It doesn't take too long on any RL forum to see the disquiet amongst genuine fans about the danger to the league (more pointedly, attendances) from the RFL prioritising the playoffs/GF;

What would people think if the playoffs stayed as they are, with the GF winner being declared 'Champions', but the only other incentive (financial reward!) to winning the GF would be the WCC game?

The RFL could then (please see sense on this RFL) use the money generated by the playoff system to increase prize money for the league, meaning that although finishing higher up the league might not increase your chances of being champions, the incentive to finishing higher would be significantly fuller coffers for next year.

If there had been more money on offer for finishing higher up the league than actually winning the GF, I'm sure many of the top teams, including Wire, would've shown a better attitude towards all the league games throughout the season than they did this year.

Oh, by the way Leeds fans, from recent years, including Saturdays efforts, I'm quite sure even if this system was adopted, you'd still have a good shout of becoming champions, just from a loftier league position!

I dont think all players/teams are motivated by money.

If that was the case, we wouldn't be touching our forelocks and shouting "How high?" every time Sky shouted "Jump"' ....

Mentioned this several times, so once more won't make any difference.

Reduce SL to 12 teams, and scrap the magic weekend.

12 teams play each other home and away = 22 rounds.

Split the league into top 6 and bottom 6 creating two mini leagues, but all teams keep the points they have already earned.

Every team plays all the other teams in their mini league home and away = 10 more rounds.

The obvious disadvantage is that for the last 10 games half the league have nothing to play of except maybe avoiding 'the spoon'. But is that really that much different from the current system? There is the possiblity that a team could have the league wrapped up with three or four games to go, but that happens in football, it doesn't really turn fans off, either live or on TV.

The advantages are that every club knows before the season starts that they will have 16 home games and can advertise/promote/sell their season tickets accordingly. Sky can start to get excited about round 18 when the battle to make the top six starts getting interesting. The last 10 rounds of the competiton would feature the best 6 teams in the competition playing eachother each week. The team who is top of the league after 32 games are the champions. Nobody can argue whether or not they were lucky or whatever, they are the best team and rightly can be called champions.

The one thing that keeps coming out is, something needs to change before it self implodes ......

I've often thought (usually over a few beers with both SL & Championship supporters present) as to whether we'd even be better off going to a split league, based on East/West pennines (with each getting one of the obvious oddballs of London & Catalan)...... 2 leagues; 10 teams; 18 games; almost without exception local derbies of one kind or another, and gives a chance to get teams like Leigh, Halifax, Featherstone, Oldham etc back into the fold without twisting their arm over meeting farcical licence requirements (which count for anything anyway!) ..... Then, top 6 (doesn't really matter if it's 4, 5, or 6 at this point, it's the concept) go forward to PO knockouts, with top 2/3 playing host to bottom 2/3 from other region ..... or if more acceptable to fans (Sky paymasters !!!), a further league format with top 4 going into a 14 game mini-season, then top 2 contest the GF!

Don't actually care right now what it's changed to, but for the first time in years, this season I found myself feeling like a cash-cow being fleeced as clubs put out under strength teams for games I'd already paid for upfront with a season ticket.

Looking back over this and last season it still sticks in my throat that a team can come from 5th to be crowned champions, not taking it away from Leeds in anyway well done you are masters at it.
Wigan for for me this year was the clear outright team to beat and they demonstrated this week in and week out. Warrington did that last season of course.But 1 match and Wigans season is deemed a failure that cannot be right in anyway both in recognition of their achievement and financial reward.

We did well winning the Challenge cup and coming 2nd in the league, and as discussed previously the hub cap was squandered in 2 stupid matches that we should have won.

I don't have a problem with the the play off system the problem I have is major glory for 3 matches. really a team can pre train through the season and come good at the end. The glory should be around the League winners and the play off system an icing on the cake.

So RFL bods .....change the importance of winning the league and reward clubs for doing so etc etc. The top 6 or 8 can then go onto a champions league final type jobby with a day out at old Trafford and a bit of a cup and spread after job done I say

I decided before the season had finished not to renew our season tickets next year. The league is a non entity now, and the best games are on TV. At £600 for the two of us for 13 games of which 2 we usually miss due to holidays etc, and then the half dozen games that have weakened teams, it does not seem worth it.

