You have a pretty short memory then.

Why stop there ??? Merge both Hull clubs and Widnes/Wire that way we could get a team from Milan in and a team from Helsinki

!!!!!???????????????????? No. It's not too short, it's definitely too long, should be quality not quantity. Club season should be starting on first Friday of March and finishing on first Sat. of October.

there's not much more dramatic in sport then a promotion or relegation battle that goes to the wire, that's why we need it bringing back. the most watched sport in this country never feels the need to change its system

In an ideal world i'd win the euro quad roll over, wouldn't bother with any of the reprobates on this site and live the other side of the world on a Hastings beach house with a nice bottle of red, my own vineyard, cleaner, cooker and butler, meanwhile in the real world.

Personally I couldn't give a to55 about who gets relegated. I find the whole obsession with relegation bizarre. 'The most watched sport in the country' doesn't need to change it's system because it is a wash with billions of pounds and is able to sustain 90 odd full time professional teams. At the moment RL can barely manage 14.

Stick with 14, relegated the bottom 2 next season, promote Tolouse & the winners of the Championship Grand Final.

My glass is half full



Might celebrate by consuming a few French Fondant Fancies.

Disagree entirely. This isn't football, players can't play 40-50 games year in year out, the game is far more physically demanding than in the past and than most other sports.
This years World Cup runs to the end of November. I would imagine most clubs pre-seasons start around early-mid December. Admittedly those involved in internationals usually get a break from that but at leeds they're usually back only a couple of weeks later. There simply isn't time in the year for another 8 games. If anything I would cut the number of domestic games and increase the number of Internationals.

Re the proposals

I don't care that much whether its 12 or 14 teams, I'd prefer 14.
The 3 sets of 8 is daft and needs banishing to a place where no-one will ever look. Nigel Wood's salad drawer will do.

I'd prefer a licensed 14 (or 12) team SL, but that doesn't seem likely so my next choice, albeit a reluctant one, is a 12 team SL with straight P&R.

None of this is necessary though, what's necessary is for clubs to pull their fingers out and start running themselves a bit more professionally.

Just seems like a knee jerk decision. It's ridiculous to suggest that the system hasn't worked based on this period of time. This is a potentially disastrous decision and it obviously shows where the priorities of the chairmen in Super League lie. Two less clubs = more Sky £££. Who cares what the ramifications are for the team(s) that end up going down.




Rugby League isn't football. People need to stop comparing the two.

I don't know, I'm just guessing, but I wouldn't be surprised if the SL clubs have been told that whatever new system is put in place their share of Sky money is going down in order to increase money to the Championships. So to even it out a bit they've got rid of 2 clubs.

Losing London from professional rugby league is a disaster for the game in England. All that development work took place in London and the south for so many years, and now so many talented southern players will never become rugby league professionals. Many, if not most southern juniors, will not want to move to Yorkshire, Lancashire, Manchester or Cheshire in order to play in a Super League squad. They will choose other professions.

Of course the current London Broncos set up is abysmal. The intellgent solution would be to find some investors to become majority shareholder in the club, sweep out the rubbish, and start anew. But Barwick, Wood and company apparently have no idea how to achieve that. After all they cannot even find a naming sponsor for the Super League or the World Cup. They are obviously not well connected with the top end of London town. They probably wouldn't know where to start in finding new investors for London.

This restructuring and dumping of London will not make RL in Britain more prosperous. If anything, it is likely to become poorer.

You know what, I really dont care what anybody thinks of all this !! This change has been driven by the economic climate and the fact that some SL clubs are in serious doo doo !! Decent Champioship clubs are not given a fair crack at the whip and clubs in Champ 2 are as good as dead !!

Promotion and Relegation is the best thing to any sport, and being a Leigh fan, I have had my ups and down experiencing this. I feel this will enable 24 clubs (not 14) to thrive and grow with something to play for, irrespective of league position.

This will also give clubs like Leigh, Featherstone and Halifax the opportunity to keep hold of their homegrown talent and give the guys a decent wage as you would expect gates to obviously increase as a result (with RFLs funding also). I would expect these clubs to improve as a result (after all, we lost 2 fantastic young props for pittance because of the current structure !!)

