I'm reliably informed by people working in the media that these freeview channels cost very little to run.

Something that could be included in the next contract negotiations. It doesn't have to be Super League.

Exactly what I was thinking.

Word of mouth and pure chance. Sports fans will watch most sports. I've found myslef watching cycling, weightlifting and strongest man when there's nothing else on. How many people spend large parts of the day watching the same news repeated over and over again on Sky Sports News simply because it's sport?

Been thinking the exact same for a long time. We could big it up with historic test series documentaries such as the ones the Cricket showed before the Ashes. I hate cricket but even I was glued to them.

I have no bright ideas in terms of grass roots and administration, but I've a couple of ideas as a spectator that I think could go quite well.
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I'd like to see a third competetion started in place of the old regal trophy. It could start earlier in the year to give us something to shout about early on. Perhaps it could be a wednesday night floodlight trophy.

I would have groups that go into a knock out, a bit like the Football Champions League to make sure each team gets at least 3 or so games.
I would include the top 1/2 dozen or so NL1 teams.
The superleague sides would only be able to field a limited number of players over a certain age (say 24).
We would play the old 5 metre offside rule.
The extra games created may help us avoid playing other teams more than twice as in the past and the ridiculously longwinded playoffs (8 teams FFS!?)
I would look at getting it on Channel four or another non-sky sports channel (not sure what restrictions we'd have on this).
[iThe new dual registration laws may trump this idea to a degree.[/i
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I would change the playoffs back to the original 5 team set up. (i would look at perhaps excluding play off teams from the competetion mentioned above)
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I would organise Lancs vs France and Yorks vs France games mid season. This would give France some better games and give us a chance to compare prospective internationals.
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I would invite a Pacific Islands combined team to tour UK next year.
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I would, in vain most probably, try and persued the NRL to allow each club to have 1 european/SL trained player who does not count against the salary cap. This would see a few of our better players over there and competing at a better level, which would benefit us in the long term.

What do you think?

I like those two ideas. Not sure the others would work/go down well with clubs and chairmen.

Those who are advocating brand new competitions - when will they be played and what (apart from the off-season) would they replace?

[uSalary Cap[/u

The RFL should grant special dispensation to clubs promoting their players through their own academy. Allow say only 50% of the players wage to contribute to the salary cap. This would allow clubs to pay “their” own players more money and maybe keep them from going to RU or moving to a “bigger” club. I think this would encourage clubs to promote their own youngsters and this would be beneficial to the international set up. With more young English kids coming through hopefully we would stop signing overpaid Aussies.

[uOverseas Quota[/u

IMO teams should be allowed no more than 5 players born outside the EU in the squad. This would be reduced on to 3 for match day squads. Again this would encourage teams to promote their own or British players. I don’t know how that would work with the employment laws but it could be worth a shot.

The "born in" bit would fall on its backside.

If a person has the right to an EU passport through ancestry then where they are born is irrelevant, they have the same rights as an EU born person to be able to work within the EU.

Effectively it would be no different to the old system prior to the introduction of the federation trained rule, with teams scouring NRL reserve grades looking for players with EU grandparents to get around the quota.

I was working on the fact that we still play some teams more than twice, but on reflection, is that still happening since we moved to 14 teams?

My extra competition would also mean the teams were made of mostly youngsters, some of whom won't be first teamers, and the 5 metre rule will probably mean there's less wear and tear physically on the players competing.

Sounds a great idea. BUT if they introduced it, the teams who would benefit most by a long way would be Leeds and St Helens. That would make them stronger than they are at present, thus making the gap bigger.

What they should do is separate the club academies into regional RL academies based at a leading sports college/uni which produce the players. From there they should have a televised draft pick, enabling the lowest placed side the chance to get the best youngsters each year, thus levelling things out. That or ban the top 4 from applying such salary cap reductions for a certain time period.

Another flaw in your plan is that only about 4 clubs in SL could financially cope with an increased salary cap. Leeds, Wire, Hull KR and Huddersfield potentially the ones capable. All that would do is either bankrupt some other clubs or mean that Saints are replaced by Warrington. It wouldn't improve anything.

Overseas Quota.

This would benefit RL in genral rather than just British RL. French players should not be counted on the overseas quota. The reason NZ are so good at Test level is because so many Kiwis play for the Aussie clubs not just the Auckland club. At the moment, French players only play for Catalans, they don't play for English clubs because English clubs would rather use the quota up on Aussies/Kiwis. If every English club had just one French player, it would improve the French Test side a lot, which in turn improves England RL. If possible we could do the same with PNG/Fijian players until France/PNG/Fiji are getting to a good standard. Problem with PNG/Fiji is they have the same rights as Aussies/Kiwis in terms of employment, but if we could just do it for the French it would be a start.

[uOverseas Quota [/u

This is nothing but a front for political correctness. Scrap this horrendous rule and let anyone play for our clubs. The winning combination always is hometown talent mixed with international super starts from the southern hemisphere as shown by Leeds over this decade.

Leeds could easily have a group of academy trained players playing for the first team but every team in rugby league must have at least a couple of export - it’s the same in all top flight ball competitive sports. Its all to do with equal opportunities and that. Its something that doesn’t get talked about openly.

Now some may be calling me racist - I couldn’t care less who plays fo Leeds as long as its an entertaining side. We can have a team of Australians for all I care. It just needs to stop this political correctness!

Pre-season and they would replace friendlies, obviously.

