Leeds voted for P and R, now all of a sudden Leeds fans are wanting franchises back. Funny that.
Leeds won’t go down, neither should they with the marquee players on their books- but some bad luck with injuries as some squads have had and who knows.
This talk of it being bad for the sport is also a load of rubbish. Personally I don’t think it would be bad for the game if Leeds go down, I think it would be very good as money can be spread down to the lower leagues instead of concentrated on superleague. The sport needs money further down.

You’re assuming the Leeds fan base, corporate interest etc wouldn’t change if they were relegated. It would be a hammer blow for SL if Leeds went. Traditionally we’ve been the best supported club in SL and probably the biggest behind the scenes too. The trend is very challenging for Rugby League in general in today’s market place, junior playing numbers are well down etc.

If Leeds do go down they will 100% deserve to, but let’s not be naive about it. It would give those many myopic supporters of other clubs a good chuckle, as the whole game takes a backward step. Noses and faces.

I agree the rules shouldnt be changed just to keep Leeds in the comp, we'r absolute garbage and we'v made our own bed. But...

Lets not pretend Leeds going down would be good for the game. Everything Elstones doing is aimed towards the next TV deal, if he takes a product to sky without Leeds Rhinos as part of it, his hand is severely weakened. A poor TV deal means there wont be enough money for superleague clubs, never mind spreading the money round the lower leagues. Bums on seats is only part of clubs income, the TV deal is massively important, Salfords and Huddersfields crowds would barley pay the laundry bill. While its perfectly understandable for other fans to be loving the prospect of Leeds going down, all the money men, chairmen etc will be hoping they stay up.

What rules are people nattering on about? What a stupid suggestion to compare what Wigan did and what is been alluded to here. Wigan cheated a written rule when breaking the cap, for their own advantage.

The way the competition is set up going forward isn’t a rule, it’s changed a fair few times over recent years, it is an agreed format between the clubs. Just like they did last year, they can change again to suit. It will always be in the clubs and the games interests. Not some unfounded morality of some. As long as the majority agree to something it happens.

I would imagine the interest from Toronto will more than make up the tv deal interest. In fact- with both Bradford and Leeds in the championship perhaps the deal could be made for that too! Could strengthen a tv deal not weaken it. In fact Could be better for the game as a whole if Leeds go down.
As for the rest- leeds’ money .......goes to Leeds. Leeds Sponsorship money......goes to Leeds. The rest of the SL don’t get it.

The only difference Leeds makes to my club is a big crowd..... just once a year..... but a thousand rhinos fans buying a ticket for £22 once a year (and some of that goes back to Leeds anyway) isn’t going to make a huge amount of difference to my club. Won’t even pay the wage of a youngster.
Close a stand when London and Toronto are in town and save a bit in stewarding costs - the difference ain’t going to break our bank!

Id be very suprised if you could keep a straight face when you were writing this, if you arnt on a wind up and believe this nonsense, your clearly letting fan/club rivalrys get in the way of your common sense.

Like i said, as fans we love to see other big clubs struggling, id be the same if Wigan were in a relegation battle, my heart would love to see them relegated, my head would relise that Wigan are a big, famous club and that the game in this country, which is already on its knees, needs its big clubs in its premier competition, because theyr the clubs who attract the tv deals and sponsors. Sky dont pay a fortune for the premier league because of Bournmouth and Burnley, they pay it for Manchester united, City and Liverpool, just like they dont pay for superleague because of Salford and Huddersfield, they pay for Leeds, Wigan, Saints. Toronto do draw interest, but that needs to be on top of the current teams that draw interest, replacing one for another is standing pat, bringing in additional interest is moving forward.

Iv already said, im not saying Leeds should be rescued from relegation, if it comes to that, because of the reasons above, but to say Superleague wouldnt suffer if Leeds were relegated is extremely short sighted

Did the game really suffer when Bradford were relegated? Can’t say as I noticed it did. Cant see leeds being relegated will be any different.
Leeds drop down Toronto come up- perhaps someone else wins the GF, in a couple of years New York are there, no one misses Leeds.
I do have a straight face because all that happens are the same players play and interest will be in a different team.

Yeah superleague does miss Bradford, Bradford were in an absolute state financially at the time though and no ammount of help was going to change that at the time.

Leeds are among the big names in this country, everybody loves them or Loves to hate them, it dosnt matter if theyr doing good, bad or indifferent, everybodys interested in them, that sells.