We need change and finally someone has had the balls to do something about it. Stop whinging, support your teams and give what is proposed a chance !!

As a Leigh fan, I really am in 2 minds about this.

I think for me, what was wrong about licensing was not the concept in itself but the execution. There was so obviously an agenda for London and Crusaders that Leigh would never get a look-in (we will never forget Dicky Lewis comments about our youth system compared to Crusaders) and time and again the RFL had egg on their faces when a franchise failed so quickly after being awarded or re-awarded.

If there was a much fairer and more transparent licensing system where clubs that failed to live up to their promises time after time (yes Cas and Wakey I am looking at you) were given the boot, then I think it probably has more to commend it than P&R.

What seems clear to me though is that whatever system you adopt, you are going to have clubs that overspend and you are going to have meaningless matches. For a match to be meaningful there also has to be games that are less meaningful - that is just sport.

I'd be happier with P&R returning if I was sure that it was being done for the right reasons and the proper support will be given to clubs outside the 12 - I am not holding my breath.

Wakey and Cas will be chuffed.

Now that franchising is going away, they can at least stop pretending they are building new stadia

Brilliant

As one who has always preferred P&R, this is good news. If your good enough on the pitch you stay up, if not it's bye bye. The only fair way to run any sport. At least clubs will know what they have to do, which is be at least third from bottom instead of worrying about a franchise bid, which can be manipulated to keep certain clubs in SL.

I thought you told me the exceptional talented leaders at the RFL had a strategic plan. Was this not in it then?

OK. 12 teams x 2 leagues. Both leagues play full seasons. Then top 8 SL playoff final. Bottom 4 SL play top 4 of Championship. If this definately means top 4 of that 8 join SL next season then it might work.

However the bottom 8 playoff of championship is meaningless.

Does this also mean the money normally handed to 13th and 14th SL clubs will now be split across the 12 championship clubs? Not a lot each, but its something.

Wonder if season pass prices will be reduced since you're getting 2 less home games in regular season.

Previously I was against this because split would happen mid season and didn't allow for the usual good Nd bad patches you get in every season. This way it is a normal full season with playoffs which is fairer.

I could see this changing to SL 6 team playoff and bottom 2 vs top 2 champ clubs. That might work even better.

You thought wrong. I've never said the RFL leadership were exceptional, just asked that you criticise them for things they have actually done/failed to do, rather than the made up/incorrect stuff you were criticising them for

It may well signal the end of certain clubs, but maybe those clubs need to face the reality that, for years, they have not been self financing. They have become so dependent on Sky money that they don't raise any other income.

When I see clubs moaning that they can't afford £1.6m in wages, when they get a TV payment of £1.6m, what the **** are they doing other than sitting back and waiting for handouts? Basically they don't even raise enough outside of tv revenue to pay for rent/staff/utility bills!!! What brilliant boards they must have ......

The RFL has said they can't raise the salary cap because it would see certain clubs go under .... so what we as a sport do instead is prevent clubs with money from spending it up front .... instead they have to invent ways to pay their players 'off the books' .... all of which means we bleed players to NRL/Onion ...... absolutely ludicrous.

Can't wait for the chaff to be blown away on the breeze .... To the Future.

this isn't good news for Leigh fans. All the work they have out in place to improve infrastructure is forgotten, there are now two less places in SL for them and two more, better funded, better prepared sides in competition for it.

The only way you could even begin to bridge the financial gap is run 2 leagues of 10, with P&R, increase the cap and quota levels in the bottom league to more than they have now but less than SL, enough so that players can go full time.
For this to happen though the big wigs need to start attracting money to the game, if they're struggling why not incentivise anyone to bring it in.
Some random stranger not interested in RL told for every £ he attracts to the game he'll get 20% of any profit that brings to the game. Sounds far fetched but WE NEED TO ATTRACT MONEY. Until we do that the system we have now is the only sensible one we have.

Who is telling the SL clubs to part with more more?,it cant be the rfl can it?