Do you really think that the regular season has been more competitive, why ?

It's pretty much the same, first of all with all clubs trying to make the top 8 (which in reality is a nailed on top 6 and then 5 clubs vying for 7 &


This is just the same as last season



The RFL may well get their dreams to come true, with the possibility of Bradford gaining promotion to SL but, they will be back in the "qualifiers" next season which wont really show any real progress.

Even though my club, Wakefield, would have been relegated. we should have 1 up 1 down, which would truly reward the club that finished top in the Championship.

It would be interesting to hear what the supporters of the Championship and Championship 1 supporters think of the end of season games.

What we are getting, despite the fact that there are some decent match ups in "the qualifiers", is contrived nonsense so that Sky has something extra to broadcast, which will increase the gap in quality between the top 8 SL clubs and the rest, which isn't good for the game over the longer term.

As a very long suffering Salford fan (I can remember the days before the Watkins / Hesketh / etc. era), the mid-8s have been anything but dead rubbers. With a defence against Halifax and Sheffield that could be used to strain vegetables, and the Bradford game memories (I've yet to meet a fellow Salfordian who can bring themselves to discuss the game), we are very worried. Very.
Wakefield have been dismissed too often : they could still suprise many. Leigh have blown a gasket but, as been pointed out above, their failings will be to their advantage next season. Halifax and Sheffield have impressed me. They should be able to utlise their experiences well next year. The HKR games have allowed Dixon to get over his Wembley woes and show he has bags more talent than some neutrals said after that cup final. The HKR team have done well.
So the upper school 8's look like someone v Leeds final : but most fans I spoke to in June were saying that. I doubt any arrangement could have altered that.
Give it a chance.

I do not know if this new structure is good or not but for me living were i live now down south, I have been able to watch more games on sky thanks to the sky sports extra I am now hoping they do it at the start of next season in stead of waiting till the splits its been greet for us x northerners

Seems like a lot of effort to create and then solve a problem that doesn't need to exist.

Doesn't that apply to any system?

The whole point of this system was that 'every minute matters' yet here we are before the end of the season saying that not only was such a thing an impossible aim but a bad one as well. Not only can 'every minute matters' not be achieved it would be a bad thing if it were

If tickets are more difficult to sell on short notice it seems pretty dumb to put in place a system which necessitates the selling of tickets at short notice doesn't it.

Yeah we know all that. Not sure what that has to do with the league system or what was being discussed.

Agree. Too many people determined not to like the system regardless.

There was always the possibility that the RFL could have implemented a successful change.

You have set up a weird false dichotomy that our options are either down playing and not marketing the sport properly or making unsubstantiated claims.

There was the option of success, see the NRL for an example.

The NRL are in a significantly stronger position than the RFL, and it's not to do with the league system.
Due to their position in Sydney they get a cracking TV deal so they can afford to run and financially support 4 of the 16 NRL clubs.

They also get significant government support, for instance in the building of the new $21m Rugby League Central. Two thirds of which was paid for by central and local government.

In Leeds we don't even get a development officer part paid for by the Council anymore.

Ding Ding Ding

People whining like little schoolgirls....."but but but, the tag line said".....who cares it's just a bloody tag line, take it with a pinch of salt FFS.

It has everything to do with the topic under discussion......all the new system has delivered is the same fans to Headingley for a couple of more games (on the season ticket), 7 of the top 8 the same as last year, 7 of the 8 from 2013, 7 of the 8 from 2012..........etc

Getting the same fans to pay for an extra couple of games isn't a sustainable or long term strategy...it's more short termism from the RFL.

With London now in freefall, there is every possibility that all but Catalans will be from the north in the top 24 inside 2 years. How do you sell that to a sponsor? TV figures and crowds are down in the first year of this new system.....7 of the 12 games this weekend have nothing riding on them......it was flawed when it was announced and the fact that it can't be hailed as a success shows how badly it has performed!

It's not extraordinary and every moment doesn't count......it's the same stuff reheated and flogged on!

We don't have enough teams to run a straight season. Clubs struggle to manage on 11 games. So we need extra games. We've always had them in SL in some form or another and they're very much needed.

That isn't to do with the league system. That's to do with the strength of clubs, the player pool and league and club finances.

I'd love a 16 team league. But we don't have the clubs to fill it.

As for clubs in the north... Well, like I said, we know all that. Again that has nothing to do with the league system.

You keep saying the system has performed badly, compared to what?

It is obvious to anyone without an agenda that this new system makes the regular league more important than previously for the top 8 clubs.
I agree with the point about Wakefield but I don't think that negative overrides the entire system to make it "poor", especially as we're not even 1 year into it yet.

It seems you just want to have a pop at the RFL. By all means, do. But stop conflating the several issues. And also, if this system is so poor, which system would work significantly better?

As for your final comments about the taglines used to sell the new system, don't be so daft. You know exactly why those kind of comments were used and would complain had they not used such comments.

Unfortunately, as usual, despite having some valid points, you're making yourself look daft again. Another name change on the way soon no doubt.

Gutterfax drifting off towards talking about London and the geography of RL clubs.....what a surprise.

The NRL didnt fall ass-backwards into a billion dollars. They got a billion dollars because they put in place a structure where by the 7 of the 10 biggest cities in Australia and the biggest city in New Zealand have sides. Where clubs can grow and build.

Edit:Which has a clear youth development system which prioritises the young player ahead of parochial internecine fighting that means they can not only support 16 sides but a sizeable proportion of the british game aswell, where clubs work together on things like the Superhero round to make them a success led by a strong centralised governance with a mandate to change and improve and push the game to new heights, where Brisbane can set records on a thursday night instead of sitting on their hands moaning about difficult it is.