Take Huddersfield, you could take them out of the league right now, it would take most people a few week to relise they were gone. Them and a couple of teams like them are the epitome of whats wrong with the game, no one looks for there results, barley anyone watches them, if theyr doin well...no one notices, if theyr doing badly...no one notices, its why theres not more money in the game, why throw money at sumthing that dosnt move anybodys needle. Teams like this should be thankful to the big teams for the equal share of the pot they get, they certainly dont deserve it.

Agree that Toronto will be good for superleague though and any further expansion teams will bring an interest.

Toronto WILL Implode like Celtic Crusaders did and PSG.
You cant run a SL Club on free tickets and a sugar daddy long term i'll give them 5yrs max.

Very good post indeed. Well said. The short sighted nature from a number of people is why this game has regressed in recent years. When will people finally look at the bigger picture and look to make the game better for all which will include their own club. Stupidity it's best

I have always thought that

London Broncos have done. David Argyle is in it for the long run and The Wolfpack get more paying fans than several Super League clubs. They are very different to Crusaders and PSG.

Bradford dropping out of SL was a bad thing for the game. I said that at the time and I stick by it. I'd say the same about Wigan, Sts, ourselves and Wire, and Hull too. We could lose Salford, Wakefield, Huddersfield and replace them with Leigh or Widnes and SL wouldn't change markedly. But lose one of the few genuine big clubs and the game would be impacted massively. Sky would laugh their collective backsides off if you suggested SL was the same value without Leeds and with Widnes/Leigh, or even Toronto in the short term..

The fact that fans of clubs mentioned will get upset by that doesn't change the reality.

Having said that, the only way for the sport to grow is via TV deals and that most likely means more clubs from outside the M62 corridor. Ideally we'd be able to expand the competition, but I doubt we have the players to do it. But if we had decent negotiators, being able to pitch a sport with a presence in London, France and even north America backed up by a core of 'big' traditional teams makes a lot easier sell than without them. What makes no sense at all to me is keeping P&R to salve fans of yoyo teams.

Its all a bit moot - right now the rules are we finish bottom we get relegated. We have to assume that will be the case regardless of any longer-term plan.

You may be right although I don't think the free ticket/sugar daddy model was ever their long term plan. It might ultimately boil down to how badly Sky want them in - and given how some teams are presenting in 3/4 empty stadiums there must be some interest at least.

So we will make it that big clubs cannot be relegated then?
Leeds brings more to Leeds and it is relative. The income is much bigger than other clubs but it can only spend the same ATM other than marquis signings. Other clubs don't generate the same income but compete. It's what's on the pitch that counts not off it and at the moment Leeds are pretty sure for a high income club perhaps arrogance and it will never or can never happen to us breeds complacency where smaller clubs it's it won't happen to us. Now take football big teams suffer the threat of relegation like the smaller ones and on occasion a big one goes down the sport survives. Now Leeds are in a rut it's up to the club to get out of it not the rest of the league to make way!

Bradford dropping out of SL was bad for Bradford since they went down Wakey Wire Cas Dragons & FC have got stronger & challenged the remaining "big 3" on a regular basis.
If we go down we deserve it & other Clubs will challenge ST's etc.

He didnt appear to do a decent job with what he had.

How many times are they in for training? Hurrell looks like he has put 5kg on since he's been here. A lot of them after 60mins look absolutely shot to bits. What are they doing all day? Playing XBOX and eating free scran in manhatta and instagramming it for the owner?

My wife was at seminar in London last year, Sinfield was guest speaker. After over coffee she asked him what was going on at the club. She said he looked gutted and basically said he said the certain discipline and ethics in the club that was there when they were winning had gone. Even Stevie Wonder can see that. Now get it sorted and get these fat @rsed wasters grafting.

There is now way in this world that Wakefield have got stronger, or in a lot of case Cas even. Wakefield had a far far better side in 2005 I think it was, and this lot wouldn't come close to it. The competition has got much much weaker that is all, and that is as a consequence of losing its best bits, i.e. losing top clubs, and dumbing down the top teams to the gutter level of the bottom teams. Should never have happened, and is going to take something special to recover, even with the top teams on board, but without them not a chance.

And I think that is one of the problems that will take a while to fix, and I genuinely believe Sinfield is in it for the long haul and wants to fix the problems.

It's only a small thing but Didn't Myler mention that one of things he first made the players do was tidy up after themselves after being in the Gym, as I say its a small thing but if a lot of small things like that happen at a club it can lead to bad attitude and ethics on the pitch aswell as off.

