Super league needs to be 14 or more teams and the sooner the better if we are going to have relegatesion 1 up 1 down

Much as there is a fundamental flaw in the current system, which rewards/punishes clubs for stinging a few good results together at the end of the season, the 3 x 8 structure does liven up the end of the regular season. Back in the day, clubs at the lower end of the table could just go through the motions.
However, IF the idea behind expanding SL is to include Toronto and Toulouse, then promotion and relegation could be the death of either or both of them and whilst many would say "so what", there is little point in changing the structure (again) to a system that wouldn't achieve its objectives.
We have to remember, RL is less about sport and all about the money and do we really think the current SL CEO's are bothered about the game as a whole or, will they be more concerned with their own clubs' future's.

When do the clubs meet to vote on this?
I’m sure Nigel Wood said a while back, all would be decided through a vote, at the next meeting of clubs, before the start of the season.

26 games, 13 home and away, team that are top are champions, have a 4 team minor premiership play off if you like (1v4/2v3 winners to meet in final) or better still a 4/6/8 team end of season group of games with against Australian (or even international sides) with top teams from SL/NRL playing each other to be WCC and the 2nd placed teams playing on the undercard with possibly other teams playing a double header night before.

Would rather have a few weeks off mid season to have international series/rep games and bring the challenge cup final forward to June. Scrap the good Friday/Easter Monday , ridiculous situation and not good for player welfare, one or the other.

Re relegation, CH1 up, SL14 down, CH2v3 for right to play SL13.
Just some ideas

If anything, SL should be going down to 10 teams, not expanding. Not unless they're ditching promotion and relegation and breaking away from the Championship. There just isn't enough quality or money in the UK game to support 14 teams.

I must be honest, I too don't see the benefit in 14 teams.

We moved from 14 teams because the RFL acknowledged that the player pool couldn't support a 14 team league without reducing the intensity of the competition (something which was cited as a factor in our inability to compete with Australia).

Since that decision, the player pool has got even smaller, and now we're clamouring for 14 teams again?

Is the desire from fans for a 14 team league based on the desire to see a better competition, or based on the desire for their team to have a better chance of being in that competition?

SL clubs get a bigger slice of the TV money.

I wouldn't expand the league unless newcomers run an academy and reserves plus have an established relationship with local community clubs. Mind you that should apply to SL clubs already. If we can run an academy (and it was a condition of the RFL that our new owners ran one) then surely everyone in SL can? Salford?

As for reserves if Fax and Keighley can do it surely SL clubs can?

How many UK players will Toronto and Toulouse need ?

Let's face it, the desire to expand SL is not being driven by the wish to have Leigh and Fev back in SL, it's all about Toronto and to a lesser extent, Toulouse.

As for quality and money, IF we are to include any additional overseas clubs, the have to bring something to the party and not just be chasing a slice of the Sky cash.
Although their inclusion may theoretically add some "glamour" to the comp. it shouldnt even be considered unless there is something substantial being added to the "pot"

Academies I agree with. I'm less inclined to suggest that reserve sides should be mandatory.

I personally would like to see Leeds run one, but even when the club did, it didn't really take the system seriously - instead preferring to farm players out on loan ('batches' of players have turned out for London, plenty were sent to championship clubs, and many in the early days of Super League turned out for Bramley).

I know that some people see reserve teams as a big part of player development, but there is one way to skin that particular cat.

This is what is going to be the biggest turn in RL. When do those top clubs finally say to the smaller clubs "your lack of future trajectory through lack of money and/or ambition or lack of size of support is no longer good enough for us, we are capable of so much more as individual clubs and to take this sport on as a collective that we are leaving you behind...so, goodbye!"?

A sport, or any business, cannot keep being run from the weakest link up, just to sustain those weakest links. It has to come from the top down.

It should be mandatory to take reserves seriously. From discussing it with our coaching staff I'm totally sold on the idea. Far too many players are lost at 19 under the current system. There may be more than one way of developing players but the current system is clearly not working.

Farming them out to championship clubs is development on the cheap and de-values the game at that level when done under the current dual reg system.

It depends how it's done. I'd suggest that Ben Jones-Bishop learnt a lot more in his year at Harlequins than he would have on the fringes of the Leeds team. In truth, a blend of reserv team rugby and a good loan system is probably the right balance but when Leeds' squad on the whole was on the younger side during the period of reserve grade leagues, there wasn't a huge difference between the A-team and U21s.

