That’s just what has happened this year.

Just like Muhammed Ali, Shaky Wakey have been on the ropes all year, plenty of the squad didn’t have the guts to see it through & with the finish line in sight a couple more decide to take the rise.

Unfortunately for Bradford they couldn’t find the killer blow & the buck has to stop with their coach, he picks the team & he made the decision to attempt to square up the game late on.

I’m sure I read that Bradford were near to full strength yesterday, maybe they were, but with reasonable fitness? Gaskell wasn’t at the races & Blyth was stuck out on the wing, (though I’m sure if Gaskell hadn’t been included in the seventeen, there would have been howls of derision from the Odsal faithful)

This was definitely the year for the new system to promote a Championship team, but the said team blew it.

I’m pretty sure (based on forty years of misery) Wakefield will be in the Middle Eights again next season. Will they be as appalling as this year, surely not.

But what I still don’t understand is, why the Championship clubs have to have a S.C so much lower than S.L? It’s not like their wanting a bigger slice of Red Halls beloved Sky money & if they can raise the cash internally, go for it I say.

Only twepeaks should be a 1 player per month signing deadline from May onwards and possibly a look at the SC, although im not really in favour of that without a further increase in central funds to all Championship clubs

Rugby league is a 17 man game(16 for Leeds)
Moore, Yates, Mulally, Sio, Smith, Locke and Tupou were all signed at the back end of the year and helped Wakefield stay up.

Hopefully the game will take some time to fully evaluate what has happened over the last few weeks - what worked and what perhaps didn't.

For me you do need to do something to even up the middle 8's - 1 win out of 17 is not a very good strike rate.

As for the comments from the Lowes - At best they seemed to be those of someone caught in the moment. I wasn't entirely sure what kind of system he was pushing for. Any leagues with promotion and relegation is always going to have an impact on players livelihoods - it comes with the territory. He also seemed to conveniently forget that without the MPG they wouldn't have gone up anyway as without the split beaten by Leigh and with the split they finished 5th anyway.

What's Lowes gripe?

Leigh won the League and would have got the P&R slot had it been one up one down. Bulls made it to the million pound game and got a shot at Wakey which they blew.

I dont understand where the careers at risk, livelihoods argument comes from. Now they are going PT. Its all a bit bizarre

And what about players who jumped ship or weren't up for the fight throughout the season, and the players ruled out for the season through injury, are we not allowed to replace them?

As already said, 10 of the starting 17 were with us from the start of the season, Joe Arundel was signed after round two...

We got a new coach in Brian Smith and he had a look at the squad and looked where he thought we needed strengthening a little....Tupuo was brought in at centre as we were light there as one of our overseas Dean Collis returned home earlier in the season....Sio was brought in to cover back row initially as we had long term injuries to Kirmond, Ashurst, Molloy and Lauititi.....Huddersfield signed Daniel Smith from us and instead of waiting for next season he left early so as part of the deal we got Mullally (who had already signed for Leeds for next season) on loan until the end of the season.....Cas signed our first choice hooker Paul McShane in similar circumstances so we got Scott Moore as cover in return...

That leaves Yates, Smith and Locke......Locke was a gamble that at the time looked worth the risk...with what we got out of him on the pitch he was probably more of a negative than a positive, especially with the impact of the off the field issue of a few weeks back.....Lee Smith has been quality but played no part against Bradford and I reckon Andy Yates was a player who became available and was probably signed at the time with one eye on a possible plan b if we were to lose the game and be relegated...

Now please tell me how any of those signings are wrong....are we just supposed to allow players to leave or get signed by other clubs and not replace them? And when bringing a new coach in is he not allowed to assess what he has and signed a few players to freshen things up?


I thought it was an excellent game and an excellent occasion....Bradford were given the opportunity and failed to take it....the two decisions Lowes was moaning about were both the correct calls as far as I could see....just a bad loser...the best team on the day won the game without any question whatsoever!

There may be something in the salary cap issue and an advantage to Super League clubs....that is possibly to look at in future to try and level it out a bit....still think it's too early to write off the concept just because the team everyone seems to dislike spoilt the party!

The signing deadline should have been at the very minimum 2 months earlier than it was this year.

I'm sure it's something the RFL will look at in the off season.

I'm sure they will Gronk!, can't have sides 'giving up on Super League' then planning for the 'middle 8's' months ahead and then releasing/signing loads of players. it might not have worked for Wakefield, but it did....this time.

