about raising the opportunity for more income to strengthen the game.
Right now most teams rely on a benefactor who could pull out at any time and Sky money which is reducing fast.
Teams will go to the wall quickly without other revenue streams.
All the criteria is focused towards achieving that as far as I can see.

We know ourselves, even when we had a team to compete at the top in 79/80 we were getting crowds as low as 2k.
The stadium wasn't appropriate. There was no facilities to advertise, the press would come already thinking it will be difficult to make it sound good.
Teams weren't moving forward and certainly wouldn't have installed a fancy digital advertising board around the field, but the revenue generated from that 'can' be massive, selling by the minute rather than for the season.

Clearly league position and quality of rugby should be first objective, but if you don't do the others it will just fall apart.

I agree to a point.
However, since the start of SL, most clubs are now plating in new or, massively improved stadia.
I've no issue with minimum standards to be part of SL. However, RL is a sport and success should be measured in the field of play.
For anyone as cynical as me, once we start promoting clubs based on "other criteria" it makes the game itself unimportant, which is the opposite of what any sport should be.
We could have the lunacy of the top club in the Championship not getting promoted and a club from 5th spot taking a spot in the top flight because of ground improvements or having a new wealthy backer.
Sorry PT but, it's fundamentally wrong.
I'm all for IMG and or the governing body helping clubs improve their business but, we need to be really careful about what is happening with the game.