There is nothing wrong with licensing. It works in the NRL

The problem was that there were too many clubs for the number of talented English players available, and for the amount of money being provided by Sky..

There needs to be a licensed 12 team competition, with another French team included in order to assist the growth of the game in France.

The teams should be:

[iWigan
Saints
Warrington
Leeds
Huddersfield
Bradford
Hull FC
Hull KR
Salford
London
Catalans
Toulouse[/i


We need a professional team in London to provide a road to professionalism for the thousands of young amateur rugby league players in the south of England. However London needs to be taken over by News International and subsidised by them temporarily until a new private buyer can be found to join the man who will become minority owner, David Hughes.

To get promoted, it should not be through a play-off. 1st past the post, rewarding the best team throughout the season.

See you've still got 4 teams in that bring no money gain to the home club they're playing.

I only count 2?

i dont count any. Home clubs are responsible for their gates, not away clubs. This away support nonsense is only ever put out there by people wanting to defend their small heartland club on the basis that they will bring 500 fans to an away game when thats about all they will do.

A league of 13/14 is fine for me, with a limited quota of 5 overseas players.

Promotion/relegation of 1 up-1 down depending on the following
The winners of level 2 must pass a minimum standard in terms of facilities and infrastructure and they have the chance to turn down promotion.
if they do turn down promotion, then other clubs at level 2 will get the chance to apply for promotion.
If this happens, only in the case of no other teams applying (or non meeting the minimum criteria) shall the team finishing bottom of Superleague keep their top flight status.

A return to the top 5 playoff system is the key for me. This will feature only teams that are in with a reasonable chance of winning, it also favours the league finish more (to win, you have to beat every team that finished above you). The fewer number of team will also stop top clubs resting on their laurels, knowing they'll easily get into the 8.

I've been quite a fan of the DR system, to be honest. I think kids benefit from playing against physically mature opposition. I'd like to see this sort of thing continued. P&R may cock it up a bit, but the basis is sound imo.

I would like to see a fourteen team top division, one up one down.

Have a top five play-off with the team finishing top straight to the G.F & that applies to the Championship also.

If the club who attains promotion gets into financial difficulties by either winning the Championship or attempting to stay in the top flight – unlucky.

SL 1 - 12 teams

SL 2 - 12 teams

P&R for top and bottom clubs

More prestige for the team who finishes top (ie call them Champions, because they have been the best all season)

Top 5 play offs based on the old Aussie format

Winners to called Premiers

ie Huddersfield are the rightful champions and Wigan are the Premiers.

Who would bother going to watch the Final to name Wigan premiers? Who would have bothered going to watch 10 of the 14 teasm who were going to be neither champions nor relegated for about a third of the season? Who is going to watch SL2 that isnt going to watch the Championships now?

It is my opinion that the top of the league team should be the champions, call me old fashioned, but a team that has performed as well as Huddersfield have this season deserve the accolade.

Would RL be any different to any other league that has P&R, the Premier League has games that are between teams 11 & 12 in March, having P&R is better than having a game between London & Wakefield as the bottom two the week before the play offs with no meaning, in fact a few seasons ago we had a Cas v Wakey game to decide relagation and it was (for a neutral) a great bit of entertainment.

Call the second tier what you want, but if the top 4 are in touch with each other with 6 weeks to go, knowing that a place in SL is beckoning, it would be a good for the game and would make good TV (I for one would watch them).

At the moment the bottom three or four have nothing to play for past christmas, at least P&R would change that.

I have remained consistant in my belief that P&R is the only fair way, even when my own club were stairing down the barrel. If your bottom, you deserve to go down and give someone else a chance.

First thing I'd do is impose the following on the decision-making process: A club should have exactly the same number of votes at any RFL/whatever-new-structure meeting as it's previous year's average attendance. That way, we don't have clubs that don't know how to attract fans wielding the same influence as those that do. You want the voice of your club to have more influence? Better start turning up then. Wigan and Leeds currently 'represent' far more RL fans than say, Huddersfield, so decisions made at the RFL/SL/whatever affect more people supporting those clubs. Chairpeople might not listen to any fans, but if they do, it'll be the fans of their own team over those of any others, so at least there's some attempt at fairness in representation. If the Chairman of your own club is voting the wrong way in your opinion, you can attempt to tell him what you think.

Its not old fashioned, for the majority of our games history our champions have been decided in a play-off.

Compare Wakefields attendance that season even including the stars aligning to create that game to this years. The PL has european qualification to keep relevance.