Instead I will pay for every cup game and any play off game we are in as this offers better value for money compared to the current league format!!!

Another one who completely overstates the case. If the league were a 'non entity' then Leeds could have played their under 20s every round and won the GF from 14th! The play-off system does need changing ( in my view the original Top Five worked well ) but if you seriously don't think that teams are trying to finish as high as they can ( within the current rules ) then you're deluded. Personally I like watching rugby league so I'll go to as many matches as I can afford.

Congratulations on the first post you've ever made which I agree with completely

There is a difference between trying to finish as high as you can and knowing you will finish fairly high anyway, so you can afford to rotate.

Finishing higher does give certain advantages, such as the week off and home games.

But I do think the all or nothing senario of the playoffs, does negate the season somewhat. I have been in favour of a division set up for some time now, (whether that be by region or some other method). But the finances will not allow it.

No SL club will vote to spread out the money they get from SKY more ways than they already do. Especially with clubs on the brink of going bust and other clubs (mine included) advocating a cut in numbers to boost earnings.

I think the boat on divisional rugby set sale when SL was born and for it to come back would require a huge boost from sky or sky to pull the plug and make the money from attendances all important.

This is a good discussion. the problem is that The clubs run the league and self interest gets in the way of the good of the sport as a whole.

Sky pay for the right to have what they want. believe me, without them, like it or not, we are stuffed. They cannot fail to have noticed that the first two weeks of the playoffs were substandard. The original top 5 playoff was effective, but we need something to play for so sky get a decent amount of matches that actually mean something!

therefore, I dont feel that you can have a top 5 playoff without reintroducing promotion and relegation.
I also think that this should be based on sporting performance (with appropriate deductions for salary cap breaches.)

I dont think a clubs stadium should make it more or less likely to be in SL, other than a minimum capacity of say 8000. If it is safe, then it can be in SL. If it doesnt have a certain number of seats, then the club has reduced revenue, so there is some incentive to improve, but its not at all costs, and to the detriment of the club. reintroduce promotion and relegation, and scrap the playoffs in the cahmpionship. that way, the most consistent team comes up each time. Let the sky money provide a parachute payment so that should a club go down, they can retain their full time players for one season, and distrubute the money throughout the game so that great clubs like Halifax, Featherstone and Leigh, can really have a go at getting up and staying up!

re-visit the value for money that we get as a sport from the expansion teams. are London and Catalans simply a gimmick to placate sky, or do they add reall value to our competition. should we keep them, but make them operate on exactly the same rules as the British SL teams? or should we look closer to home at ensuring that traditional clubs are looked after?

RL faces a time of serious self evaluation. Clubs in the elite competition of our sport are facing, or have faced financial meltdown, and something has to be learned. SUper League, the salary cap and licensing were all supposed to bring an end to the boom and bust in Rugby league, and then we almost lose one of the biggest clubs in the game, with possibly another 3 SL clubs getting close to being in the same situation.

in 1895 our sport was founded because people in this part of the world wanted fairness to be applied and 117 years later we need leaders with a similar vision to be brave once more. But can I see this happening?

Hang on. On the one hand we have people saying the league is meaningless, on the other we have people saying the top 8 gives us meaningful games. Which is it?

I am sick and tired of reading and hearing people saying the league has become meaningless. Winning the Grand Final from 5th is a remarkable achievement and their playoff games plus ours against Hull and Saints were great to watch. The only disapointment for me this year was the number of clubs at the lower end of the table who failed all year to mount any challenge to get in the 8 and that half of the top 8 fell well short of playoffs standard when it mattered most.

In other words - I'm all for continual improvement using the current structure. I like having 14 teams. Even with that number we end up with several repeat matches through cup ties, magic and playoffs. Going down to 12 or 10 gives less variety and I think many would find it boring playing the same teams all the time. It would also be bad for international RL, as we'd have a smaller top level player pool.

The major issue for me is that too many clubs are well short of the A standards that Warrington, Wigan, Saints and Leeds are setting. i.e. good stadium, good crowds, well run off the field, produce lots of club trained players. Get those things right at more clubs and get more money into the game through better sponsorship deals and better marketing and the competition really would hot up.

