Welcome Devontiger.
Absolutely agree with your post 100%, gone have the days of bragging rights over hard earned league points, now its fans bickering over things that should mean so much less, but this is what the RFL have caused and what we have to live with, we all know its ultimately futile, but to save the honour of our club we indulge, huge shame!!!!!

I agree with Devon Tiger too. Let's stop this backbiting between our fans please !!!

I'm with you on this one too.

I am fearful for the day when clubs like Cas Wakey Fev Halifax etc etc cease to exist due to the way the RFL allow a media company to dictate our sport, trying without success to spead the game to area's of the country where RL is not the chosen sport in an attempt to sell Sky subscriptions, in the mean time the heartland clubs have gone out of business.

We the rugby league family need to stick together and make a stand - yep by all means expand our game but not at the expense of the heart of the sport

Id like nothing more than us and cas to be in super league together. I get 100X more excitement than when crusaders or quins come to belle vue. Best match of year for me us against cas.

It's a noble and oft-repeated plea, but it won't happen; as soon as the propagandists and WUM's on either side home in on this type of discussion, it quickly descends into a slanging match.

Gasbag will be here anytime soon, to prove me right...

Licencing has turned fan against fan, I hope the RFL are proud of their creation.

The thing is, everybody is just wrapped up in it way too much and its almost impossible not to repond.
I would say everyone at one point or another has got involved in a needless argument with either with either a rival or fellow supporter about something off field/franchised/ground related.
That is what the RFL have lowered us all to, so much for the family game, you don't turn on your family.
I may report the RFL to Childline for being an abusive parent!!!

Agree DT.

But this is what happens when you have a governing body that state someone is being dropped and its not to be decided on the pitch im afraid.

The fans as a whole should get together and try to have this abolished and back to P&R however it wont happen as everyones happy to see others go down so long as its not them.

He who pays the piper, etc.

The reality is that we need Sky. They do a great job with the coverage and I would hate to see them go.

The problem is the greed of the heartland clubs, not Sky.
I am sure Sky want to broadcast games. It encourages subscriptions and they get good audiences. If Sky say they will hand over £50 million if the RFL will expand the game, the clubs could always say no. Sky have taken the game forward and arguably saved it from ruin. If there is anyone to blame, it is the clubs for agreeing to it.

Once you decide on expansion, you are stuck with franchising, because you can't expand with the threat of relegation, or else you end up with the ridiculous situation in 2006, where the club who went down didn't finish bottom.

Personally, I'm not bothered about expansion, but the clubs have agreed that it is the price they pay for the money they want to receive.

No it hasn't, there has always been annimosity between fans but it used to be less spiteful and about the game itself (results,tactics, players) rather than peripherals such as stadia, attendances, salary caps and the other corporate crap. That banter, like the sport itself, offered us escape from the worries and demands imposed by commercialism/materialism but nowadays we bitch about franchises and funding until the cash cows come home.

Here I am, but if you bothered to read posts instead of being petty you will have noticed on numerous occasions I've said the RFL are doing franchising wrong and the way they are trying to do it will kill the game.

There's only one way a franchise system works, and that is how American sports & NRL do it - you get your core set of 14 teams settled, be that however long and then you expand OUT from there, you don't kick teams out over petty things such as stadia. The only way teams can be financially secure and in new stadia is to give them time to do so, these 3 year periods put undue pressure on teams to build stadia and potentially put them in financial disarray.

The problem is, as I said, the RFL's version of franchising is wrong and they need a serious rethink of the setup, the current 14 teams should be safe until they fold and teams should be added when the league is stable enough to be able to cope with the intake of new teams.

Another thing the RFL are doing wrong is the expansion, the current shotgun method they have of planting teams willynilly in random areas is clearly not working and the logical way would be to start a gradual spread with a bottom up approach, gradually work outwards from the heartlands by adding more junior teams and working up from there, this is the best way for expansion to work because not only does it make sense, it means there's a foundation in place for when there's a professional team formed in the future.

It's just a shame such a great sport has such an incompetent governing body who are more concerned with how a stadium looks rather than what the product on the pitch is like.




The fans of any team/teams relegated should get together and sue the RFL because I'm pretty sure any court would find the franchise criteria (2 different sets for different teams...) would be unfair/illegal and the fans would win, easily. I say fans because the RFL know this and have banned clubs from taking legal action, doesn't that show just how wrong they KNOW franchising is?

If you don't wish to add to the topic then don't, if its too difficult to understand ask a grown up.

Who's your son?

I am afraid that although i hope the league is expanded to 16, i just can't see it.

I am resigned to watching us in the championship but that is not a bad thing because it will get us back to propper rugby and hopefully we would be challenging for honours at that level.

sad to say I am in full agreement... from 13000 miles away I get up and listen to games against castleford, Bradford, Lededs Hull Saints Wigan et al... I will often not even pick up results of the games against the french, Welsh and Londoners... for two or three days... the last two times Trinity played on tv against the crusaders I didnt even watch the game on highlight...

they just dont get the pulses racing...