So all the players of the bottom nrl club deserve sacking each year to do they?

Will there ever be P & R again? Answer - No, not whilst we have the current regime in charge of the game because the current system allows them to manipilate it to fulfill their expansionist policies.

They will tell you that it is to safeguard the lower league clubs from going bust but the only difference at the moment is that those same clubs that they are so worried about are heading for going bust trying to obtain one tick in a box towards the ten they require for a successful application.

Licences are issued every 3 years and lower league clubs have to appear in a Grand Final or win the NR Cup in that 3 year period to get a tick. When that 3 year period ends those that have achieved a GF final or won the NR Cup have it all to do again in the next 3 years to get that same tick again.

Only one Championship club, if any, will be given a licence in 2011 for the start of the 2012 season and yet we have about 5 or 6 clubs hell bent on spending money to get to a GF final this season and next. Widnes are in the box seat having won a NR Final and they have a superior stadium to all the others and yet these clubs are still spending money, for what?

Surely, some of those clubs should be saying we have no chance of a licence in 2011, so lets not spend money and wait for the next 3 year qualifying period? But, the way it is going several clubs will hit the buffers in there attempt to now merely fulfill one smal part of the application process.

No guarantee there will be another qualifying period , hence why some are selling the family silver to try to make it this time

It would seem the RFL dont actually understand human nature , the desire to better yourself at any cost

The real problem will come when they have to drop somebody out of SL mid June/July , whatever club that happens to will implode

Quite, hence my point about there still being de facto P & R, except now it's three times worse for "relegated" clubs.

so you are suggesting that, for example salford, are going to have the resources with crowds not turning up for dead matches to strenghen????
no my dear friend they will go backwards and not keep their young talent eg myler you see relegation games brought big gates, huge gates sometimes, witness wakey- cas, perhaps the biggest game for the games image in recent years, certainly the only one that got full page treatment in every national paper. relegation is as exciting as winning things you see, trust me im a wakey fan!

fact is people only turn up in a summer era if theres something to play for, otherwise, its barbi, hols, cricket, pub, or from tomorrow footy.

get real the sport needs relegation from sl, other wise becuase of the income base sal cap the best worst gap will get wider.

Next time round there is a franchise point for an average finish of 8th or better, so there is in fact something to play for other than the playoffs.

Of course British RL needs annual promotion and relegation. This is not Australia. Super League is a minority sport, in danger of being perceived as a limited group of homogenised clubs owned by SKY and dominated by Australians. It simply isn't big enough to miss out on the opportunities to develop its profile, improve credibility, and heighten awareness which would be brought by the excitement of annual promotion and relegation.

There are difficulties to promotion and relegation, in the way franchising and expansion have difficulties, but if the will was there, it could be done well, and with noticeable benefit to the sport.

Unfortunately, there are teams who were in the right place at the right time, found themselves in an elite club, and have no intention of allowing a threat to their position merely for the sake of the sport in general. These are the real flatcappers, whose call is "It's fine as it is. Don't change it now."

eh? oh ok so team in twelth place needs to finish 4th next year to get its average 13th 3rd etc

well ok in theory............

You stupid idiot.

Promotion and relegation does not work well in any sporting competition it is used in. It has never worked.


You fool!

id so love to see you try and shout that from newcastle city hall steps!

Why, because Newcastle is the perfect example of why it doesnt work?

Clearly a top grade team, huge support and yet they have a bad season, they have to wipe millions of dollars off their playing roster, give players away and start all over again at a lower level.


Geez, what a great example.

By your preferred system Forest would never have won back to back European Cups, Wigan would not be doing ok in the premiership and if you go back far enough the likes of Bramley, Broughton and the like would be in SL.

Considering what happened to Widnes, I can’t believe that some Championship clubs would be so stupid as to risk everything on winning the NRC or appearing in the GF. The assessment is about the whole of the club, not just on field performances. Success comes from building a strong club overtime and not from just a quick fix of making a few big signings in the hope of making it to the finals. That can only lead to financial disaster and SL rejection.

“Look at us, we’ve won a cup, but our finances are well into the red, we are prime clubs for SL application, honest.”

It may be human nature to better yourself at all cost but that is hardly a good thing. Overstretching ourselves has got this country into the mess that it is in. The mind set of people who have been set in their ways for so long needs to be changed. It may take some time.

