Relegation and Promotion should be back every 2nd year with the two winners from the championship in those years unless it is the same team that wins the championship should play each other for promotion with the two sides that finish bottom of SL playing each other with the loser being relegated and the winner surviving unless it is again the same team that has finished bottom both years

This would give lower teams some incentive to get their act toghether

They don't need any 'incentive to get their act together'. Do you think lower clubs don't want to be successful, and that they would be happy being year after year unless there was a threat of relegation? It's just a stupid, stupid argument from people who haven't thought about what they are posting.

There are no clubs outside of SL capable of attracting 8000 fans and revenues of 3mill. End of P&R argument.

Promotion and relegation would give the lower clubs a reason to not throw the towel in after when 2 scores down in match with 50 mins to go and also not to "mail it in" when the half way point of the season comes around and they are struggling it would also make matches between teams like London and Cas or Widnes and Wakefield no offence to their fans but these games would be more exciting if these teams had somthing to fight for rather than knowing they can fold like a pack of cards and come back next year and the same happens on a year in year out basis under the licensing system

On that basis who will be left in SL, I assume you are taking personal investment from that £3m. Goodbye Salford, Wakey, Cas, London, HKR, Widnes, Huddersfield, Bradford. Great fixture list between Hull, Leeds, Saints, Wire, Cats and Wigan. That knocks my 2 tens out the water.

Interesting point - Leigh will turn over £8-900k this year, add in £1.3m Sky, a conservative £500k more from gates and the gap isn't great to £3m for sponsorship etc. Thats why nearer £4m is needed to compete.

Do you propose they play each other six times?

Only thing i can see helping keep interest is make SL 8 teams.

The other 6 join the top 6 of the current championship and allow them the same rules that SL currently have, if they run themselves in to the ground gambling they might get in to SL then that's their problem and they only have themselves to blame.

Just play within your means but at least you may get promotion, and if a rich benefactor comes in great, spend to cap.

Import restrictions to 3 players for everyone.

As I have already argued, the games would not be more exciting, if anything they would be less so.

Which teams throw the towel in when two scores behind? Do you have any specific examples of any teams putting in less than 100% effort at any time due to a lack of promotion and relegation, or is this just another poorly-thought out argument based on inaccurate assumptions like the majority of those supporting P&R in this thread?

And what about the three clubs in SL that also match this incapability?

[url=http://littlegrubbers.blogspot.com/2012/05/brief-history-of-promotion-and.htmlA brief history of promotion and relegation[/url

Playoffs for promotion should e the way to go for RL, at least you know you're ready if you're not getting dicked by the bottom club.

Similar in style to those denying the Holocaust ever existed.
RU, Soccer, Cricket and RL are the nations 4 team sports - all bar one has P&R. Hockey, Basketball, Baseball, Netball, Shinty, Rounders, Womens beach volleyball, Dwarf throwing etc are smokescreens.
Intimating Soccer has only recently in its history embraced P&R is laughable, RU as a 'league' sport is still fairly new but embraces the principals of P&R.
You can't beat a good wind up, I assume this is what it is?

The 1st year of Super league 2006 Leeds finished 10th in the league only above Paris and Workington. Halifax finshed 6th,

only 2 years later in 2008 Leeds finsihed 2nd, and Fax in 3rd!

Since then alot has gone on, Leeds are now the best club in the world and challenge for honours every year.

now call me old fashioned if you like but these rises and falls from grace is what makes 'sport' in general, it is why we pay our money and buy our seasons tickets.

the sport of rugby league was not broken, so why try to fix it with a franchise system which clearly doesnt work, and from my view forces clubs to mislead fans and lie to the governing body.

we need the ups and downs (promotion and relegation) to keep the heart of rugby league beating below super league. Otherwise we may aswell just not bother.

Why should original founder clubs steeped in RL history such as Fax, Fev, Leigh and the rest not get a chance to play in the top league.

At the minute these championship clubs dont get 8000 fans, and dont turn over £3 million. but neither would most super league clubs if they swapped places.

the championship is a great league but should not be treat as a feeder league for super league.

investment and growth below super league will continue to decline until P&R is reinstalled. Then thoses fans that sometimes go/sometimes dont may just attend more often.

this is surely what it is all about?!

Quite unnecessary.

because whilst one of those 4 clubs went from strength to strength one of them is gone, and 2 of them very nearly did.

or you play to win the league you're in
because they can't compete and P&R makes it harder for them to do so for any more than a year

More fans are watching now, surely thats what it is all about, more fans as whole watching the game? and the championships are a feeder league, thats how a pyramid works.

but true.

The acid test will come at the next round of franchise/licence procedures. One championship team has been guaranteed a SL spot if they meet the franchise criteria which will mean one current Sl team will be demoted. This would have happened last time and Wakefield would have been removed if Crusaders did not withdraw. In hindsght this would have been a mistake. Who will go this time. I can see law suits, protests in Parliament, TV denunciations from the current self satisfied member of the club which finds itself unceremoniously booted. One thing I know, it wll be interesting.

Not even close. I'm embarrassed for you

now i dont normally agree with Gary Schofield, following him on twitter he raised the point that in 1993 as divison 3 clubs both keighley and workington were attracting crowds of 2000+.

the reason? becuase the fans going had a chance of seeing their team promoted.

last year both these clubs went to finals, and this year are getting crowds of 6-700!

there is a link here. work it out!

is this good for RL - no.

if P&R comes back now, we have a chance of regaining these stay away disollusioned fans of yester year. if we do nothing about it they will be lost for good.

you are obviously a blinkered SL fan.

