That's simply not true. McManus has often spoken about how turkeys shouldn't be voting for Christmas, most recently on the decisions around Toulouse. Obviously McManus is trying to keep Saints as the best club in RL, but you want your club Directors doing that surely? He's not doing it by weakening the other clubs.

Quote ="Dunkirk Spirit"Please try and keep up, from the end of this season the old East Stand demolished and new footings laid, for the new Stand, ongoing work in the North Stand, a new hybrid pitch is now growing well, and other upgrades including the new floodlights. https://www.facebook.com/groups/9684180 ... &ref=share https://www.facebook.com/17494788588615 ... pF6XnCVal/'" Good to see, but you still bluffed your way through the last licencing period and lack of action has held your club and therefore SL back. Do hope the better facilities grow your crowds and make Wakefield a viable club though, the league can't grow with clubs stuck on 4k gates.

Quote ="Dunkirk Spirit"Please try and keep up, from the end of this season the old East Stand demolished and new footings laid, for the new Stand, ongoing work in the North Stand, a new hybrid pitch is now growing well, and other upgrades including the new floodlights. https://www.facebook.com/groups/9684180 ... &ref=share https://www.facebook.com/17494788588615 ... pF6XnCVal/'" Good to see, but you still bluffed your way through the last licencing period and lack of action has held your club and therefore SL back. Do hope the better facilities grow your crowds and make Wakefield a viable club though, the league can't grow with clubs stuck on 4k gates.

Ive never liked no P + R and wont like it again. Just doesnt do it for me, but if this comes in could be the final nail in the coffin for me with this sport.

The product is poor as it is without taking less interest away.

Saints will be A star. They’ll bring out a special category for em. You’ll win the grading as well .

Not sure I follow the drop in interest with P+R. The devil is in the detail but if (no offence to anyone named or not named) they decide Huddersfield, Salford, Castleford, Hull KR, Wakefield and Toulouse are all Category B and could be relegated on a bad season

And

Leigh, Featherstone, Halifax and York were all Category B and could be promoted on a good season. That still gives plenty to play for.

The rest of us need to work to improve and get a Category rating to be in contention.

The problems will arise if Category A ratings are handed out across super league making it a closed shop and any bump in popularity and money for the game is kept in super league.

Understand your view but the current setup doesn't work either, the promoted team finds out they have been promoted far too late and stands little chance of staying up. Leigh have spent heavily but can't fully plan next year until Monday, and always a risk there's a bout of Covid in the camp, injuries, freak weather etc and they unexpectedly lose the final.

Whatever system we are using the Championship needs to be first past the post for the champions, to give them more time to plan and the final doesnt exactly set attendance records anyway.

Good post. I would prefer P&R - Bottom club down, top of champ up. The promoted team should be given a seasons grace, and then they could still incorporate the Cat B structure as well. If a top championship team feels they're not quite a Cat B superleague club whilst playing in the championship, they have nothing to play for in the whole of the season. So it should be 1 up 1 down with a seasons grace to the promoted team.

Im thinking more of the side at the bottom of SL towards the back end of the season with little to play for. Didnt work last time and wont again. Also very vague on how you actually go down, it will further the gap in my opinion between teams who have a shiny stadium to those that dont.

Its not right that anything other then on the pitch performances is rewarded. Dont like it for me on the principal.

All the successful franchise systems in sport only add to the elite and not take away. To think you could finish 5th one season and be relegated because a club in the lower league have better bogs for example is just wrong. Its not a sport in my opinion.

Agree that there are downsides, and in my opinion Hull got lazy during the last franchise era, we finished 2nd bottom in 2009 but it all felt very apathetic at the club, if our SL place was on the line some mid season signings would have appeared.

There needs to be a big weighting towards on the field performances. Salford for example will score low on crowds, income and the stadium deal issue but they can argue they've been to 2 finals in 4 years and unearthed 2 man of steels.

You do know a brand new New stand is under construction now at Wakefield. One of the main criteria should be owning your own ground so you're not a soccer clubs bitch.

It's pointless when every year the team promoted is relagated.

That's the whole point. Until they, as a club are good enough to get promoted they shouldn't have the chance.

Then give the promoted club a seasons grace.

Until we see criteria its anyones guess but they should be trying to increase full time teams and this system will do anything but that. I dont think the likes of Cas or Wakefield have had outdated stadiums by choice, there is no money in the game.

This is destined to see teams spend what they dont have.

