Let's just go back to a 30 odd team single division, and balls to it.

I'd like to see a four team Superleague, with each team playing the others atleast eight times. That would be good.

The key to improving SL developing the championship into a fully professional league, this is obviously easier said than done. If the bottom 2 sides in SL were interchangeable with the top couple of sides in the championship (by championship sides getting better rather than SL sides getting worse) then SL would improve as a result.

IMV a 10 team SL could work but only if a 10/12 team Championship was fully professional. You would have to play each other 3 times for it to be financially viable. Personally I have no problem with this but many others do.

This would mean having 20/22 professional clubs currently there are only 14 with 3 other championship clubs in Fev, halifax and Leigh capable of stepping up. This would mean 3/5 more clubs would have to step up which at the moment is not realistic. I cant see batley, sheffield, keighley, dewsbury and swinton all becoming professional anytime soon.

Don't think there's anything wrong with 14 teams personally.....in terms of number of fixtures it's about spot on.....I keep seeing people say there isn't the quality of player to have 14 Super League teams....well there never will be unless they are given the chance, and a chance to develop with their team over a number of years...

It's pretty clear that the licensing system has many flaws, but because of that it's too easy to forget it also has some great things to it aswell.....

My own team Wakefield are a shining example of both the pro's and con's of the system.....on the one hand we were on the verge of losing ours (or coming very, very close to)....and now shortly after that are flourishing in many ways....

I think bringing P&R back into the equation somehow is a must.....

It makes me laugh though some fans from the so called 'bigger teams' that if they win by a big margin Super League is a joke and numbers should be reduced....and when they get beat by a so called 'lesser team' it's only because of the way the competition works and the team didn't need to win the game anyway and only raises their game for the big teams........absolute nonsense all of it.....these are the fans that are dragging the game down and need to feck off and support something else....

Has this stupid idea not died a death yet?

Deary me.

either stick as we are now or as suggested 2 tier of 10

sl1 - wigan, warrington, saints, leeds, hudds, hull, catalan, hull kr, london, bradford

(salary cap £1.5million, 4 overseas allowance)

sl2 - widnes, wakefield, cas, salford, fax, leigh, fev, cumbria, south wales, sheffield

(salary cap £1million, 5 overseas allowance)

sl1 has top 4 playoff for champions and bottom 4 join top 4 in sl2 in a playoff winner has the spot in sl1 and a rolling 3 year licensing system to get into sl2

playoff systems

top 4 sl1

1v2 winner to final
3v4 loser eliminated
winner v loser
grand final

bottom 4 and top 4 playoff

round 1

g1) 7th sl1 vs 10th sl1 - winner to prelimenary semi loser to next round
g2) 8th sl1 vs 9th sl1 - winner to prelimenary semi loser to next round
g3) 1st sl2 vs 4th sl2 - winner to next round loser eliminated
g4) 2nd sl2 vs 3rd sl2 - winner to next round loser eliminated

round 2

g5) loser of g1 vs winner of g4
g6) loser of g2 vs winner of g3

round 3

g7) winner of g1 vs winner of g5
gicon_cool.gif winner of g2 vs winner of g6

grand final

g9) winner of g7 vs winner of g8 (winner gets place in sl1 loser plays in sl2)

Address the problem, invest in jnr rl and get the talent coming through. The answer is in growing more, not reducing opportunities. If you want a totally equal strength league reduce the salary cap to 1.2 million and make sure every team is abiding by it.

The lack of movement of quality players from the usual suspects at the top to the teams towards the bottom would suggest that not all teams are spending the same full salary cap.

Read all about it, all new 'Super League reduced to 10 teams' thread shocker.

Ignoring all the other problems, that playoff system appears to punish teams for doing well


A team that comes out in the top 4 in the playoffs (where 4 are from SL1) ends up in SL2 (losing finalist)?

why would you keep London in over widnes, wakefield, cas and salford?

i was just putting the teams in there obviously its tangible

This.

the SL1 teams have the easier run win the first playoff and then your safe, lose and you get a second chance against an SL2 team

Forgive me if I'm missing something, but you're really confusing me now



Win the First Playoff then you're safe:
So Winner G1, Winner G2 automatically stay in SL1. Check.
Losers G3, G4 automatically stay in SL2, they are knocked out of the playoffs. Right?

On to R2:
Loser G1 v Winner G4 and Loser G3 v Winner G3. The first post suggests the winners of these matches progress to Round 3, obviously. Am I to infer from the second post that this round also decides promotion and relegation*? If it does not, and the team relegated is the loser of the final as suggested in the first post, what is the incentive to be in the final?

I'm pretty damn sure the rules are inconsistent with what you're trying to achieve.

