You only have to make the Championship GF to be eligible to apply so if, for the sake of argument, Fax win the NRC this season and us and Leigh make the GF, what have we got to play for for the next two seasons, other than a bit of money? We've ticked the box and so have two others, so we can't have the place to ourselves. Rubbish.

I'm a fan on franchises just not this system. Needs to be a better system in place were it's on a year-on-year basis. Not the 3-4 year gap we have now. However, sadly, we've just got to deal with the conditions the RFL has set and do what we need to.

We was 80 minutes away from being able to apply last year. Let's move on and get there this year, tick that box and improve our crowds to tick the 2,500 box too.

I know I've been defending the franchise system on here but I do agree with you Liam that the current model isn't the right way to go about it. Fans are being switched off and that elusive 2,500 average crowd may as well be 10,000 to some teams. I initially thought it was the right way to go but the more I think about it the more I think it's not as good as it could and should be. Three years might be a good length of time to find your feet in the top flight but it's a long time kicking your heels in the lower division.

The whole franchises thing for me is best summed up by the announcements earlier this season that Widnes had been awarded a 'franchise'

A club got promoted by a bloke stood on a podium, reading a piece of paper on sky sports news. If that's sport then i'm african. It was absolutely panned by the media and rightly so.

Show us some links HL because I don't remember the media "panning" it? Ignoring it yes.

Here is what I suggested in a similar discussion recently on VT, I believe it's the best compromise:


"Promotion and relegation occurs every second season.

Whoever accumulates (over two seasons) the fewest points is relegated from SL, and the highest is promoted from NL1.

Then, the second lowest of SL plays off against the 2nd highest in NL1 to determine if another team drops. This one-off match is hosted by the NL1 team (some little compensation for the fact that they will argue that they can't afford a roster as good as SL teams)."

They'd be well within their rights to argue that very fact, they'd probably get pasted.

Absolutely right. Exactly why the promotion/relegation play-off was dropped. Waste of time at NL1/NL2 level and it'd be even worse at SL/CC level.

[sizeDamn - I'm agreeing with ESO again.[/size