A brand new stand? What happened to the new stadium they promised last time franchises were on the table

Why have the RFL paid a small fortune (I imagine) for IMG to make a few suggestions. If the RFL don't know what the answer is, then there is no hope for the sport in this country. Maybe IMG should be asked to help County Championship cricket as well, good luck with that. Like RL over here, it is what it is, and nothing will ever change.

Promotion and Relegation based on on the field performance is better than your league being decided by an independent body. However if you happen to have the same or better franchising category* than the team that finished bottom, and win the Championship, then you should be promoted to the Super League. This IMG plan suggests you could have a great season on the pitch and still be relegated which is taking things too far.

Lets face it franchising was unfair last time because the only difference between the smaller super league clubs and the larger championship clubs is the Sky money.


*Assuming they don't hand the good scores to clubs that are about to go bust, but they get bonus points because they are in a new county/principality/country.

the worst thing that could have happen end was for IMGs first engagement with the RL Family was an opportunity to say "seen that" "didn't work" "Been there got the t-shirt an still feeling the pain"


But that's exactly what they have done... and they haven't even thought through the full application and deployment of the idea..

this is an awful piece of work and, if indicative of the quality of IMGs work, is a clear warning.

So we know that clubs in SL in danger of relegation have difficulty planning long-term and getting players to sign up when they aren't certain their team will be in the league the following year.

And this proposal creates an entire cohort of "Category B" clubs in SL who will be reassessed *every year* to see if they remain in the top flight.

That simply reinforces the uncertainty and instability around those clubs and makes it almost impossible for them to plan long-term on the field (which in turn make off-field investments much more difficult to finance).

It also absolutely bakes in the dominance of Category A clubs who can sign the best players to long term contracts without any of the worries of the B clubs.

In short, this is worse than licensing, which at least gave a bit of medium-term stability to all clubs, but caused decay and decline in the Championship.
But it's also worse than P&R, which only caused uncertainty at a relatively small number of clubs.

Madness.

A Clubs - St Helens, Wigan, Leeds, Catalans, Warrington, Hull
B Clubs - Hull KR, Huddersfield
Lower B Clubs - Wakefield, Castleford, Salford, Leigh, Toulouse, London, York

With everyone else being C. That's my prediction

St Helens should be graded an A+ for their contribution to rugby league at every level, just look at the Saints Academy and Ladies Team and they recently won an award to the rugby league community, also the amount of players they provide to all the England squads.

The issue here is that, once you move away from on field performance being the driving factor, the whole situation can be engineered to suit whatever agenda is being pursued at a particular point in time.
There is some mention of expansion but also having a cap on 2 overseas clubs (for now). Are we going to see big cities trying to bid for clubs in the top flight and just who and how will the "weighting" of the various criteria be decided ?
Surely, having a set of minimum standards for SL and (tier 2) would be the right way forward and for God's sake, while we are still classed as a sport, let's have success decided out on the pitch and not in a smoke-filled room.
If not, people will be walking away from the game in numbers. Fans will be better off turning up to board meetings, rather than supporting their side on a Friday night

The responses to the presentation so far just show how divided the sport is currently. Those who are traditionalist and want the sport to stagnate and go back to semi pro to protect the 'as is' and their own club's current status. And those that want the sport to move on and improve through attracting new investment, even if it means some clubs being left being.

Sitting and doing nothing is not an option here. Promotion and relegation has added nothing to the sport and it needs to be gone as soon as possible. The IMG proposals are a halfway house, they encourage clubs to improve to achieve the higher gradings whilst leaving the door open for clubs that do significantly improve. The bit about expanding the league if they can fill it with A clubs is a good one, plenty for aspirational Championship clubs to go for.

I can't see any of the journos making comments on how all of this is going to affect current/future broadcasting deals and also how they plan to distribute central funding. Anybody seen any comments on this?

Removing loop fixtures and the magic weekend is absolutely the right thing to do, as is increasing the focus on internationals. But how do Sky feel about this?

The problem with the word "invest" is that nobody invests in a Rugby League club, or almost any sports club outside the elite globally huge leagues, in a normal economic sense.

Coleman, Moran etc didn't "invest" in St Helens and Wire seeking an economic return. They were simply millionaire fans who were happy to write off a lot of money to support the club they loved.

Clubs who haven't stumbled upon a rich fan with loads of cash aren't going to find commercial investors and we shouldn't be pretending they will.