You have to finish in top 8.

Then you play other members of top 8, either home or away.

Then the top 4 of that 8 go to semi finals? 1v4 and 2v3?

You can imagine them 2 semis being sell outs if its just gonna be the 1 knockout game, winner takes all.

According to the RFL Policy Review Document from September it'll work like this:

The Super League (Tier 1) will comprise 12 teams.
The Championship (Tier 2) will comprise 12 teams.

Both divisions will play a main league format of 23 matches, with every club playing each other home and away and a Magic event in both leagues.

The Magic event will be staggered to give each division an opportunity to attract significant media attention.


After 23 rounds the season Play Offs will commence with the 24 teams splitting into three groups of 8.
The top 8 will compete in the Super League Play Offs.
The middle 8 will compete in the Super League Qualifying Play Offs.
The third 8 will compete in the Championship Shield.


Each Play Off group will comprise 7 fixtures. In the Super League Play Offs and the Championships Play Offs (i.e. top 8 and third 8 ) the four highest ranked clubs will receive the benefit of four home fixtures.
In the Super League Qualifying Play Offs (the middle 8 ) the four teams who have qualified from the Championship will receive the benefit of 4 home game fixtures.


Thereafter, in the Super League Play Offs and Championships Play Offs (top 8 and third 8 ), two Semi-Finals will be contested with teams as follows; 1 v 4 and 2 v 3, with home advantage being available to the highest ranked side.
From the two semi-finals the Super League Grand Final and Championship Shield Grand Final will be constructed.


In the Super League Qualifying Play Offs no Semi-Finals or Grand Final are envisaged. The first three teams in this ‘mini league’ will qualify for re- admission into the Super League competition for the following year. However, at the end of the Play Offs series, the team ranked fourth will play the team ranked fifth in a one-off game to determine the last Super League place for the following season.


In the top and third 8s, league points will be taken forward into the Play- Offs. Clearly it will not be possible for the middle 8 to carry points forward.


The bottom two clubs from the Championships Play Offs will be relegated to Championship One (Tier 3) for the following season.
The champion club from Tier 3 will be automatically promoted and a second club will be promoted via a Play Off system comprising clubs 2 to 5 in that competition.

That's pretty much it.

Top 8:

- Points carry across, all teams play each other once.
- Top 4 play semis, 1v4 & 2v3.
- Grand Final.

Middle 8:

- Points reset.
- Top 3 'promoted'.
- Bottom 3 'relegated'.
- 4v5 playoff for the final promotion spot.

Bottom 8 I'm not too sure on, I gather they'll have their own 'Grand Final' and also there will be a relegation slot.

It's also important to note that the bottom tier of 12 will have different cash allotments with 1st getting a decent amount and 12th getting F all. This means the bottom 8 still have everything to play for as they will want more money the following season.

Edit - Bah, I type far too slow.

It sounds like we're off on another RFL hairbrained scheme, or should I say innovative idea?
I think between rounds 3 until 7, the top three teams in each division should play with both halfbacks hancuffed to one another, and the fullback fitted with a ball and chain. This could be balanced in rounds 9 and 10 having games played in Florida.

I may be old fashioned, but what a load of old tosh.

I actually quite like the format after the split. I suggested a playoff system similar to that myself with 6 teams all playing each other in a round robin then semis and a final.

My main issues with the system are that:

A) There is no difference at all between finishing 1st and 8th. The top 4 get an extra home game, that's it. I would make it that the team who comes 1st gets 7 home games, 2nd gets 6 etc. The team in 8th has to play all their games away.
B) When it becomes apparant that a team has no prospect of making the 8 they will probably just put the cue on the rack and focus on what will happen after the split. Likewise with teams that are safely in the 8 mid way through the season.
C) Whilst there is, on paper, a route for the Championship clubs to reach Superleague. In reality the chances of any championship clubs making the top 4 of the qualifying group are slim. We all know that a team like Fev is capable of beating a Cas or Bradford in a one off, but to beat them over the course of a 7 game series is a tall order. Over time the gap should close, but I think the initial 12 Superleague clubs will remain unchanged for at least 3 or 4 seasons.

And the most important problem is how convoluted it all is. I can't imagine it will appeal to outsiders at all.

The initial BBC report said differently, that it would go to 3 groups 8 after 11 Rounds, that'll teach me from believing stuff I read about 13-a-side football on the BBC. Anyway, 23 Rounds to sort it out!!! Flip that's too long for mine, so that's basically 30 regular season rounds, too much football for me that, quality not quantity, plus the C Cup on top of that.

In my opinion, it should be 12 or 10 in SL with a licensing system, but many seem to disagree with the licensing system, so fine have a two leg match between the bottom SL club and the winner of the Championship Grand Final.