Cas have reached Wembley a GF won the LLS & are now consistently top 3/4.
Wakey are more consistent plus Wire & the Dragins are certainly better than back then.
The standard of the comp is lower is because the new SC in NRL dwarfs ours so less genuine stars are coming & the better SL homegrown players are moving to the NRL.
Throw in less homegrown superstars are getting produced thats naff all to do with Bradford going down who overspent & cheated beyond their means to gain success

The whole competition is absolute gutter level, nothing to do with the NRL cap. Look at it in Hull, an hotbed of rugby talent, even they came out last week and said so few want to play the game anymore in Hull. The game is dying, and it is dying because we have dumbed down its top competition, because of an obsession people had with making it competitive. Competitive should never have been at the expense of quality. The current Cas and Wakefield teams wouldn't come close to some of their sides that never came close to winning anything. They are consistently up there because the competition is so poor, and only because of that. To weaken that further by taking out the games major cash cow and major attraction to the community game, would be absolute suicide.

The games on its ariss because enough kids aren’t playing it- and enough kids aren’t playing it because there’s no money at grassroots level, the number and standard of coaches is shocking, most are volunteers some of whom haven’t played the game themselves to any level. Finding enough people willing to volunteer is difficult. There are fewer clubs running u13-u16 teams. Should realise that at Leeds- given it’s just been the Rhinos challenge weekend.
My lad has played RL since he was 6- there were loads of local clubs in our area he played against back when he started, he’s now 15 and there are only two other teams that are running an U15-and it sounds like one of those may fold.
Did you watch the games at the summer bash? A lot more entertaining than the hyped up cheating sh*te we see every week in SL.

Problem with Leeds is they think the game revolves around and relies upon SL. And it really doesn’t.

Whilst I don't agree with its entirety with your first point, thank you for confirming mine by saying it. Not all clubs have these poor coaches you talk of, some are very very good indeed. Some of the clubs are absolute first class run clubs. I can only speak for West Yorkshire clubs, and in particular the ones Leeds play a big part in and help develop. Hence on that basis you see the issue with the biggest club missing from the game, what damage that would do. How many other clubs do the equivalent of the butlins weekend just done?

The numbers of kids might well be dwindling, but that is a direct result of how poor the competition is now, and has been for the last five years, getting worse and worse each. The stupidity of bringing down the top clubs to the level of the bottom ones was absolute commerical suicide. The state of our officials in the game now, is an absolute joke to watch, they are absolute pathetic and should not be on a permanent job role at the level they are producing.

Yes I watched the summer bash, and I enjoyed quite a few of the games. In particular I thought the reffing performances in three of the games was excellent, which I never seem to get to say in super league anymore. So why are these guys ignored? I have seen that fella Grant now twice this season on TV, once in Super League in a Catalans game, and once at the weekend, I have also seen him live at a Featherstone match, and on each occassion the guy has been very impressive and puts Super League officials to shame. Yet all I ever see on the TV is Chris Kendell, who to be frank must be the worst official ever. Is there any wonder people are turning off the game?

You are wrong on the last bit. I don't agree with Hetherington for last few years, and think he has played a part in holding super league back, however, everything he has done has been based on the game as a whole rather than just super league, which is what other clubs have done the oppossite on. The fact is that without Leeds, Super League will suffer, and as a result so too will the rest of the game, because without that top level income then the bottom level will not benefit from the club.

There was a video on the NRL page on FB a few weeks back of Cronk doing similar in the changing room. It's about being grounded and having the right principles. Setting good examples for the younger lads.

The reasons for RLs apparent decline, and it's not a universally negative outlook, are many.

I do think the standard of SL has dropped, partly yes because of "lowest common denominator" syndrome - but we also have a fair bit of talent in Aus, whereas in the old days it was the other way round. We also play too many fixtures, caught in a negatively-reinforcing cycle.

To me, RL can't afford the well-supported and high profile clubs NOT to be in the top flight, and for that reason I was an am a fan of a licensing system rather than P&R. The devil is in the detail of how you do it. As with most things in RL, we don't stick with anything long enough because we have inconsistent leadership and the game is under constant financial pressure.

There are socio-economic reasons why the game in this country struggles too.

Anyone who thinks that Leeds Rhinos playing in the Championship is going to be good for RL needs bumps feeling I'm afraid. Not cataclysmic maybe, but certainly not a good thing. There is no guarantee Leeds would bounce back up either, were the worst to happen.

You see how happy Hull, Cas, Wakefield et al will be when the 3-4k Leeds fans are replaced by a taxi full of Toronto fans, and maybe the Sky money goes down in due course... What we need, clearly, are fewer and higher quality teams player fewer and higher quality fixtures, not the opposite.