Coaches and players already complain about the number of games played.

My variation of the original suggestion was for the friendlies in the pre-season to be carry on as each coach wants but that the results go towards a merit league.

All the proposed ideas have thier merit. One point I keep comming across from players coaches & comentators alike is that our players play to many games as it is. Adding more games would not go down well. What I would like to see is the game run on the American football system, small area based leagues, split the whole competition into two conferences each team to play 16 matches + play offs & chalange cup. This has two advantages it ends teams fear of relagation it alows the game to expand to as big as can be supported by the games income,The players will play at most 24 matches so they would be fresher for international duty.

It's not a case of playing extra games, more a matter of replacing the friendlies. That said, from a conditioning point of view, I doubt a pre-season comp would be [ithat[/i much more keenly-contested than the existing friendlies, or you'd be getting injuries all over the shop.

Trophy presentations
First, I wish they'd be done a lot sooner after the final whistle. One interview with the man of the match straight away, then the presentations, team photo, then more interviews.

Second, an idea for the team photo and any trophy presentations that happen on pitches: Allow a certain amount of supporters (behind stewards and ropes/barriers) quite close up. Aim: to give the effect that their ‘tribe’ are all celebrating together and it would also look good in the media rather than 17 players, a trophy and a sponsor’s board surrounded but nothing much.

Some realistic and sensible ideas:

1.Expand the 'federation trained' category of the quota to include players from RLEF countries, which would allow clubs to take a punt on European talent without compromising their squad.

2.Move junior RL as a whole to the summer. This is being done gradually, and will take a lot of time, but is massively important for the British game.

Youtube
Persuade the NRL to stop having rugby league clips removed. I'm not saying let people upload entire matches (annoy the broadcast companies maybe) but RL sporting moments should be shown to as many people as possible.

Week off
Give the Super League champions a bye in round 4 of the Challenge Cup because they play an extra game with the WCC.

France
Get the French to switch their leagues to run at the same time as ours. Their amateur and junior leagues might attract more players when not competing so much with RU and football.

Their semi-pro teams could perhaps join the UK ones in the Northern Rail Cup at some point or...

The Championship and Elite champions could play-off in a [iEuropean Club Challenge[/i

6 subs instead of 4

Increase the number of subs but keep the interchanges

Subs 18 and 19 can only play in the backs rest can replace 1 to 13.
also two of the 6 subs should be 21 or younger.

This is to encourage youth and to give young backs a chance in the first team which currently is difficult with an overemphasis on loading the bench with forwards.

Try to reduce number of games for rest and internationals

A Few tweaks could shorten the season and be beneficial like :

Mix challenge cup & Magic Weekend

Seed Top 6 finishers in SL plus NL1 winners and NL2 winners into last 16 of challenge cup.

Make millenium magic the last 16 for the challenge cup.

By seeding eight teams you can make a draw for MM in December or a soon as the SL finishes.

They can be drawn with 8 balls which will be the qualifiers from the earlier rounds later on.

MM gets a competitive edge to every game and NL representation whilst boosting the challenge cup.

We also get a weekend of Rugby league on terrestrial TV or games split between Sky and Beeb.

Top 7 instead of top 8 for Grandfinal playoffs

No second chances and a week shorter.

2v7
3v6
4v5

1 gets week off then picks from 2 lowest placed teams

semis then grand final.

OK other things

Challenge Cup

- SL clubs to play away if drawn against lower league opponents until last 16

- Shorten the time between last 16 and final no more than 3 weeks between rounds

- Hold challenge cup final end of july not august

world club challenges

Top 3 from

Grand final winners & runners up
League leaders
Then highest placed league finishers

V same from NRL

Over one weekend with the final game being the world club championship

Wooden spoon to enter NL finals

Self explanatory - Seeded last good benchmark for applications

Xmas and new year 9s

Regional 9s tournaments on boxing day with winners into a national comp on new years day.

Heritage rounds

the nearest 2 rounds of sl to August 29th should be heritage rounds.

Retro shirts - a home game in one of the rounds for each team - honor past players that have died in the last 12 months etc.

video ref

Decisions to be no longer than 60 seconds. The length of time is getting ridiculous - if in doubt we already go with the attacking side but we can go to refs call as well.

On report decisions can be reviewed by the video ref as play continues within 5 minutes. If inconclusive then can be reviewed later by panel.

One game one ref, use the big screen but only the ref on the field make a call.
The report point i fully agree with, look on the screen and make the decision straight away

All Junior RL to be moved to the summer. There would be a 5 metre gap between attack and defence at the play the ball to try and imrpove ball skills and to minimise the impact if tackles. I would have bonus points for tries that come from three or more passes, to try and discourage teams from simply giving the ball to the biggest kid all the time.

The Challenge Cup semi finals should be a double header. This way you could make it into a real event to encourage as many people as possible to attend. I would also move the Challenge Cup back to the beginning of the season, as in August teams should be focusing on making the playoffs and the Challenge Cup Final is a distraction.

I would also go back to the top five system as it will be more of a test of consistency to make the playoffs.

The World Club Challenge should alternate between England and Australia.

Wouldn't that disadvantage St Helens too

A player who represents one country should NEVER, under any circumstances (except the creation of a new country) be allowed to represent another. Just like in football.

Mid-season international tours.

Central contracts.



Pre-season 'Champions League' style tournament involving the top 3 clubs in the NRL and SL. Played in Australia!

Yes, end of season, NO!, interesting.