That was the initial proposal, but it was rejected very quickly.

Thank you "Him" for the details. Will have to read it again as I don't quite get it first time of reading.

So if the bottom four play the Champ clubs away then a season ticket can only cover the eleven home games. All the remainder will be pay on the gate.
Surely attencances will drop off massively?

Nobody knows how season tickets will work yet. Logically there would be an 11 game season ticket to start with & an option to extend that for a further 3/4 games depending where you finish after the split.

Being a Salford fan I've rarely had cause to pay much attention to the top 8. How often has a team in say 7th or 8th with 7 games to go managed to finish in the top 4 (as would be required here to have a crack at winning it)? Is there a danger of those teams simply having 7 meaningless games in the Superleague Playoffs?

There's probably a very large chance of this for at least a couple of teams. They can't really complain though, they should have more income from sky/sponsorship money and theoretically more money from matchdays as there's more games played.

There are always going to be some teams playing meaningless games, the new structure just tries to minimise how many teams fall in that category...All my humble opinion of course.

Well a team finishing 8th will have to win 6 or 7 games to make the top 4 and a chance of the title. Which is how it should be in your regular season finishing position is as low as 8th.

I agree the top 4 playoffs is far better. As for those in 9th putting their cue on the rack.

Well in 2013 the Bulls could have done that with 2 games left.
In 2012 they would only have known 1 game before the end of the season.
In 2011, there was only 1 point difference so a team putting it's cue up would have gifted a playoff place and possible relegation.
In 2010 again you could not have done it.
2009 1 point difference.
In 2008 when we last had 12 teams. Both 9th and 10th could have made the top 8 dependent on the last fixture.
In 2007 (again a year with 12 teams) 8 -11 were covered by 3 points.

So in effect with a 14 team league you have the best opportunity to rest those last games. But even then it would generally only be for the last game of the year.

The points from the "regular season" are carried over so the team finishing first are already well ahead of the 8th team when the playoffs start, clearly giving them a massive advantage over the team in 8th.
I think the split is more like a continuation then a playoff - like making the cut in golf ( I think - I know nothing about golf!)

I think that what all these threads show is that few people have read the whole document.

I know I haven't. But when people make statements I find hard to believe I go and check them.

Now they may have changed the document during the meeting as it says the details will be produced later in the month.

But from finance, people have been saying that games will be one sided not realizing the cap is increasing for championship clubs.

People talking about a top 8 playoff, when last time I looked it was top 4.

People saying the top 8 start again, when they don't.

People not realizing that the middle 8 do start again. Although I accept this is one of the flaws of the new system.

I took it to mean that the bottom 4 from superleague will get only 3 home games in playoffs and 4 away games.it doesn't neccassaryily mean that they'll be playing all the championship teams away from home.
All clubs will get either a guArenteed 14 or 15 home games per season depending on finishing position.
So similar to now ( including the playoffs) so not overly long.

Yeah, I think you're correct.

Can we expect and increase in crowds in SL2?

Can we expect a decrease???


Measuring crowds would be tricky given that some teams will have more home games than others. But in the end I suppose you could take an average per game. Assuming you can get anyone to agree what a fair average is.

Look to the RLWC threads to see a debate about averages.

Attendances for the top Championship sides should rocket !

really?

So how many games will clubs play in a league season?

SL top 8 32 if they reach GF and mid 8 30 games all up?

I can see the income of the bottom 4 SL clubs nose diving with games being played at championship clubs and presumably a pay at the gate and shared basis.

Season ticket prices will need to be cheaper as they will only be selling 11 home SL games

Great idea RFL, I suppose its one way of whittling down to SL to probably ten teams left standing within a couple of years.

I don't understand why people presume STs would be sold only for the first 11 home games (before the split). Currently season tickets are for 13 games. They could be similarly priced and count for either 13 or 14 games, with only the PO semi finals and Grand Finals/promotion qualifier being extra paid games. You'd hope so anyway, if fans are asked to pay extra for 3/4 extra games before the POs then the attendances will be similar to what they currently are in the early weeks of the top 8 POs, even in the top tier IMO.

Had another read and I am still trying to figure out how the mid 8 games work in terms of home and away fixtures. Anybody cast any light on how many home games against SL and how many home games agains championship clubs SL clubs will have?

It's 7 games so how many of them are at home for Sl clubs and how many of those home games are against other SL clubs?

The SL clubs dropping into the middle 8 will have 3 home games. Probably 2 against SL clubs and 1 against a Champs club

after reading all the fans comments on hear about the new set up it looks like half understand and half do not half like and half hate it, so lets have 12 teams in each and P/R at the end of the season because in a year or 2 that's what will happen when the crowds fall, has fans give up on it