AP was doing a Hudgell in the Sun yesterday, having a moan about 14 teams been too many and not a big enough player pool. He's probably realised that rugbys not like football where you just have to flash the cash and the players yours, even the skint clubs can't afford to lose players as there's no one about to replace them I guess.

Sod that, follow the Leeds model. Peak at the right time, 2 finals and two wins from 5th. Wigan bombed in 2 semi-finals.

Could well be the case, but there's still a) the cost of the card being made, and b) the club being at the mercy of the fixture list. Home games are not necessarily distributed evenly over the season, so people may cancel early if the bulk of home games have gone. Then there's also the form factor. If we have a poor season, how many will decide to cancel their DDs and write the season off? That's lost revenue that the current options secure for the club.

All clubs do a season long installment plan, its called buying a ticket on game day. The whole point of season passes is so a club has as much money in the bank at the beginning of the season to allow them to budget correctly for the year,

The only way a season long payment scheme would work is to allow to pay for next years pass in advance, this would mean prices for the following season would need to be set at the beginning of this one.

how much is a pass in NL1?

You really trust him?

a very valid point, and probably something that most people forget

Limiting the competition and finger pointing the small player pool is a very parochial and introverted way at looking at the problem. For the long term health of the competition, we need to expand the player pool, and expand the supporting base. All the chairmen are trying to grasp as much of the sky cash as possible, which is good for the short term health of their club, but terrible for the sport as a whole.

As long as I can remember, there has been some awful players plying their trade in the top division so I don't understand the argument fully. I think the lack of certain positions coming through are due to the changes in the way the game is played, rather than participation levels. I also think the lower division is as good as I can remember it being, and there are plenty of players within that comp capable of playing Super League.

You all trusted "uncle Kath" once!!

That turned out well