https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/ ... rs-3431322

https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/ ... rs-3431322

Some of the things he has said in the past about Feth/Super League might come back to haunt him

Without wanting to spark up the debate yet again, I’m really glad he’s back coaching.

I know he fell put of the tree in spectacular fashion in the end at Leeds, but we’ll never really know how much direct culpability he had on that.

I like the cantankerous old bugger. Good luck to him.

When desperation kicked in hes ran back to a small pit village in the North. Bless him.

I wish him well. His appointment adds interest to what's already shaping up to being a really good comp next year

There are only two teams that can win the Championship: Leigh and Fev, they will both spend c£200k more than the other teams. Brian is no fool - he went to Toronto when most coaches could have got that team promoted and in Fev he has a 1 in 2 chance of promotion

Hopefully he doesn't park his car close to the chairmans!!

Not for me, wide open next season. Halifax, York, Newcastle will be up there next year. Teams purposely spent less last season knowing Toulouse would win promotion

No chance Frosties. Fev or Leigh in a 2 horse race.

You may be right but looking at the recruitment announced so far I can't see any of these challenging Leigh or Fev next season.

I hope York go well. I've thought for a while they are probably the most sensible strategic fit for developing the game in Yorkshire.

I would agree with that - sadly they have a coach who has a game plan and finds it very difficult to deviate from the plan when other teams have worked it out.

He is from the John Kear school of coaching i.e. if you concede less points you win rather than if you score more points you win. His emphasis is on kicking deep in corner and trying to contain the opposition. One of the reasons they struggled last year was this plan didn't work with a host of older players. Teams have worked him out so they know what's coming so rigid is plan

Please stop promotion and relegation.
Would love to see York, Bradford plus a non heartland team in SL but done strategically, not by spending cash on the best sub-SL players. Could you imagine NRL letting Fev or Leigh into their competition??
I know we have less players to choose from than the Aussies but this shambles just keeps us further behind them. You only had to see our panic buying in 2019 to see why it's harmful to the sport.

This issue sparks strong views, but I agree with you.

Fine if you want to do it strategically, but you would need to start by booting at least three or four current SL teams - the likes of Wakefield, Castleford, Huddersfield and Salford, for instance - out of the top flight if you're going to do it fairly, because they have less long-term self-sustainability than a team like Fev.

Yeah let's kill off a bunch of clubs because, unlike us, they don't benefit from being in the right place. That's what sport's all about

The one thing this sport has lacked is a killer instinct to move the sport forward - 30+ pro clubs relying on the elite 12 to fund them is bonkers. Too much sentimentality - too much trying to ensure the weakest survive rather than encouraging them to grow at the cost of the top clubs. The salary cap is there to protect the weak - its a downward spiral that will continue until Sky go no more and its back to part time

Would you say that if you supported Keighley, Swinton or Hunslet?

Can you name any other sport in which a segment of the fanbase is absolutely determined to kill off a bunch of clubs for "not pulling their weight"?

It's gone beyond some sort of strategic thinking (which generally shuffles mythical clubs and mythical fan bases around) to genuinely believing that the problem with British RL is that we have too many clubs. It's insanity of the highest order. The big clubs have failed to grow their audiences and revenues and have taken that out on the smallest ones, which in turn offer the most pound for pound value in their communities.

Presumably people who propose such things either think the sport doesn't need these fans (because we have plenty to spare) or bizarrely thinks they'll start watching another club.

It's an attempt to apply market based solutions to a sporting environment and it simply doesn't work because people don't interact with their sports teams in the way they choose which supermarket to go to.

But there aren't an elite 12! There might be an elite 4 or 5, at a push, and there's NO difference between a handful of the current SL clubs and one or two at the top of the Championship other than possession of that precious SL place and the 7-figure gift from Sky each year.

Wonder how Leeds compare per head per population compared to other clubs?

We average around 12k per home game and Leeds has a population of around 780k according to google. Thats 1 in every 65 people. How does that compare with others? Terribly i suspect.

Maybe rest should kick us out for such failings.

Or…we realise there’s only so much money to go around and that the game is now in a fully professional era.

If we realise that, is it reasonable to expect there to be 30+ fully professional clubs in RL? If not then aren’t we expecting a massive leap for clubs to go from semi-pro to fully pro in the space of 3/4 months?

Also why then cut off at just the 3 leagues we have now?

For me the sport cannot continue with the massive instability P&R causes. It significantly harms the growth of most clubs in the league in my opinion as they have to focus on incredibly short term decisions at the cost of almost any long term strategic growth.

Do we continue with trying to filter down the small amount of money we have? Or try and concentrate that to improve the top end of the sport?

It seems as if most sports are looking toward a model with increased certainty. Union have ended P&R, football are clearly looking for increased certainty with the ESL model and many other sports already have such systems.

I’d love to be in a position like English football whereby there’s so many healthy clubs that it doesn’t matter if a few are destabilised by P&R as I’d agree from a purely sporting point of view it’s the better system. But I don’t think we’re anywhere near that. We can barely sustain 12 teams in SL. For me we have to move to a licensed system if we’re to survive as a professional sport in the era we’re moving into.

I also understand that if I were a fan of a club in the other divisions I might have a different point of view. But I can only go with what it looks like to me as I am, and I just cannot see a future as anything other than a feeder club for many of the current clubs in a vibrant, nationally recognised, professional sport in the 21st century.

Isn`t this what SL is trying to achieve next year when 2 or is it 4 teams from the Championship will be promoted and no team relegated from the SL or have I dreamt that up?
What then happens to those left in the Championship would probably mean they play the likes of West Bowling and the likes.

No the idiotic idea is to reduce Super League to ten by relegating three. Lots more loop games that nobody wants.

I would argue that the large clubs have had no incentive to grow their fan bases. When you're salary cap is limited, there's only so much worth you can get by being richer, and getting and training new fans can be costly