It's what we at Bury have really needed to know! Today the RFL sent out details for next years Tier 4 and yes - there will be an interim winter season!!! www.pitchero.com/clubs/burybronc ... 20326.html

It's what we at Bury have really needed to know! Today the RFL sent out details for next years Tier 4 and yes - there will be an interim winter season!!! www.pitchero.com/clubs/burybronc ... 20326.html

Fairly major development, especially when taken into account with the NCL's plans to set-up new divisions to their clubs A teams.

It's significant as it may allow winter teams to start to plan for summer. There are two bid barriers to switching if a winter side...

1) the season has traditionally been too short to sustain a club

2) in making the switch, the time gap between the last winter game and the first summer game would be too long...

Hopefully, these plans now allow winter sides to plan their own transition. My concern remains that some winter sides wanted summer, but because of the lack of certainty they have started to drift 'back' to being winter clubs only. There will need to be a critical mass in summer to run a March to November league and hopefully some more sides will start to come over...

We'll be in, the sooner we move away from the existing conference shambles and it's defaulting teams the better.

Yeah we will be going for it too.

If, as seems likely the NCL clubs have their 'A' sides in a separate league will there be enough teams for the proposed 4 league regional set-up though?

Seems to me there will still need to be a major shift in direction from the winter only clubs to make the proposed regional league anything like viable, especially the 4 division format they've laid out. If not then, as JTB says, the shambles of the current summer conference might continue.

Quote: Morning Glory "If, as seems likely the NCL clubs have their 'A' sides in a separate league will there be enough teams for the proposed 4 league regional set-up though? Seems to me there will still need to be a major shift in direction from the winter only clubs to make the proposed regional league anything like viable, especially the 4 division format they've laid out. If not then, as JTB says, the shambles of the current summer conference might continue.'" that's what i was getting at here: www.pitchero.com/clubs/burybronc ... 16395.html to get the winter clubs to switch they need to a) make sure the administration is right! if you're a NWC club looking at this years Prem as a model for how next year will run then you're not going to fancy a switchover! b) the comms needs to be better - the comms have to be to the right people at the clubs and to encourage them to make the move...it's no good repeating the results of the survey and saying 'there is demand' as players do not run clubs or sides - the RFL now need to persuade the club administrators that the move is the right one by communicating with them more. As I say - we need the critical mass for it to work and that's in all of our interest.

Quote: Morning Glory "If, as seems likely the NCL clubs have their 'A' sides in a separate league will there be enough teams for the proposed 4 league regional set-up though? Seems to me there will still need to be a major shift in direction from the winter only clubs to make the proposed regional league anything like viable, especially the 4 division format they've laid out. If not then, as JTB says, the shambles of the current summer conference might continue.'" that's what i was getting at here: www.pitchero.com/clubs/burybronc ... 16395.html to get the winter clubs to switch they need to a) make sure the administration is right! if you're a NWC club looking at this years Prem as a model for how next year will run then you're not going to fancy a switchover! b) the comms needs to be better - the comms have to be to the right people at the clubs and to encourage them to make the move...it's no good repeating the results of the survey and saying 'there is demand' as players do not run clubs or sides - the RFL now need to persuade the club administrators that the move is the right one by communicating with them more. As I say - we need the critical mass for it to work and that's in all of our interest.

yep we'll be there

NCL met last night - accepted an application from West Bank I believe and also agreed to take their A sides to summer. Did they state any view on whether they'd have their own A team comp or whether they'd integrate into a wider league...?

A teams are apparently forming their own leagues. It makes sense to some extent if they pool travel and play other second teams if that's the plan. My gut feeling though is the RFL will have a half d idea around that which won't work and the 2nd teams will end up being pooled into tier 4.

My thought is that the 13 or so a teams in Nwc would guarantee the critical mass for a new summer comp. Quality varies of course...Crosfields were very poor when they came to us in Div 5 and obviously Easts and Miners are vey good - but that quality could encourage Div 1 and 2 sides from NwC to switch

At Thatto Heath we're are keeping our options very much open. Having just finished 4th in Division 1 and fulfilled all of our fixtures we have some very real concerns about the playing standards and commitments of some of the other NCL A teams. We have committed to giving the A team league a go for this short transition season as there was nothing else on the table and time was pressing. It may prove to be a success but it is our gut feeling is it will not provide us with a consistently good standard of competition that our A team lads have earned the right to play at with their success over the past few seasons. I know that Leigh East have a few reservations too www.totalrl.com/forums/index.php ... try2283271 - see post 9 & 10. Hopefully by March 2012 there will be a good base of the current NWC sides from the upper divisions as well as some of the stronger sides from the current RLC to make this proposed RFL run Tier 4 competition strong and competitive.

At Thatto Heath we're are keeping our options very much open. Having just finished 4th in Division 1 and fulfilled all of our fixtures we have some very real concerns about the playing standards and commitments of some of the other NCL A teams. We have committed to giving the A team league a go for this short transition season as there was nothing else on the table and time was pressing. It may prove to be a success but it is our gut feeling is it will not provide us with a consistently good standard of competition that our A team lads have earned the right to play at with their success over the past few seasons. I know that Leigh East have a few reservations too www.totalrl.com/forums/index.php ... try2283271 - see post 9 & 10. Hopefully by March 2012 there will be a good base of the current NWC sides from the upper divisions as well as some of the stronger sides from the current RLC to make this proposed RFL run Tier 4 competition strong and competitive.

That is exactly the mentality that we are trying to avoid. Our A team was our NWC 1st team and we had ambitions of getting them into the NWC Premier as this would lessen the gap between the NCL team and NWC team - and the results of this have been seen on the field with the NCL Team. We don't want to recruit players to play soley for our A team, we want them to be able to make the step up to play in the NCL team too - this is reflected in the fact that we have just appointed the BARLA GB Assistant Coach as Head Coach of our A Team. We have a real fear that all the hard work in moving up the league could be destoryed if we end up playing only 3 or 4 competitive games per season and is something we will strive to avoid at all costs.

The only problem having a second team of this standard is that it means there aren't the playing opportunities for some of the lads who come down and aren't the best players or lads that come through the youth set-up that struggle to make the jump up to the high standard straight away. That is why we tried to get a third team off the ground last year and is something that we will certainly be looking to establish more sucessfully in the future.

Have you looked at the Summer merit league for something like this?