So who would Bradford have played in the centre instead of Nielson?

Wakefield started planning for the middle 8s after 7 games. Considering Brian Smith's comments No doubt they will be planning for the middle 8s now.

You can tweak as much as you want but the idea we can have a competitive league stretching from Leeds to Doncaster is idiotic. And that's what is necessary for this concept to work. 24 clubs of relatively even standing. Otherwise we will continue to get what we have. 4 clubs at the top of the championship being miles ahead of the bottom of the championship losing to 4 clubs at the bottom of SL miles away from the top.

Last year the top of the championship lost 1 game. The bottom of the championship won 1
The bottom of SL won 3 games.

For their to be meaningful competition in the middle 8s, that team who lost 1 game all year need to be better and the team who won 3 on SL need to be worse. That isn't good for either the championship or SL.

Really not seeing the issue about us signing players?

We released (6);
3. Dean Collis
9. Paul McShane
15. Matty Ryan
18. Daniel Smith
20. Jarrod Sammut
23. Lopini Paea

We Signed (9);
33. Kevin Locke
34. Michael Sio
35. Jordan Tansey
36. Anthony Walker
37. Anthony Mullally (Loan)
38. Lee Smith
39. Bill Tupou
40. Scott Moore
41. Andy Yates

Add to the fact Kevin Locke played about 2 games & Tim smith played no part in the Sheffield or Bradford game, along with Danny Kirmond not returning untill the Sheffield game!

At the end of the day - The RFL put the signing deadline day in & we used it.

Exactly. Wakefield did their level best to self destruct this season and yet not only won the play off but only lost one game v championship sides in the middle 8 games I think.

I think only Salford lost another game v championship sides also.

How to change this? Well unless you rig it somehow in favour of the championship sides I can't see the outcome ever being any different. Wakey will be much better prepared next season if they end up in the middle 8.

The trouble is all the options ignore THE big issue Lowes pointed out in his rant. And that is the players livelihoods are stake.

This was the problem with simple P&R where if you got relegated your salary cap went down from £1.6m to £300K and all your full time players contracts were simply ripped up.

How the hell can you treat people like that?

The new system just kicks the can down the road a bit but does not address this issue. The gap between SL and championship is simply too great money-wise. Giving top championship sides £900K instead of dropping down to £300K as used to happen doesn't solve anything.

It's about time someone in the RFL had to guts to admit there is not enough money to fund the "whole game" approach and that the reality is there is only enough cash for a 12 or 14 team fully professional SL which is a closed shop with franchises up every three years.

Some fans need to realise that as well. In pro sport the romance of P&R when there is so little cash available is just not feasible. The RFL have instigated a system the sport can't afford.

Do you mean the position we were in last year before fans and clubs complained about the franchise system?

At the end of three years, won't players still have career and contract issues?
Besides which, if their club gets relegated doesn't that suggest that they don't deserve such contracts?
Most players tend to get SL deals when a club goes down; it's the fans who are relegated.

I like the idea that fiendish Wakefield cooked all this up as part of an evil plan to cheat the system...

In reality, the club imploded (again) both on and off the field and the Chairman took steps to try to salvage something from it; had it not been for James Webster's desperate public statement that it was all about the Middle 8's, this mythology wouldn't have taken such a pervasive hold and been used as a stick to beat both the club and the format for the rest of the season. To suggest that after losing half a dozen players mid-season, Wakefield should have soldiered on without the requisite number of players in their squad is ridiculous - especially given that most of the replacements were of significantly lower quality than the outgoing personnel.

In the end, the best Championship clubs weren't quite ready for even the worst that SL had to offer; is it that big a surprise? Or did Eddie brainwash everyone so effectively that neither Bradford or Leigh coming up is utterly unconscionable?

Fans complain about everything but that doesn't mean we stop identifying and address the structural problems the game has in some short term attempt to placate them.

That's because the new format is utter cr@p.

23 rounds to work out the top 8 and then a further 7 rounds to work out who is ranked 12 & 13 and then one more game, just to make sure.
Leigh were the best team in the Championship and Wakefield clearly the worst in SL.
In most other British sports, this would be good enough for promotion and relegation.

In essence, if you're not going to make the top 8, why not "manage your squad" to give yourself the best possible chance in the 8's

Surely, the brains that gave us the, all new, every minute matters system, thought this scenario through.

