But as you have just said 90% of your team will be changed anyway so i cant see how that will be relevant.

The choice (based on your logic) is between a club which has won the league and as such has the best first team squad, who will then change 90% of the squad for likely one season and a club which didnt win the league but was best placed of the field to maximise its potential in SL who will then change 90% of their squad for at least 3 years

If you want to talk about odds, i think its clear which of those you would back


Or perhaps you look at what you did wrong last season, improve on it and try again.

Well let's see shall we , anything more than 1/2 clubs will just make the Championships weaker , and further widen the gap between SL and the rest

What about the teams already in SL - that can't function in SL? Clubs that have gone into administration, clubs that are not drawing in enough crowds and clubs that are still struggling with stadia? Does that mean that the current system which allows them to remain in SL is a bad thing?

Ah but !

what the RFL do to improve SL isnt necessarily anything to do with what they do to improve the championships.

I see no reason to limit the amount of clubs who can apply, if a club wants to apply, fair enough i dont see what we, as a game, lose because of this.

No. If those clubs are building towards being able to do the things we need them to do, then giving them the time and space to do it is a good thing. If it becomes apparent they cant do these things we have facility to remove them.

Where have I stated that 90 percent would be changed , that is the point , if you build the Championships up to a reasonable level you would have teams taking 60/70 percent of the team up with you as HKR did , they competed from the start , yes they dropped off near the end of the season as they're squad didn't have the strength in depth of the established clubs , but they built a squad in the Championships and the bulk of that squad did compete

absolute nonsense to say there is not enough quality to support more teams, of course there is.

how many players are on dual contracts?
how many juniors will be lost to the game because there is so little chance of going pro?
how many championship players could potentially make the grade with full time coaching?

as for "elite" players. get a grip . there are probably a dozen outstanding players in superleague.(if you're not sure who they are, they will be the ones heading for rugby union or australia in the near future)

after that there is hundreds of pretty average players all at about a similar level.

I never said it was , so what point are you trying to make ?

The game won't ' lose ' , the Championship clubs will , that is what I said

But we won't , because there will be nobody to replace them

What a load of crap. For a couple of clubs that won't happen and that's what hacks people off. No matter how much you cover it in Smokey flavoured candy floss I'm not buying it.

Who says there is to be a Magic weekend? And what you said doesn't make any mathematical sense. 7 games a weekend. Someone doesn't play. Each team would have a weekend off twice a year and the season would be two weeks longer. Unless you can point out how it doesn't work over the season (assuming that there is no Magic weekend).

Read post no 2 on page 1 slugger

But there is an argument going on, on this very thread, stating there isnt enough players to go around in SL, never mind asking for 30/40% of championship squads to be of SL quality. There simply isnt the players to go around.

as for your example at HKR, they didnt build a team in the championship. For the 2007 season they brought in Vella, Ward, Ford, Bauer, Lovegrove, O'neill, Dyer, Hardman, Lennon, Cooke, Tandy, Gannon, Chester.

In fact only Murrell, Fisher, and Cockayne featured with any regularity and are still there now.

If that is the case why did Wakefield feel the need to enter this season with 9 overseas players and try and sign Hickey and HKA at one stage have 11 overseas players?

That you linked the two parts. Here: Im simply saying I dont see these two parts of your sentence as linked

what do they lose? Considering it cant be the monetary cost of applying as it is their choice to apply, if thats how they choose to spend their money so be it.

That doesnt mean we dont have the facility to do so.

If we dont, that isnt the systems fault.

I dont agree. I can accept a standpoint that says the RFL wont remove 'certain clubs' (i think we can take that as shorthand for expansion clubs') at a time you dont think would be the right time, or that they would give them more time than you would think was correct.

What i cant accept is an argument that says the RFL would keep 'certain clubs' in SL after they had passed the point where they believed it to be pointless.

I think Starbug has finished shooting himself in the foot with his 'strengthen the team in the Championship and then take the same squad up like HKR did' arguement, as shown by Smokeys pretty good explaination that they didn't....

Even if HKR HAD taken the whole squad forward, there is no guarantee that any other club would do the same. I'd be more inclined to believe - given historical precedents - that 99% of clubs would put all their money into buying promotion on any given year, and then would get their backsdes spanked, leading to them coming straight back down the following season - in short, HKR got lucky.
There is a fine example of this, as I keep pointing out. A certain Leigh Centurions did this... mad dash for SL, got there, couldn't get the squad, got relegated (although technically it wasn't relegation, we got booted out for Les Cats, Widnes got relegated.... Same difference though) and nearly went bankrupt.
Yo-yo clubs like Leigh (and by extension Widnes, Halifax and perhaps the Cumbrian clubs) would suffer more with being repeatedly promoted and relegated than they could ever hope to gain.

I repeat. P&R is a luxury RL literally can't afford. It would prove to be a huge white elephant again.

Well, let's see over time. The RFL have given certain warnings and public concern over stadia and the size of crowds. What makes me doubt their resolve is one interview where Mr Lewis warns one club over it's attendances and their importance for the club to retain its license and then 18 months later states that (for that same club) it's not an overriding factor in their quest to stay in SL. I await the announcement that the recession will save a couple of clubs from being forced to upgrade its stadia.

I'm pretty sure that Byron Ford played against Warrington in the Challenge cup while Rovers were in the National Leagues. Scored a couple of tries if I remember rightly and also scored against Cas when we won the Northern Rail cup (2005?)

something has to change, the game is sinking without a trace imo

once the tv money goes we are screwed

No, you got relegated (you finished bottom). Widnes can claim they were kicked out for Catalans after finishing in a new relegation spot to accommodate them, Leigh can't.

No we weren't. We were told early in the season that the team finishing bottom would be making way for the French, the relegation battle was above that.

Go back and look.

With respect thats sounds like rubbish.