There's a lot of nonsense talked on here about SL being a full-time league and the Championship being a part-time league. In fact there is no requirement for all a SL club's players to be full-time or for all a Championship club's players to be part-time. It's a decision for each club's directors. More clubs need to accept a group of the best and key players being full-time* with the rest of the squad being part-time. The best run clubs would be able to increase the number of players on full-time contracts if they want to as they gradually build up the level at which they break-even. Clubs with backers with deep pockets can ignore this for a while. But does it do a club like say Bradford any good if their backer keeps tipping in his private wealth only for all the money to go out the door on full-time salaries and benefits for say 30 players on full-time contracts? * What do a coach and players actually do for 40 hours a week during the day Monday to Friday? Is it just they want to be at home after 5 instead of having a few evening squad sessions each week?

Full time allows:

all players present at every session
recovery time
physio
strength and conditioning
video review of previous and up coming matches
ball work
wrestling drills
defensive drills
team bonding exercises
sports psychology

You can't work a full week at another job and expect to cover all the above in a couple of evening sessions during the week.

According to a Warrington player I know, Tony Smith's video analysis sessions last 2-3 hours. If players were only available 3 nights a week, and 1 of those nights was used up just for video analysis, I can only imagine how much the standard would drop

Yep, not to mention the community work, sports science, rehab, recovery etc

Can you remember what happened when Wigan were the only full time Division 1 club ?????????

If EVERY club had to have a mix of part time and full time players they your theory may have some mileage
and on one off occasions, club with part timers could prosper but, the week on week demands top level RL can not be sustained with large numbers of part timers.

This idiot obviously just wants the sport to regress like so many others seem to. Backwards moron.

No he just asked a question, albeit without fully understanding how full time clubs operate your insulting language however cannot be put down to lack of knowledge, just ignorance

Its my belief that some clubs in SL are already downsizing their spend levels significantly with a view to having a mixed part time/fulltime squad when the league changes come in. Just look at the outgoings at Hull KR for example.

I think part of the thinking behind the "leagues of 8" is that it allows some current SL clubs to operate a mixed squad system and at the same time allow some current championship clubs upgrade to operate a mixed squad of part time and full time players.

By having a core of perhaps 13 full time players then the rest as part timers, the likes of Castleford, Hull KR, Widnes Bradford etc will probably become viable business models.
As things currently stand their income streams cannot support 25-30 fulltime players.

They therefore face two options
1) quickly grow their income streams
2) reduce expenditure levels dramatically

downsizing the academy system will have saved some money, but as we have seen recently with Bradford, some clubs are still struggling to generate sufficient cash to run a full time sports business.

How is it ignorant in any way?



People want the sport to regress. That's the reason behind the league system being changed, people want the sport to regress and downsize to the level it was at in the 1970's. I've seen people talking about targeting a league average of 6,000 with the new system. Way, way less than we get now. It just seems like insanity to me.

The game is shrinking the top tier to 12 because there isn't the talent nor the money to sustain 14....this points to the game regressing in the hope of halting a decline in interest from fans and investors. I can't see the level of support the game currently gets, nor the amount of TV and sponsorship cash increasing too much more under the current RFL Management.

In a recent statement in a guardian Blog, Wood says that:

Why is he at peace if foxy bingo et al are delivering more than Engage.....or is he just spinning a line, given that 1p would have generated more revenue than the last naming rights sponsor?

Fact is that without SKY's cash, the game would be semi-professional anyway.


[urlhttp://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2013/jul/31/rugby-league-world-cup-best-side[/url

We've just signed two NRL rep props and allegedly a NRL gf winning scrum half. Not sure what makes you think we are slashing our squad spending?

My thoughts too. Unfortunately some people have pre-set notions about the state of some clubs and HKR seem to be one of those.

That's what we get for living in a crap town. : )