You want to know why the NRL own those clubs, because the 16k a week at Newcastle, the 12k a Week who watch the tigers, the 12k who watch the Gold Coast and the 14k who watch St George are decent crowds, but also the 6th, 7th and 10th biggest cities in Australia, and there are about 2milllion people in Western Sydney. We meanwhile watched and allowed the heart to be ripped out of bradford, kicked them when they were down and saw about 60% of their fanbase disappear whilst wittering on about fairness, punishment and it somehow acting as a deterrent.

Its not that long ago that the NRL was worrying about losing players to us, RU the same, now we act like they are light years ahead of us and expecting us to be judged by the standards they are setting is like asking for the moon on a stick.

We can keep doing what we are doing and pushing the same clubs to the same people and hope somehow after 100years we will take that step forward, but it doesnt seem very likely.

I agree. But the ability to do that came from the strength of being based in a large city like Sydney.
We're based in northern towns.

The NRL could grow from a very strong base. We never had that base because unless your sport has strong roots in London in this country then it will struggle compared to those that do.
The equivalent in Australia (though not quite the same) is Sydney, where RL has always been strong.

Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of blame to throw around at the RFL and the clubs in this country, but that doesn't mean we can just do as the NRL do.

What I'd like to see us do is for the RFL to reduce the amount of money the SL clubs get by approx £3-400k each. That would then give us approx £3.5-4.5m a year to play with. I'd then use that to hire quality staff and run the Broncos properly.

But, aside from the RFL's issues of lethargy and lack of leadership, could you imagine the b|tching and whining that would come from nearly every club? There'd be talk of splits and splinter competitions etc and the sport would be bogged down with in-fighting for years.


The big problem is we don't have enough money in the sport for the governing body to do much. And we don't have the media profile either.

the broncos cannot survive under this system, no expansion team can. Not at the top level. They are disproportionately threatened by relegation.

I agree. Not without a very, very rich backer anyway, which are rare in RL.

But without RFL help I don't think an expansion team will survive in any system.

We need both.

1. We have one.
2. Unfortunately he is unhinged and incapable of making a lucid business decision.
3. The RFL should never have insisted on Ian Lenagan dropping his interest in the Broncos. It could have been managed quite easily, but no doubt the idiots at Red Hall were too busy looking at ways to buy Iconic grounds in the North.


4. The game will reap what it has sewn nationally and in the south now, with London Broncos semi-professional and in Championship 1 inside the next 24 months......and yes, that's a London/regional slant on the new system and one of the outcomes so far, because god knows there's enough indignation at the lack of coverage our sport gets as a professional national entity, when the reality is we are more regional now than we have been in 20 years!
5. Under licencing clubs concentrated on development. The ones that were bad businesses got into trouble and should have been left to fend for themselves, but the RFL, rather than getting on with growing and expanding the game found something else to keep them busy for 2 years. No doubt when they get around to binning this system it'll be replaced with another new, extraordinary venture, but in reality it'll be the same stuff sold to the same fan pool.

You expect people to be swayed towards you're views when you post tripe like this?

Whether I, you, or anyone else , believes that Sheffield haven't got a chance of promotion doesn't make the game a 'dead rubber'. If it did then we may as well not bother with 90% of games, no matter what structure is in place, or indeed which sport! And as for the games involving Batley, Whitehaven and Hunslet? The fact that they will decide the second relegation spot from the Championship has escaped you says much.

Sheffield have no chance and the relegation is done unless you believe that haven will lose at home to Donny and the hawks will win at Batley.....I have some bad news about the tooth fairy and Elvis for you too......

That's what we need to change. The closer we get to achieving financial equality, the less crippling it is to exist outside SL. We have an artificial financial cliff in the sport and wonder why clubs struggle when they go over the edge of it...

Whilst possibly true. That equality will likely to be a levelling down than a levelling up which would be even worse because bringing SL down to the level of the championship is going to leave us with a competiton with the financial value of the championship and nobody has any money and it becomes crippling not only to exist outside SL but inside aswell.

Financial equality couldn't stop at the top 4 in the championship. It couldn't stop at the championship at all. Otherwise it wouldn't be equality.

The sad fact is that the majority of clubs outside SL are closer to the top amateur clubs than they are the top SL clubs and the bigger SL gets the bigger that cliff becomes.

I said when the 8's system was announced that it was only the illusion of P&R rather than the reality. The top Championship teams are at a disadvantage from the off for several reasons:

1. The standard of refs below SL. Now many on here will bag on the ref's at SL games, but the performance level of refs in the championship is much lower, meaning a much slower pace of the game, meaning the Championship clubs have to struggle to get up to speed when playing SL clubs in the middle 8 or get mowed down.
2. There is the financial gap between them. Not just in terms of central funding, but in terms of available salary. £800k is a big gap when you think how much the average player is paid plus there's now the marquee player thing but only for SL clubs. Surely it would be fairer to take the average salary of the bottom 4 SL clubs (which should be easy to work out, given we have a live salary cap) and say that rather than the £1 million cap limit, Championship clubs can spend up to that average providing that they can prove their income streams will cover it.

your problem there is that the rest of the championship is then on its trying to compete with teams spending 4-5 times more than them. We are already talking about a league where the top team lost 1 game and the bottom team won 1. On average Leigh won each game last year by 28 points. On average last year donny lost each game by 24. That isn't getting better by letting the Leighs and bradfords of the championship spend more.