Workington have a good chance of being promoted in 2012. Crowds are better across the board than they were in 1993 so your argument is completely irrelevant.

Surely you mean 96

In about 25 months time I suspect Londons SL team will step down from the top table voluntarily due to the backeR, David Hughes not being prepared to lose 1.5 million + for another 3 years and the RFL having no money to help out, due to it all being spent propping the Bradford Bulls up.


If no Championship club is deemed "ready", then the remaining chairmen in "super whingy league" might see an opportunity to shed a few more pounds and get the league down to 12.........the decisions on Stadiums due in a few weeks could be vital to some teams futures.

Of all the teams that have played in SL at some stage but aren't there now, which DESERVE to still be there and why?

PSG -Gateshead -Crusaders - Halifax - Workington -Oldham - Sheffield - Leigh

Don't be, but I am for you.

So, how many teams yo-yo'd in and out of SL? One. Leigh. The ex-board members of which acknowledge they weren't ready, knew they weren't ready and so no surprises they were relegated. Amazing, how that is used as evidence of P&R being bad for the game and especially so for the Championship clubs. Looks like distorting the facts to me.




Just to dispel another distorted and widely reported 'fact' Leigh didn't nearly go out of business nor even get in financial difficulties because they got promoted.

No. That happened because they based their subsequent budgets on crowds similar to those they got before the end of P&R. Well, actually, they were conservative and shaved off about 500 (20%) to account for the possible reduction in public interest.

Unfortunately, crowds reduced far more than that. The reduction was more like 35%.

I think you'd possibly refer to that as 'wildly unrealistic financial planning in the lower leagues'. (Unless it was in a SL franchise application in which case - and only if it suited your needs - you'd call it an 'unambitious plan')

I'm afraid to say that I agree with Maurice in that many of the posters on here, and you in particular, write their own versions of events. There's no arguing with you, I know, because like most propagandists, you believe the guff you spout.

Maurice is on dangerous grounds, though, by drawing comparisons with historians of more 'grave' subjects even though he only referred to the style. No doubt the flags are up on him.

Just like when people were banned for dubbing your ilk as "Franchise-Nazis" for the unthinking intolerance you demonstrate of the views of the "flatcap brigade" (as it's quite OK to demean them).

I've read the first 3 pages and got fed up of reading it but wanted to contribute and put my tuppence worth in.

Firstly the franchise system should stay. Using Widnes as an example, as they are more than likely finish bottom of the table. If P&R was in place Widnes will be back in the the NL1. At least this year they can lay foundations and build on them for the next year and year adter that. Where they COULD POTENTIALLY be in the play offs, before I get laughed at for such comments what year did the Crusaders reach the play offs. This is something which could not be done if they were yo-yoing between SL and NL.

Fresh blood every year in P&R, that is the best joke I have heard for a while. The relegated team would have to release most of their players and the club coming up would take the worse ones as no one else wanted them and they needed players with experience.

The franchise system could and should work. The first thing that went wrong with it is that IMO there was too many teams, there should have been 10 or 12 teams. Then it could grow at sensible rate.

Secondly the RFL are spineless, Wakey shouldn't be in SL as one of the reasons given to why Widnes were not in the SL after the very first franchise teams were announced was that they didn't want clubs to go bust and some one else to come in. Just like Wakey have done and more than likely the Bulls this year.

Same for stadiums, Wakey and Cas should not have been in and Saints and Salford were border line as when the franchises were announced although the stadiums were nearly completed they were not completed and anything could have happened, however unlikely.

No doubt 'Fax would probably get in next time or may be a Cumbrian side or an expansion team. But would the RFL have the balls to withdraw licences from any team that have failed before? I doubt it unless it is a small team like the Crusaders.

If P and R was in place, Widnes would never have got promoted with a poor team that finished halfway down CC in the first place.

"Fresh blood every year". Yes, Huddersfield, Castleford Hull KR, Wakefield and Salford got promoted and are still there. Oldham, Halifax, Leigh and Workington were relegated and are still in the lower leagues. Fresh blood has been transfused into SL by p and r and there would have been more if it had not been abandoned, Barrow, Featherstone for example.

SL will not grow at any sensible rate. It may well, as you suggest, contract. The SL organisation controls the Sky money, not the RFL. There is absolutely no will or desire to share it amongst more teams as they would have to do if they increased the size of SL. Given then increased viewing figures from Sky, the Monday night football success,the imminent arrival of Al Jazheera in France, the increased attendances, even in the CC. now is the time to form a committee and approach Sky and other competing broadcasters to try and pry some more cash from them. An increased size SL or some financing assitance for CC clubs to enable them to be ready for promotion if we went that route cannot be really tried without more cash.

As for withdrawing licences from existing SL teams and adding expansion or CC teams
to SL. This will be very very interesting if and when it happens. I think there is going to be an almighty brouhaha and lawyers might enter into the mix. There will be no 100,000 pound bribe to keep the CC clubs quiet this time. Fur will fly and who knows what will happen in the end but the ring fenced SL is and will be under intense pressure to reform its procedures for membership if you ask me.