*The "second chance" to be safe?

London need to be in for the good of the sport, same as Cats and ultimately Toulouse and Swansea/Cardiff.
Central funding at present is something like £1.4m per club, 4 dropping is £5.6m, 6 moving up get £100k each from RFL meaning £620k is available from current pot for SL2 to be full time, which means a £1m player spend must be a condition of joining. SL2 must be the breeding ground for young local talent, so 1 overseas for me. You would have to exclude Toulouse and Wales for the first franchise period, extend theirs to 4 max.
The goal at the next franchise stage must be 12/10 or 11/11 and we must be looking to reach 12/12 within 10 years.
Keep play offs and promotion simple. G1-4v5, G2-3v6 -W1. G3-1v2 winner to final, G4- winners G1/2 seeded - W2, Lose G3 v Winners G4 - W3, W4 GF. Winner SL2 GF gets promoted, bottom SL1 relegated every year.
4 year franchise stage 1 followed by 3 years confirming the intention to expand club numbers.

The only way a reduction can work is if it also includes P&R...and therefore it also has to include decent financial support (from the Sky money) for a second tier, otherwise the financial instability ( e.g. 1 club in 5 going down each year ) would be too much for clubs to bear.

I agree with the desire for a reduced elite competition to increase intensity. ( Trying to use the cap to equalize competition just drags standards down - the cap is useful for other reasons, but not that one ). However, there are knock-on (no pun intended) effects which would have to be dealt with, and I fear they can't be dealt with. Therefore the status quo, frustrating as it is, is probably something we have to live with for now.

I don't have faith in the RFL to deliver any change correctly, so I'd rather they left things alone, on the "don't make it worse" principle, until we have better people running the RFL.

Or we could just leave it as it is and concentrate on developing enough players to fill out the teams.

What would people with far too much time on their hands type about then though?

For the reasons said earlier, I don't think a change is appropriate right now. However, its a fair topic of discussion, and I don't think that anyone talking about the very top of the game is necessarily ignoring grass-roots in that discussion. You say '...concentrate on developing enough players...' but the fundamental thing is the pool of people that want to play in the first place. The greater the exposure, intensity and (perhaps unfortunate but true) fame and fortune at the top of the game, then the more hopefuls you're going to get to work with in the first place. That for me is one of the big problems with the way the cap is structured - less than ever does League look like a place you can make a great living (in the UK anyway) even if you turn out to be a world-beater.

lol, most players are earning 50,000-200,000. It is hardly min wage being a prof RL player in SL! Make it to the top and you can go and earn up to 400,000 in RU or NRL. I'd take that over a 20,000quid brickies job!

Wow, what ambition we have for our sport " try League and one day you might get to play Union!".

He's not wrong though, is he? He's put his finger squarely on what is the main thing holding back the sport ie a lack of funds. SL is a league of haves and have nots. The clubs at the top of the table all have a rich backer willing to put money into the club to shore up unexpected debts or be able to pay for transfer fees and all for very little in terms of returned investment. And when you have a club without a rich backer who tried to run with the big boys you get the situation at Bradford.

RL is a MINORITY sport. Our best players have often been poached by RU since it went pro and now with the stronger Aussie dollar, NRL clubs are able to offer attractive deals to players along with a far better lifestyle and greater exposure. After all, the NRL in Aus is comparable to Premiership football in this country in terms of crowds and interest.

People need to grasp the fact that RL will NEVER be a top sport in England. We might be able to get to 3rd, maybe even 2nd. But football reigns supreme and it's likely it always will.

Agreed, most people go into RL for enjoyment and the lucky ones might get to make a career out of it.
There aren't too many that would go into the sport just for the money,

Regarding cutting the numbers, IMO this is the road to ruin. There will still be teams regularly at the bottom of the new 10 team division, some folk need to accept that there will always be winners and losers in sport.
If we really want an even competition, we should copy the American "draft" system and we can than have a different winner each season, unfortunately, the people wanting to cut down the numbers in league would lose out with this style of player distribution, so its a non-runner.

I think the only way to make a smaller system work alongside expansion would to go for an NFL style zonal system, have leagues of maybe 6 teams from Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumbria/Newcastle, South, and France. With the winner of each one competing in a playoff system come year end?

How many people go into sport at 12 or 13 with the intention of doing it to make money? Generally you love the game and are good at it, everything else just happens. Become a RL player and you can earn an above avg living, become a very good RL player and you can earn a very good living. Paying top players an extra 50K quid would make no difference what so ever to the depth of the talent pool in the game. Taking 2million quid a year out of SL and using it to develop jnr elite RL programmes would.

RL doesn't need to be the number 1 sport in the country, it just needs to keep growing and be sustainable.