really? maybe exciting is the wrong word. but isn't it something to make the fans turn up and GET BEHIND the team, something to play for - not just for the teams battling relegation, but the teams fighting at the top of the Championship who just seem to be on a road to nowhere right now?

Not necessarily, plenty of Wigan fans consider the 2006 season to be one of their most exciting if memory serves me right.

correct it was very exciting but i wouldn't want to do it again, relegation was scrapped so teams had no pressure to build for the future and put trust in youth and not just sign every experinced player you could get your hands on nvm if they had anything still left in the tank. just some clubs have taken advantage of this and been pure lazzy in my eyes.

In hindsight that season was very exciting and I look back on the escape fondly. However it didn't feel too good during the first half of the season. Our attendances went up during that season as we battled to avoid the drop so the struggles that season obviously appealed to people in the town. The battle to avoid the drop that season (and not just our battle) also attracted a lot more attention from the broadcaster as well, culminating in the aforementioned Wakey v Cas survival decider.

However I still think that we are better off without yearly P&R at the moment. More parity in salary spending between SL and the Championship is needed (as well as other things) before it should be considered to reintroduce it. Ideally we would get to a situation where moving either up or down between SL and Championship would not involve such a proportional change in salary cap (and thus salary spend) as would necessitate the complete dismantling of the playing squad (as it does now) and where dropping down did not mean a massive drop in income and moving up did not leave a club having to increase income four-fold in order to stand a chance of competing financially. Personally I cannot see the financial chasm (for that is the principal reason for the gap in standards) closing in the short or medium term if it ever does. One way to perhaps help close it would be to have the tv rights for SL and Championship sold as one package (not separately) with all clubs in SL and Championship getting money from it. I doubt that the SL clubs would vote for it though as it would initially at least see their money cut.

In any event it may be the case that by the time that such financial parity occurs and the reintroduction of annual P&R becomes viable that such a long time will have elapsed that the current system will have been in place so long that it will amongst all fans be accepted as the norm and calls for P&R will no longer be happening. After all whilst there are regular calls from some for the return of annual P&R we do not hear any appeals for a return to the single division format that predated P&R despite that having been almost exclusively the format of the league since it formed in 1895 and that single division format having been used for 4 times as long as annual P&R was.

No. As a neutral, I absolutley hated watching those 'relegation scraps' at the end of the season, with two poor teams filled with substandard Australians looking too nervous to string a couple of passes together. The competition has been infinitely more enjoyably without those embarrassing matches being given the spotlight.

i agree with this and if it happend from the start widnes would never have been out of super league . since they finished 2nd bottom when they was omitted to allow catalan dragons in who never gained promotion . we lost all them years and youth devlopment as a results of the crooked rfl

Either Fax or Fev could dominate our league for the next 3 seasons, both clubs are capable of increasing their home support, and Fax at least have a stdium worthy for SL.

however going by the current rules and regs, we wont stand a chance of getting a shot at the top league?!

Why?!

as a fan of a club with rich RL history (just like Bradford and Wakefield and the rest) can you not understand why this doesnt sit well?

The governing body are killing the sport from the bottom up.

How long will fans of Fax and Fev and the rest continue supporting without a chance of ever seeing their team compete at the top. the longer we continue without P&R the more fans are drifting away, and its gonna be very difficult to get them back!

The RFL aren't killing anything

The world has changed and small towns with small populations can't hope to support top flight professional sports. Simple, sad, economics.

Fev in SL? If the magic break even number is 10k they have to pull in 70% of the towns population to break even.

Franchising is in place to stop teams killing themselves trying to win the league when it's nothing more than a lottery.

Ah sod it, this arguments been done a million times.

and who do you follow?

Giants.

Your point being?

Could be your reliance on sugar daddy or your fear of where you will be when he has gone.

Huddersfield were a joke prior to SL and a joke for many years in SL, until they went down and rebuilt with Daveys cash.