The million pound game was extremely close, full of excitement and Bradford were very close indeed to winning but, should we really have to do this.

Maybe, next season, just to prolong the excitement, we could have a 5 game promotion/relegation series, just to make absolutely sure of the SL composition for the following season and perhaps do the same with the grand final.
Best of 5 seems fair.

All you bulls fans moaning make me laugh

When.clubs such as your selves did not give a rats ass about the championship and voted.for a closed shop franchise where we play for 3 years of pointless friendleys with still no chance of going up. Eg wakey bust fax record massive profit etc

Now we have a chance a slim chance where you.came close and blew it. You lot are not happy but at least we have something to play for. A taste of sl is better than no sl.

You lot should be hopeing they don't scrap the system and revert back to a closed shop from next season. You Leeds Wigan st'hellens did not give a monkeys about the championship until now your stuck here.

All this talk about player's livelihoods on the line..... Was Lowes going to just play the same team that played in the MPG in Super League if he won?
Or, like everyone else, was he going to sign some players and let the weaker ones go.
Promotion affects contracts just like relegation does.
And in Bradford's case why is it even a problem?
Surely they didn't over budget just to get in Super League? So they should be able to afford the same Championship side next year as they did this one.

Lowes and the Bulls were happy to qualify for the middle 8s by romping through the Championship with a bigger salary cap than the majority of their part time opponents.

Hypocrite.

Bradford overspending in a hunt for glory? Surely that'd never happen.

With Bradford I assume they were one of the championship sides in £900K salary cap. I have no idea if that is set to change or if they were on a higher cap for some reason. So if they do remain on £900K it should not be an issue. The issue is with the relegated side.

Under the old system of P&R players contracts were simply ripped up with no compensation and they all became free agents. That was just ludicrous.

Going the other way this time, presumably if Bradford had players with time to run on their current contracts and they had won promotion they simply could not do that without compensation. Only out of contract players may find themselves possibly without a place but they will have already been looking to their next deal with Bradford or other teams so no surprises there.

So no, promotion does not affect contracts like relegation does.

The salary cap for all clubs is now fully funded by the Sky money whether you are an SL club on £1.8m, a top championship side on £900K (don't know how many of them there are) or lower down the pecking order on a much smaller cap. So that means it is highly likely you have a squad of contracted players who take up all the cap.

Going up a level is no problem as no one's contract needs to be ripped up. Going down a level is just the same issue as previously where all of a sudden you have to reduce your wage bill by at least half at best.

Do you fancy being asked to take a 50% pay cut?

This is before we consider if any championship side will ever be up to making the grade in this system having spent a season playing basketball against some very poor sides. I think Rowley at Leigh recognised early on the gap was much bigger than he anticipated.

"The new structure allows for that increased investment and sees the best performing Championship clubs receive up to £750,000 per season from 2015, which will enable them to recruit a competitive squad and invest in the player development pathways needed to achieve sustained success." Taken from the The RFL website ( Home / 2015 RL New Era)

So the best clubs only get a maximum of £750k.....not the full salary cap

I would imagine that if a SL club is relegated then it would still be the case that their players contracts would be null and void unless clubs start putting in a releagtion pay cut clause in them

Maybe I was watching a completely different game to some of the people on here.

Just so we are all on the same page... did the season have to result in definitely one team being relegated and one team being promoted to conclusively prove that the system works?

Did the competition deliver drama? Yes..
Leigh running up a lead against HKR in the first half and then letting it slip in the second half?
Bradford beating Leigh
Halifax pushing us really close
Bradford beating Salford... As a Widnes fan I certainly went into the Wakey game feeling nervous about the result. As a fan it was also great to revisit some familiar grounds.

Was it feasible that one of the Championship sides might gain promotion?
Absolutely... more than feasible.. it was only a ball bouncing off someones shoulder rather than his chest away of ending in that result. It wasn't a classic by any standards but the game was close, it wasn't decided before half-time and was still in the balance going into the last minute. Wakey were nervous and Bradford were buoyed at the prospect of SL.

As for Lowes the only scenario where it might have worked out for him would have been in the old NFP/Championship play-off scenario where they might have beaten Leigh in a GF and gained promotion that way. But his team were a whisker away from doing it on Saturday.

Looking forward to it next year with the tweaks mentioned above around moving the transfer deadline etc.