Whether we're a Grade-A or Grade-B club, we are still a Super League club, which means that our future and the direction of travel remains in our own hands, no-one else's.

The key is to start behaving like a grown-up sporting organization, something which has been sadly absent for far too long unfortunately. The prime objective of any sporting club is on-field performance, winning matches basically! All of our other faults (as highlighted in this, admittedly flawed, system) will recede if we once more start winning a game more than once every Sheffield flood!!

It won't be easy, we are having to come from a long way back, and my suspicion is that 2025 will still be a difficult year to sit through, but we have to start the road back from somewhere.
We are probably now about as low as we can seriously afford to drop, barring a fall into complete oblivion, and so I would think our grading performance can only go back in an upwards direction again, but it really is linked to our on-field performance. I hope J. Cartwright realises the weight which will fall on his shoulders the moment his feet touch Hull terra-firma!!

Have wakefield scored more than us for performance despite finishing below us for each of the years of the measure? Clearly someone knowledgeable has come up with the criteria

I wonder if they failed on girth or length.

Wakefield got an A grade due to the 0.25 bonus points they got for winning the Championship Grand Final which is crackers.

If the club have been holding off a signing announcement then this evening might be a good time to do it.

At least people are now seeing what i have said all along that IMG are just speadsheet Charlies who have done nothing to enhance the game yet have already been paid £500000.
Its obvious to me they are not sustainable and clubs will force the RFL to act and remove them costing even more money.
Supporters are not interested in gradings its what happens on the field that counts and until someone new at the RFL comes in with some radical vision for the game like removing the salary cap and quotas to get more super stars into the UK game R/L in the UK will continue to stagnate.
We dont need every game televised that works against getting people into stadiums but what we do need is promotion and relegation.
I would even go with fourteen teams in S/L with 2 up 2 down so that there is a real incentive for building up a meaningful Championship division with automatic promotion for the Championship top team and auto relgation for the bottom two in S/L.
That way we would also have an exciting end of season Championship play off for the second promotion place unlike now which counts for nothing but an IMG tick

it wont be difficult to see an on field improvement as last season we were dire but its exciting entertaining R/L the fans want to watch but this is a team of average joes so if you want excitement you wont get it.
Dull,boring but more competitive yes

Only in RL would you be rewarded for failure

Which takes the Championship winners points slightly over the points allocated to the team finishing bottom of SL that's the incentive for the champoinship clubs and also for SL clubs to finish higher in the SL table.

Remove the salary cap and you'll end up with what they have in union with clubs overspending and going pop. The game isn't rich enough to have no spending limits.

I agree on the televising of games. I probably watched less games last year than previous years as there was so much dross on it was counter productive for me.

P&R is fine if the teams coming up offer more than the relegated teams but if you had 4 team SL with 2 P&R you'll end up with effectively what would be the current 3rd and 4th best teams in the championship coming up then the competition as a whole would be pretty poor

But ridiculous that wakefield finished lower than Hull in the 3 years the points are scored for yet ended up with more points.

Just a thought, do we move games back to Friday nights just to get the TV number up?? More casual viewers on a Friday night, yea it's a random thought but it seems this system needs a box ticket mindset

Plus the LED screen always seems to be a better quality picture at night matches. You get the cinema effect.

The points allocated for winning the championship should be set against the rest of the championship teams. Well done to Wakey but there's a reason you played in the championship last season and we are in SL. Despite the horror show over the last few years we remain a SL club. For now at least.

Yep fair point

Ultimately, in RL 2024, you finished in 13th place and your performance rating for 2024 should be reflected accordingly. Also, how can you receive points for winning a trophy (1895 Cup) that twelve clubs weren't eligible to compete in. Although I did enjoy watching you make more noise at Wembley than the Wigan and Wire fans! (I stayed back to watch your rather one-sided stroll to victory).

Anyway, welcome back after your little sojourn away for twelve months, I suspect we will be locking horns in 2025, anxiously watching each others results!

That's just ridiculous!! I didn't realise that.

I've no axe to grind against Wakey as they are getting things right both on and off the pitch and will be as asset to SL but an A grade? no chance.

Does it really matter? If the club think we bring in more revenue on weekends I don’t think an extra 0.1 of a point will change anything. Also, the bigger the crowds the more points we get for stadium utilisation, so you could chase the TV viewing figure points on by picking the best kick off viewing spot but end up losing more points then you’ve gained if the crowds drop because that kick off time might not be convient for match going fans.

I keep banging on about it but looking on the performance points breakdowns, if you take away the performance points Wigan only score the same as Wakefield for all the off field stuff, I doubt they’re losing sleep about it. Look after the performance stuff first and everything else will look after itself. We really don’t need to over think it.

I don’t think any of us would argue that we aren’t deserving of a B grade due to our appalling on field performances. However the whole grading idea and method for me is completely flawed and not worth the paper it’s written on.
It’s great to see Wakey back in SL but the fact they have gained performance points in a league lower and a competition SL clubs weren’t eligible for just doesn’t sit right. Again the loss of points due to not being able to include the suburbs/surrounding area for both ourselves and KR and two clubs in the same city despite both achieving very good attendances. Thats before we get on to the screen issue and viewing figures etc, all of which point to me that the IMG grading is pointless and a worthless expensive exercise.

Hopefully having being downgraded to B will have an impact on us in terms of refocusing and getting the mindset reset and flushing out the general malaise within the club.

All in all as much as the likes of Cas have made some changes to their ground the Jungle still is light years away from the modern stadia requirements set out years ago and they haven’t performed much better than ourselves either yet are grade A due to the skewed logic in the grading.

For all Bonaire gets ridiculed for negativity but on the subject of IMG and their input into turning the sport around I think he’s been pretty much spot on in his view.

The game can ill afford to lose money but at £450K per year over 10 years to IMG the sport is literally haemorrhaging cash that it will simply not get back. I’m do believe in the old adage you have to speculate to accumulate but there’s not a cat in hells chance this IMG will offer anything remotely like value for money and it’s simply another in the long list of white elephants and hair brained schemes by clueless RFL and SL chairmen.

In relation to the 1895 Cup only 4 clubs out of SL could qualify for the Challenge Cup so in essence over 20 clubs are excluded from playing a SL side is that right?

Yes we took a lot to Wembley it reflects how far we have come since relegation. The owner has put in 2 to 3 million (his words) on and off the pitch so we are looking pretty good going forwards

Although I don't think it is central to IMG's remit to incentivise investment in player pathways, it is still included as a minimum requirement. Based on the proposed standards from March, Clubs that don't have an RFL-approved Talent and Performance Pathway lose 0.25 in the first year that is the case, 0.5 in the second and a whole grade (e.g. A to B) in the third and thereafter.

Onfield performance would have been better based on games won, rather than finishing places, imo. Maybe a Championship win being worth 0.4 of a SL win or something like that.

Edit: Is there any evidence that the £500k paid for IMG services is an annual, ongoing commitment?

500k p/a is pennies for big consultancy work. Probably got a few oxbridge interns coming up with all this guff, which would explain a lot.

Someone once showed a picture of the IMG “team”.
Intern was the word that sprang to my mind.

When will we ever see the new owner of FC being announced ?
Didn’t I read Adam was going to clarify ownership details very soon ?
I’m in Hull for another week
Glorious weather !

Don’t think I’ve ever seen any quotes from anyone regarding clarifying ownership. Lots of people are reasoning that they wouldn’t organise a fans forum and dinner event for early November after the season we’ve had without some good news announced first, I absolutely think they’d be capable of being so tone deaf though and people are giving them far too much credit.