There is little difference between many heartlands clubs, its just that some are in and some aren't - if Hudds had spent all but one year outside SL, what gates would you be getting? Same question to Wakey, Cas, Salford, HKR etc HKR were 1500 or less in the lower leagues for many years, Hudds were shocking when there, even worse before AJM came in the 80's?

We have a choice to exclude or include, imo exclusion isn't working and killing the game outside SL

Yes, the old Fartown club was in a shocking state until a group of directors came along to properly run the club - since then the club has climbed from the gutter to the top of the pile.

I still dont see your point. Maybe its because you dont actually have one, but instead are very, very bitter.

They climbed up the ladder with full P&R by the way, from the bottom of division 3 to the top of superleague, earning promotion on the field, not through franchising. So whats your point?

The year before we first got promoted the fartowners were getting crowds of 3-4000 by the way, sorry if that unravells your conspiracy theory.

Having seen my club at the very, very bottom (something that precious few other fans have seen) and climb to the very, very top on the back of P&R I still say that the current system is by far and away the BEST system I have ever seen in the game, and if the Giants were still languishing in the championship I would feel EXACTLY the same way, why, because I know how bad the game had got.

So, again, what on earth is your point?

The problem isn't promotion, it's relegation. It seems the licensing process is there to ensure that clubs that are massively in debt and need the money are permanently guaranteed a piece of the sky pie, rather than to ensure well run clubs are in the top division.

Isn't that progress rather than one team winning everything like we saw with Wigan.

Look at all the youngsters playing in the first teams. We wouldn't have seen that previously

Sadly Fax, Fev and Co will never be in SL-Accept it

What complete tosh.

What well run clubs are there waiting to come into Super League?
And if they are so well run, surely its just a matter of time that they get into the top flight?

Quote from Code 13: "They climbed up the ladder with full P&R by the way, from the bottom of division 3 to the top of superleague, earning promotion on the field, not through franchising. So whats your point?"

That avenue has now been cut off to most of the Rugby League as we have been effectively disenfranchised. That is our point

It would be if the other 7 clubs didn't take it in turns to go belly up each year.

Its working well.

It dosnt matter. A team could finish bottom of the league over and over and get flogged every week and it wouldnt matter.

Yeah its a touch unfair people expecting Widnes to be competitive when they wernt even that competitive in the Championship.

they finished 5th, Leigh put 50+ points past them twice last season.

thing is, under Neil Kelly when Widnes got promoted to SL, in their 1st season finished 6th.

And even then they were miles away from finishing top of the table in the old NFP in their promotion year. I'd throw in a wink but it still hurts 11 years on!

thankfully the RFL don't care about that!

i don't see why so many fans fail to understand that the current system is all about what you do off the field and not on it! yes it'd be nice to have P&R but sadly there is neither the money or a big enough player pool for that to be a reality at the minute; super league teams use to spend money they didn't have trying to stop themselves going down, mainly throwing it at average aussies, and the championship clubs would do the same trying to come up. Then when it was actually decided who was going down / coming up, they would have to go out and sign virtually a complete new squad as the gap is too wide to keep the same players. None of which helped improve the player pool and/or talent, increased the wider appeal of the sport, made it more appealing for neutral fans, etc

Whilst I do think the RFL have got many things wrong*, including some things in the current system (i.e. too many teams, not enforcing the quota/club trained rule well enough, etc), the reasoning for the system to be in place is excellent.


*sadly not helped by the 'me' culture and shortsightedness that's exists at most clubs. Just look at Bradford, the current management team have got the club into a big mess but are still unwilling to give the club over to someone else because "they're the best people to take the club forward..."

suppose so, but frustrating to be a fan of a club (with ambition) knowing it maybe 2015, 2018, or 2021 before you get THAT opportunity. I know Widnes fans might not be enjoying this season too much, and I hated our 2005 SL season - I was chuffed when we didn't get thrashed. It's a pity the 'gulf' is SO big between SL & championship clubs, footie clubs do OK in their 1st season in the premiership.