Really? So you'd be quite happy to reduce the league by 4 teams? (Let's say Wakey Salford, Cas and Widnes ) - so that the pool of quality of the players available would increase to the benefit of the remaining teams as their is supposedly not enough talent to go around.

All I was suggesting is why not go the whole hog and field 4 teams of superstars and play in a league of their own? Each team plays each other 5 times - Job's a goodun!

Have you seen how many clubs are in the Championship and Championship 1?

But it's okay, nobody cares about us.

That's 12 teams, and they have a neccesity to play more games than is the case in Super League.

Not sure chopping to 10 would be quite the solution (although I'd be prepared to try it). The risk of moving to 14 teams was well worth a chance but sadly I don't think it's worked out IMHO. Go back to 12 sides for the time being but slash the quota and tighten up the loopholes. The Championships could certainly do with the couple of extra sides this would provide, for a start.

SL is going with 14 clubs for the next three years and thereafter.
Fewer clubs is not what we need but more players.
Until clubs are made to depend on their own youth development and not buy in a squad then RL will struggle in this country.
The 8 club trained should go from being in the squad 25 as now to being in the game 17. Also increase that by 1 per year for the following 3 years.
That would concentrate club's minds on developing their own players.

Expansion is the ultimate aim for Super League , so I will go for .

LONDON. DUBLIN , HUDDERSFIELD , WIGAN, PARIS, CATALANS , CRUSADERS ,
CUMBRIA ,NOTTINGHAM , EDINBOROUGH.

ATM: Hull FC
St Helens
Wigan
Warrington
Leeds
London
Catalans
Huddersfield
Bradford
Widnes

But if (or when) Cas/Salford get their new grounds, then I'd prefer them over the last 2 on the list.

It does make me laugh when players & coaches come out and say lets just drop the league to 10 teams. The 'RL community' were up in arms when 13 Crusaders players were told to find a new club at the last minute but these same people are happy as Larry to say to 70-100 full time players that they've now got to find new jobs as your clubs are deemed not worthy of super duper league. How many of these clubs would stay full doubt time? I doubt many, if any could afford to.

The RFL have made a rod for their own backs. Clearly the comp needs something happening to make it more competative but I don't think just culling 4 teams is the way to go. If we had 14 team spending the full cap with youth development at the forefront of any teams operation then in a few years the league would even itself out, it's just how the RFL and the clubs themselves go about bringing in the finance needed to do this.

depends on which 4 teams we were getting rid of, and what we were turning away. Im not sure we gain anything from having Wakefield in SL at the moment.

But those two things aren’t the same, which was the point I was making. It is idiotic to pretend that a 10 team league and a 4 team league are the same thing. They aren’t. Its like arguing why have 14 teams, why not 20? Why not 30? Why not 200? Why not 1? Because apparently however many clubs we have in a league is exactly the same which is clearly nonsense.

The 10 strongest off the field otherwise what's the point?

Wigan
St's
Leeds
Hull
Hull KR
Hudds
Warrington
Bradford
Les Cats

one of the remaining to make up the numbers

The "spend the full cap" thing is all smoke and mirrors.

Yes, we would ideally have clubs spending the same but you also need the players to justify it. It is no good having Wakefield / Quins announce "we're spending the full cap" unless we have enough quality players to merit that sort of spending. Otherwise, we are just inflating the salaries of average and poor players.

and reducing the number of professional developmemt academies, with player pathways to full-time careers from 14 to 10 will definitely get us more British players of quality. Not.

where?

So you think you can dump 4 teams from SL but the size of the player pool will remain the same? How can you argue that you need a SL presence in the expansion areas in order to get people interested in the game yet believe that where interest already exists you can lose the club but maintain the interest?

Because that player pool would become of a higher standard, losing alot of the players who arent quite good enough and the overseas has beens and never weres, wont be in SL. The ten teams who would be playing would all be better, meaning the competition would be better and of a higher standard producing even better players and we get a bit of a virtuous cycle going on.

As for the expansion argument. The difference between losing say London is, if we were to lose london, anybody who supported RL, or anybody we wanted to attract to RL would need to travel hundreds of miles to find a pro club. If Cas were to go people would need to go 0 miles to find an SL club in Wakefield. If both were to go you would need to travel between 10 and 15 miles to find a pro club. We are much more likely to be able to attract and keep people who have to travel between 0 and 15 miles to see a game, than we are able to attract and keep people who would need to make a round trips of 500 miles to see a game.

In a crafty Senator Palpatine type of way, get someone rich to build a 12-14k stadium in Normanton, tell Castleford, Wakefield and Featherstone they can all ground share in this nice new stadium(because they'll always false promise on their own stadium), thus losing Bell vue, Wheldon Rd, Moyles stadium or what ever its name is. Give them a few years under their own identity then just merge all 3 into :2xzixyfx[i:2xzixyfxThe Normanton Feathery Wild Tigers[/i:2xzixyfx club.

Its Post office Road and i don't think fev are the ones that have been telling porkies for years.

Maybe 4.8 million invested in the Championship academies might make up the difference , at around 200K a year you could run a decent junior set up

It's still only 2 small covered stands, they'd look nice in their own [size=50(Normantons)[/size new stadium

first of all yed i was just pointing out that if you can say belle Vue and Wheldon RD then you can say Post office RD.
Secondly fev are currently in the process of buying two more stands so they can develope POR,unlike the other two,and thats without any sky money.

I'm only messing fella

Thanks to all who have mentioned teams....here are my ten.

Eight are existing clubs.....

Wigan
Warrington
St Helens
Salford
Leeds
Huddersfield
Harlequins
Catalans Dragons

Here comes the controversy......

Merged Hull club - playing at the KC with a potential to be the best supported team in the league.

Merged Castleford/Wakefield/Featherstone club playing out of a one brand new stadium within Wakefield MBC.

League format.

Season to commence on the first full weekend of March
11 home - 11 away games - 1 magic weekend - 23 game regular season.
5 team playoff - McIntrye system
No promotion and relegation.

There

My view is, 10 Clubs is too drastic a drop, At first.

In 3 years i do think the License system needs reducing to make a more elite league.

Hopefully by then, My club. Castleford will have a new stadium, We have the best commercial team doing amazing work off the field, That will pay dividends when we do, And we should be much stronger off the field.

On the field, We will have lost one or two of our bigger earners, Who tbh. We dont want, And should be much stronger on the field.

Hopefully. That would see us included in what my fiew would be. A 12 Team League. With 1or 2 Overseas players per team

12 teams that hopefully in 3 years, Could be spending 90% of the cap, And we could gradually see a much more open league.


The weak would be found out, And 3 years later. They could be dropped. But, Hopefully by then. There will be an ultra competitive Championship too.

I new that,

When will folk realise 2 x 10 clubs in a FT structure is the only way to expand our sport.