So why didn’t it?
That being the case why didn’t P+R solve the games problems? Why were the bottom SL teams still poorly attended (in many cases even more poorly attended than now), Why weren’t the championship clubs well attended? Why wasn’t the game more visible with P+R? Why weren’t TV companies falling over themselves to broadcast the championships?

Its not a question of will P+R work, or will the champions being decided by a league work. We know how it will turn out. We had it for years, we saw the problems it caused. Its why we changed it.

Was it really? It was a match in which two sets of people were fighting for their ability to pay their mortgage for the next year, rather than the pinnacle of what this sport can offer.

It was "entertainment" in the same sense that watching Gary Barlow and Louis Walsh make teenagers cry on camera is "entertainment".

Correct, I'd rather watch Leeds vs Wigan for the 100th time in the season to decide 3rd and 4th on the last weekend of the regular season

Box office

OK here I go...

Expand the Super League to 16 teams (Toulouse + best Championship club) with two leagues of 8 one up one down. Playoffs to include a maximum of the top half of the table (so 4 at the most).

Teams to play their own league home and away and the other league once, so 7x2+8=22. Have a pre-season tournament with small groups including the top championship teams. Super League starts in April/May.

No automatic promotion relegation between FT and PT leagues. A team can be put "on notice" if they continually under perform i.e. finishes in bottom 2 of SL2 for 3 years. Teams looking to gain promotion to super league in the event of a vacancy MUST meet strict criteria which they can asked to be reviewed for. This will replace the 4 years licencing cycle. The eventual aim would be to increase SL1 and SL2 to 10 team competitions once it was decided there were enough British players to support it.

Team academies are to be funded separate from the clubs to avoid teams cutting back on youth development. Associating them with universities would work similar to US sports. Would pave the way for a player development pool rather than individual teams youth development.

A 12 team SL competition. The top 5 qualify for the play-offs. 1 up 1 down promotion and relegation.

I may get called small-minded but I feel that we have to stick to our core area. Clubs like Barrow, Featherstone, Halifax, Leigh etc. must take precedence over London/Welsh sides. Let's get the basics right before we try the complexities. As has been mentioned, a named nationwide sponsor that invests financially must be found. If you look at the viewing figures from Sky, our game is not difficult to sell.

Wrote this a while ago but still think it would be better than what we have now.

Its mainly based on comments about the lack of competitive nature of the leagues by those in high places coupled with comments about just how transparent the league is I wondered if using a similar format to Gary Hetheringtons old 8 team Division 2 is a way to drive up intensity and interest in divisions in all the leagues in the country.

Going off the current league placing's this would consist of.....

SUPER LEAGUE
============
Catalans
Huddersfield
Hull
Hull KR
Leeds
St Helens
Warrington
Wigan

DIVISION 1
============
Bradford
Castleford
Featherstone
London Bronco's
Salford
Sheffield
Wakefield
Widnes

DIVISION 2
=========
Batley
Dewsbury
Doncaster
Halifax
Leigh
Toulouse
Whitehaven
Workington

DIVISION 3
===========
Barrow
Hunslet
Keighley
North Wales
Oldham
Rochdale
Swinton
York

DIVISION 4
==========
Bramley
Coventry
Gateshead
Gloucester
Hemel
London Skolars
Oxford
South Wales

Obviously Division 4 is a unknown quantity and may alter to get suitable clubs in but all the other leagues see's clubs of equal ability throughout and at equal levels in those clubs current playing status which is something we are currently missing in all leagues with week to week
intensity in all divisions non existent.

League Set up........
Play each team home and away twice (gives you 28 league fixtures), 1 up (winner of Champions final , see below) , 1 down from each league each season (8th placed club), only requirement being minimum ground standards (which all clubs will have to work to on a rolling yearly basis from clear transparent guidelines that all can see on the RFL website), these standards increase with each league step up with each league having minimum ground criteria - the further up the league you go it will also be a requirement to run reserve / youth teams at various levels.

End of season Champions finals.......
Top 3 from each league enter a Champions Final which acts as follows........
1st Placed - Straight through to final
2nd & 3rd Placed - Play off to get to Champions final.

SL Champions Final at Old Trafford - Sunday 5.00pm

Div 1 Champions final at Warrington - Saturday Evening 6.30pm

Div 2 Champions final at Salford - Saturday afternoon 2.30pm

Div 3/4 Champions final at Leigh - Friday Evening (6pm & 8.15pm KO)

The reason all in North West is so you can get to all games over the weekend (a long weekend of RL) and all are modern state of the art RL grounds.

