Completely agree with this, since the franchise system came into place the league has become boring if you are at the lower end of the table, there is no purpose to play as you will not be relegated, in my opinion nothing for the teams in the lower league to play for either as it is at the discretion of the RFL who comes up, which is completely wrong. Watching that game from 2006 really brought home what this game is about. Two LOCAL communities coming together to support their teams in the battle for survival in Super League, the best team on the day stays up! Not if your ground is good enough, or your marketing department or if you dont have another club within 20 miles of you utter garbage what the RFL are doing and i am fast loosing my appetite for the great game because of the morons at Redhall tring to make a name for themselves and write their names into the history book!

agree! the bottom end of the leaue teams should not only use the 'free time' to develop their youth, and i believe for franchise to really work and ensure every team has the ability to win titles then there should be a drafting type system as used in the NFL!! problem is i am not sure how hey could implement it on the SL!

You can bring youngsters through as well as have P+R in my opinion. Just force teams to have set number of players that are club trained and home grown and only 2 or maybe 3 overseas players. You can have the exictitment of P+R and more youngsters come through.

There is a arguement that P+R helps the teams to produce young players would Shenton have got a chance in 2005 without relagation or Owen and Westerman in 2007?

So what are the benefits of the franchise system? We still get smashed by the Aussies - No change there then. The expansion clubs continue to be in the bottom part of the league (Catalans finished 3 in 2008 i think) with little support - No change there then. So why have it?

P&R is part and parcel of sport, always has been. If you go down, take it on the chin, work bloody hard and earn you right to be promoted, not some to****s decide it for you!

The way the RFL "looks after" the expansion clubs is a disgrace!

The idea behind the franchise system is to ensure that teams have a business model in place and the RFL can fully assess that a club is ready for the top flight. The idea behind it is a good one to be fair but it takes away but as I have mentioned it takes away a lot of excitement.

Also no one can tell me the RFL were confident that the Crusaders were ready for Super League in 2008 and if they did then someones head needs to roll.

You could argue all day about the pro cons of promotion and relagation and the franchise system and I can see the logic in both but for me as a fan I believe P + R just makes the product so much more appealing.

Have to agree...it's not the same without P+R....perhaps we could have a poll to see how many of us on here are in favour of it coming back ?? (Not that the RFL will listen to us fans )

Anyone fancy starting a thread ??

Would that be the expansion club at Wrexham who finished above us in the league last year and beat us at home? The same expansion club who assembled just about a full squad good enough to win 3 more games than us within a few weeks of the season starting?

Or was it the expansion club from South France, the side that got to within 7 points of the Grand Final 2 years ago (after beating us at BV), the same season they got to the Challenge Cup Final? The expansion side with no fans who averaged well over 3,000 more than us 2 years ago and well over 1,000 more than us last year?

Or perhaps it was the expansion club from London who's squad has only 5 overseas players (compared to our 9)? The expansion club that recent England Internationals Tony Clubb, Chris Melling Rob Purdham & LMS played for (at the time of playing for England obviously)?

There are plenty of decent arguments against franchising but no fans, crap performance and contribution to competition of the expansion clubs are deffinately NOT 3 of them.

Let's not be too quick to compare last years performances because as we now know there were extenuating circumstances which lead to our drastic fall in performances and results in the second half of the season.

Had we continued the way we started we would have comfortably made the play offs as we did the year before.

And flopped out to an expansion team infront of a poor crowd, if memory serves.

It's nowt to do with the RFL and whilst they won't do us any favours can we really blame them?

Forgive me if this has been posted elsewhere, but I think an awful lot of people are missing a huge point about the franchising system.
I agree it was brought in to safeguard the future of the so called expansion clubs, but whether by skill of the RFL or simple good fortune it also prevents something else from happening. Anyone guessed it yet??

Look at the timing of the whole franchise system. Promotion and relegation meant that anyone could be relegated, however it was always the same teams struggling over and over. That was until Wigan had an absolute stinker and came within a whisker of being relegated. Without employing the tactics which they did, Wigan; in my opinion, would have been relegated. The consequences of this would have been massive for the RFL. The loss of income as well as the prestige of a club that size going down could have been catastrophic for the RFL. The only way to make sure a "big" club could never be relegated again was to bring in franchising and keep the smaller clubs fighting for the scraps from the table. The RFL, along with our own respective BoD's took the bait and in the process sold the game down the river with franchising. It hasn't been the same since and it never will until we rid ourselves of this artificial abomination.

What is the average home attendance of the Crusaders and Harlequins?

Your correct it was the team from Wrexham that finished above us with a team assembled full of Aussies with far more than any other team was allowed just before the season started, the same team that 3 competant super league coaches on their rosta and the same team who had to send players back midway through a season for not having correct permits the one before. Level playing field would be nice!

The Catalan have done well since they came in i agree, but the fact they were allowed to stay in for three years at the start was just a joke, what other sport would do that?

And as for Tony Clubb, Chris Melling and Rob Purdham hardly International class are they Tommy?

While the RFL continue to support these clubs, teams like us have no chance.

Well if you don't consider Rob Purdham International class, or indeed Tony Club potentially international class then we have very differing opinions and I would say your judgement is in question. Chris Melling I will give you though!

The point is, both London and Catalan offer 'more' than we do to the sport in general in my opinion. Regardless of wether you agree or not exposure in London is the only way the game will ever become more than a minority sport played in pit towns in the North of England, so without them in the league the overall attractiveness of the competition is less therefore the TV rights will be less as the advertising exposure is probably less, therefore less money for the clubs. Catalan are a success whatever way you look at it, yes they have a few extra imports but there crowds and onfield success are proof of this.

The only borderline one is Celtic, and if indeed the RFL have screwed us over with the payment plan with HMRC when they went into administration then that does stink, but at the moment there is no proof of this. They are a brand new team that have had financial problems and other off field issues due to their mismanagement recently, sound farmiliar?

Regardless of if its fair or not we have had more than enough time to get our house in order and only ourselfes to blame for our poor crowds, financial problems, terrible import record, poor ground etc....

With a head start of 107 years of Harlequins and 120+ on Crusaders, I'd hope ours were massively higher than them both?



Compared to number of England internationals filling our ranks?

Tommy is right, we need to get our own house in order, and we have needed to do that for the last couple of decades.