This is the first year of the new system. It far too early to analyse the pros and cons and much of what people will say will happen is based on theory rather then fact. Let’s see in six years time what the standard is of the applicants for a SL license. Only then will we have the facts in which to reason whether the new system will be/is a success or failure, even then it may be too early.

Promotion and relegation is possible in football due to the popularity of the game and the large amount of parachute payments available to the related clubs, particularly when demoted form the Premier League.

When the relegated clubs received parachute payments after relegation from SL the National League/NFP supporters whined and complained about how unfair the system all is, seems to me no matter what the governing body does there will always be narrow minded people who will find a way in which the system affects their club adversely then continue to bleat about it Ad infinitum.

The league is not strong enough to sustain promotion and relegation. OF the English based clubs, Widnes and possibly Halifax could realistically complete in the top flight. After that, then any club promoted would go straight back down with large debts attained from firstly achieving SL status and then subsequently fighting tooth and nail trying to stay their.

1 st point , the RFL are the ones who decided that an overall criteria should be used , they then made the ' a NL club is guaranteed to move up ' statement even if none are of a good enough standard and then they decide to have an on field ' qualification ' , they are the ones who cannot seem to make their minds up how it should work and it is their fault that clubs are risking all to qualify

2 nd point Absolutely correct , so the answer is ?

I agree the salary cap is important and should be enforced for this reason.

However, in the last couple of years with a salary cap in place Widnes (2007), Doncaster (2009), Rochdale (2009) have all gone into administration. The game in the UK is never going to have the financial clout that it does in Oz due to it being at least 5th or 6th in popularity over here. Quite a few fans from down under come on here regularly to tell us how well the sport is doing down there and how prom/reg doesn't work and thats fair enough. Good on them. But it's hardly a fair comparison is it?

As a Widnes fan I want to see promotion and relegation but without clubs pushing themselves to the brink of bankruptcy as we did to achieve it. Yes we have to expand the game to new areas but it's hard to do that when the heartlands themselves are struggling to compete with other sports. In Oz it's easier to expand your profile when you are number one in the market. We hear how clubs should merge for the greater good but that's easy to say when it's not your club that's in the firing line.

LF, I will say this only once:
Stop making sensible posts and get back to your trolling.

I think the real question is why do they still have P/R in the Championship? It will be interesting to compare, over the next three years, how the lower Championship and top C1 fair with P&R, comparing them with top Championship and lower SL clubs. Shall we see?

If we didn't have it in the Championships how could the RFL bring through the next expansion clubs for SDL ?

Football would be awful without P&R !!! If the Premiership was franchised Leeds / Sheffield Wednesday / Newcastle would be back in the premiership, Hull and Wigan would probably be out!

And football fans accross the country would be going mental! The English Football league is one of the top 3 leagues in the world! NRL and Super League come nowhere near in comparison, so to say Promotion and relegation is unseccussful is utter cr@p!

Do you realize how many soccer teams in leagues all over the world go bust ever year because of P&R?

Look at Leeds UTD.

Look at the way top English clubs p*ss money away so badly that they need rich backers who don't mind losing millions upon millions of dollars just to keep going.

Do you realize how much debt top English clubs are in? How little it would take for them to fall over?



You show me one single soccer league anywhere in the world that competitive. Not one of two teams that are running awya with it and just buying titles. Show me one competition where half the teams could win in say a 5 year span.


There isnt one. Not a single one.

The P&R debate has been emotionally charged and polarised into two diametrically opposing positions, but there's little discussion of any other possible views. Either the franchise system, or annual P&R.

English RL has the potential to have a more effective system for promoting/relegating players AND clubs than Australian RL, because English sport has a tradition/culture/history of P&R.

Annual relegation inhibits top flight clubs from long term planning. That has been scrapped. However a staggered system of P&R tied into an RLWC cycle could give top flight clubs a set period of stability, yet give lower division clubs a set pathway into the elite. I'd propose a system that every 4 years, promotion of 3 teams based on meeting a range of on and off-field criteria, relegation of up to 3 teams if competition size remains constant.

And the criteria for both the promotion and the relegation is ?

So should we have 11 thugs on the pitch crowding the ref? That's what they do in association?
You know you're onto a loser when you point at wendyball as an example, it's a poor sport with too much money. It would make more sence to compare league with XV or ice hockey or basketball or some other non-majority sport.