Additionals.......
Winner of SL League plays touring National Team(s)
Winner of League 1 & League 2 plays touring WCC team
Winner of League 3 & League 4 afforded respective league bye in next seasons CC.

Challenge Cup to be seeded , will become a midweek comp 'under the lights' for first rounds (unless clubs can fit in a weekend fixture), Division 4 and Division 3 clubs enter with remaining amateur clubs followed by Division 2 in next round with Division 1 and SL next round.

Northern Rail Cup.
Available to clubs in Division 2 to 4 only , Straight Knock out competition.
Finals day at Blackpool.

Of course with all of the above its hard to predict the finance split per each league (put bluntly I haven't a clue what it is) but I feel its time to have a real look from top to bottom and drive this sport further forward.

Of course the alternate is we just look after 6 or 7 clubs and eventually the pyramid will crumble (or worse) we will see our top clubs joining RU's bottom clubs in a Hybrid RU/RL type comp for SKY.

My lads tell me I'm living in the past but here's my thoughts from the dark ages: the reason we had play offs was because there was one league of 32 teams, nobody played every other team home and away, so play offs by the top 4 then top 16 were the fairest way of determining the champions. This, incidently is how the NRL operate, and the NFL and other leagues across the world, so we either have a league set up of play each team home and away to determine champions or choose a system that could be set up in any number of different ways. Personally, I'd split into 2 leagues of 10 - could be east and west - decide how many game you want to play and tailor the fixtures to accomodate this (including the magic weekend) then top 4 in each league play off to decide that league's own champions - the 2 champion teams play off for grand final. It may not be for everybody but we should be looking to getting 20 competitive teams and such a set up can accomodate new clubs. Anyway I'll wait for the reaction now!

Slightly off topic but a change I'd like to see to prevent clubs getting into financial difficulties is the RFL enforcing new laws that prevent directors/owners making non repayable, interest free loans to their own clubs. These loans are rife and create a false financial picture of a clubs finances and make it harder to attract new owners/benefactors to come in and buy them out. By all means allow them to make financial donations but these loans (Usually converted into new shares) are holding our game back because these people get in too deep and can't just step aside allowing new investers to come in with a fresh approach.

There are differing scenarios that make your point valid, but also on shaky ground.

Reports are that OK at Bradford will get his Million back, but over a period of time, which essentially makes the job for the new owners even more difficult.

Flip over to London where conservative estimates put David Hughes investment as 9 million quid. If Mr Hughes believes he will ever see a penny of that cash back then he needs locking up and I personally believe he would be more than happy to flog the club for a fiver if he believed the new owners could offer the same level of support whilst getting the basics right.

Now flip back to the good Doctor at Salford. It remains to be seen how much and for how long he will plough cash into the club before he either starts to cut back or even worse, buggers off?

Now, flip over to Huddersfield. For many years Ken Davy has ploughed money into the club whilst trying everything to get the public to come and watch the team. This year, they won the hubcap and yet still the fans (and therefore the associated revenue needed to be self sufficient) can't be d.

Money men are a necessary evil in most sports.....they sometimes get it right, like the guys at Wigan, Wire, Leeds and Hull, but too many times the people at the helm can't afford to plough 500k a year (HKR) of their own cash into the clubs.........it nearly Killed OK at Bradford.

Not sure about how I would structure the league moving forward, but I would most definitely make the broadcast partner pay for the expansion teams if they insist on having one.....

I will just keep reminding people that RL exists beyond SL and the championships.
Where do the players come from?
What does it cost to run an amateur club with many teams?
What help do they get from professional clubs?
What FINANCIAL help do they give to the clubs who develop players?
Unless and until the WHOLE game is restructured in this country, these discussions will carry on and the game nearer death as a professional sport

Fair enough, but without the top tier, RL becomes Curling....

There has to be a top tier as there is in any sport. It is the structure that is in place that creates success. Rugby League was founded because of injustice and elitism by the RFU.
Is this really what is desired by today's game? The core of the game was always as long as you can play you are welcome there is no prejudice here.
Sadly all I see, hear and read in this country shows that core of the game has been forgotten by so many and even sadder is that people don't care and even worse do not know what RL has been through to survive.
It is strange that the game keeps on inflicting wounds to itself. I just hope they never cut a vital artery but they are making a good attempt.

I disagree.

SO do I. But only just.

I mean we must have a London club in Super League. At least he got Toulouse right.

Licensing must be retained. No P & R.

So it should be:

[iWigan
St. Helens
Warrington
Salford

Leeds
Bradford
Huddersfield
Hull FC
Hull KR

London

Catalans
Toulouse[/i