Why oh why oh why did you do that Charlie C?
That's a definite London win and Leigh to finish in the top 4 now as Charlie knows nowt these days.

FD I'm not putting Leigh down, we have taken big strides to even get into contention for the top 4,KP has worked wonders,for me we will finish on 32 points ,2 wins against Swinton and Sheff,this week end will reveal all, the Fax V Toulouse, and Fev v London games should be corkers,as you rightly say a great advert for this League and games nobody deserves to lose.

Yes, the difference regarding "prize" money is more of concern if we don't qualify. From a fixture prospective, the only opposition I'd look forward to seeing re the Super League teams are Leeds, with Widnes and Salford unlikely to bring hardly any fans and even Hull KR's away support isn't great.

But Toulouse failed to qualify last season yet still managed to carry on where they left off. One of their supporters posted on message on here saying they were financially sound due to a healthy network of sponsors and Toulouse did not have a sugar daddy.

Hopefully if we do fail to qualify, we can still kick on ourselves and build a community atmosphere at the Shay and gradually grow the fan base. We want to be going into these qualifiers with a fighting chance of getting promoted in future years rather than just making up the numbers.

Too right, Charlie, and I think the middle 8s is a great concept. If it means a third of Super League getting relegated, then so be it. It will make BOTH leagues stronger and will even filter down to League 1.

The only downside is that if you don't qualify you're consigned to this absurd end of season Champion Shield that doesn't have the Championship's best 4 teams in it.

I still think a far better idea would be to have the old style top 5 play off, with the GF winners getting promoted and the losing finalists having a play off against the 2nd bottom of Super League. That way you will have 5 interested Championship teams, a definite relegation/promotion and a chance of a 2nd relegation/promotion. Also STOP the season for the other 7 Championship clubs. With the play off having less fixtures than the Middle 8s, then the regular season can be extended (possibly having 14 teams in the league).

I'm not sure it is.

We'll have to wait and see.

Snag with that is that it's very difficult for a team gaining promotion via the play-off route to recruit for the following season, being six weeks behind nearly everyone else.

Sure, we had this for a few years between Divs 2 and 3. Batley were in it annually, it seemed.

Did anyone get promoted via the play-off ? No.