If the next few years start to show a trend that reserve teams generate better-developed players, then there's a discussion to be had but like I say, there's more than one way to achieve the right result.

Another interesting case from Leeds is Luke Gale. Left at around 18/19 he was never going to get in ahead of Sinfield, McGuire and Burrow in the foreseeable future around 2007 onwards. Had we been able to keep him until 23 he'd have spent up to 2011 just mostly playing reserve rugby against kids. Instead by 2011 he'd just finished his 3rd year as a SL starter at Quins. Had we had reserves at that time and kept Gale playing in that then he arguably wouldn't be a MOS or England international today.

Very few NRL U20's players make the 1st grade and hardly any do it straight away, but instead earn their spurs in the 2nd tier QLND/NSW Cup competitions......if we are seriously returning to 14 sides then I would instigate a mandatory U20's and Reserve Grade competition and directly link participation to the amount of central funding a club receives.

Taking the game forward isn't Wigan v Hull in some NSW backwater, but Wigan U20's v Hull U20's before a reserve grade game followed by the main event played in an 80% full DW stadium and part of a weekend that has all 7 games shown on TV Live with at east one other triple-header broadcast.

Wakefield v Toronto in front of 5k fans in a crumbling stadium is going to be of little interest to any North American Broadcasters....at least any of note.

Agreed, however you're in la-la land if you think there will be even a few hundred fans for the first game!
What actual % of that 80% are going to turn up at 4:00pm on a Thursday/Friday afternoon to watch an u20s game, how many of that 80% are going to rock up at 5:45pm, how about if that is on a freezing cold afternoon, how many are going to not bother because they can't bring their kids at that time or are simply still at work/have other commitments and how many would want to sit through 2 or even 2 matches concurrently when the perception is that those games are just the lesser teams. Even when it's virtually free you don't see more than a handful of fans watching the academy/reserve matches.
okay in the summer/warmer months on a Sunday you might get more take up but imagining that people will rock up in their droves to watch 3 matches concurrently and in significant numbers is utterly ridiculous. It doesn't even work when you give tickets away at £10 and there are 6 SL teams playing one after another!

it's not about the spectators......I've sat at Mt Smart with maybe 30 others watching the u20's and at best, 1,000 for the start of the vulcans......but the kids coming through get games, get time with their senior players.....and get better

We must return to licensing. We must bring Toronto and Toulouse into Super League, with a future option of adding New York and one out of Montreal, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and Jacksonville, to make 16. Adding London would be a good idea as well if they can get additional sponsorship and a decent ground.

It is also imperative that lowly Leigh be kept out of Super League, because it brings nothing to the table in terms of new funding for the game, new fans, and new young player pools. Lowly Leigh belongs in the Championship, where it can compete with frightful Featherstone, shambolic Sheffield, hopeless Halifax etc.

You sound very very worried cappy.

I think you are mad, a few overseas clubs might work, but anything more than 2 or 3 will be a joke, fans will run out of money travelling.

If there are so many North American teams start a league in North America.

Personally, I think that's what will happen if RL takes off in North America. Why would the likes of New York, Boston, Detroit etc want to continue to mix it with minor UK towns and cities like Wigan, Hull, Leeds etc - who hardly sit comfortably beside major North American cities? However, if we remove the opportunity for the likes of 'lowly Leigh', 'frightful Featherstone' etc, to compete at the top table, presumably these clubs will die a slow, lingering death, leaving the Wigans, Hulls, Leeds's etc. to play amongst themselves in a 4/5/6 club 'UK Super League'.

The sad irony is that IF we do end up with 4/5 N American clubs that are able to play in SL, in time the situation will go in one of 2 possible directions.

Either, RL will be so successful over there that they form their own League or, there will be a Super, Super League with only 4/5 UK clubs competing.
We really do need to ask whether the latter of these is what ANY UK fans want.
At the moment we are being led blindly into a situation which will destroy the domestic game in the UK.
Call it a parting gift from the Fat Controller.

Maybe the solution is that existing SL/Championship clubs get their act together commercially. We have a league with 5 or 6 strong(ish) sides, the rest just make up the numbers, and that's why we have accepted and sought after outside investment.

Too many folk on here are eating far too much cheese before going to bed.

If we go to 14 teams what’s up with going to 16 or more sorry I do not buy their are not enough players for more their is a old saying if you build it they will come maybe they will

Ignoring the pathetic troll attempt, we must find a way of expanding into these exciting new markets whilst strengthening France and encouraging the heart beat in the heartlands. Surely folk can start to see why tow tens makes so much sense