Tinkering with the structure and/or number of teams is just dressing the same problems up in different ways. We need to tackle the problems, not the symptoms.

As for P&R - I quite like it in principle. BUT it can only operate sensibly if the level of budget available between competitions is not massively different, as it is between SL and Championship. That just causes massive struggles for both the promoted and relegated sides.

So, to sum up - there is NO simple change available! Nor is one needed. Just continual improvement at all clubs.

What people have to realize is there are three competitions in Rugby League:

1. Challenge Cup
2. League
3. Grand Final

The grand Final is now the main competition in Rugby League and follows the similar format to the NRL. The game has evolved and is no longer just about the league table, get over it we have played this way since 1998 that is now 15 years. Come on get in to the modern world and welcome it. I was at Old Trafford again with another 70,000 other people that are all fitting in. With regards to the finishing league position, I am sure that if you said to all the coaches and players at the start of the season they would all rather have two games at home to qualify for the final than one game at home and then two away games. Wigan were rightfully crowned league winners and congrats to them, however they did not win the big prize that is the Grand Final.

The main thing that Rugby league community needs is to stop looking for all the negatives, look for the positives and talk about them.

I agree, to a point. Warrington is a great club with a solid fanbase. Its what I regard as a "proper " rugby league club, in a rugby league town. But without the influx of cash from Simon Moran, where would you be? Until the last 5 years, Warrington were on the fringes of the playoffs at best, and in some seasons struggled to be anywhere near.

I am glad that Warrington, as a traditional club, has begun to succeed, but it is based on throwing a huge wad of cash at a problem, rather than starting from the ground up with a root and branch restructure.

Do warrington bring through their own youth in the numbers that other clubs do ( and I mean regular starters rather than squad players) such as Leeds or ST Helens? not yet, but I bet thats the aim.

The point I guess I am trying to make is that the problem our game faces is the old chicken and egg thing. Without money you cant begin to implement the things you need to do to save money. IE have a better youth structure to bring through your own players to save money on transfer fees and higher wages. Only Leeds have been successful fully at this in the SL era, and that was only after Caddick took over with his money and improved the clubs infrastructure!

I agree. On a smaller scale (which is okay because RL is a small sport, so the same level of money isn't required), we won the lottery in the way Man City did. They got a world class stadium as a result of the 2002 Commonwealth Games and a few years later were bought by some of the world's richest men. We got approval for the HJ after years of crying out for better facilities, and Simon Moran came in.

They spent the mid-lates 90's and early 00's going up and down and even had a season in the third tier. We nearly went bust ten years ago.

Both famous old names in their respective sports that were well and truly in the doldrums, and things could very easily have gone differently for both clubs had the money not arrived, but it did and both are now arguably the strongest clubs in the country in their respective sports - or among the top three or four at the very least.

When conversations about expansion were taking place ten years ago some supporters of other clubs would have been saying things like, "Get rid of Warrington to get the French in - their ground is a tip, their crowds are average at best and they've offered nothing on the pitch for years. Either kick them out or make them merge with Widnes and play at the Haltopn Stadium." That's why I don't feel comfortable with similar comments aimed at clubs like Cas, Wakefield and Salford (who admittedly now have a stadium but still have their problems, granted). It could easily have been us.

Now we've been able to build and should hopefully be in a strong position for years to come on and off the pitch regardless of whether Simon Moran continues to invest or not, because we're developing self sufficiency and an eviable youth set up with brilliant facilities. Without the money in the first place none of that could have happened though.

Clubs that don't yet have the luck that we have had need help to develop, not cut adrift, and lowering the number of clubs in the league or the number of play off positions simply allows the big to get bigger and the small to become nothing.

Not true and very unfair on the large number of people and parties who have contributed to the transformation of the club over the past 15 years. The club recognised the need to move to a new stadium and improve it's youth development and started acting on both well before Simon Moran took over. His money and (more importantly) the financial security his ownership gave have both been hugely beneficial. BUT, without his money and security we would still have the new stadium and we would still have improved youth development. We'd not be quite as strong as we are, but I'd argue our success IS based on a root and branch restructure underpinned by financial security and helped by money on top where required.



Yes, we are now producing a very healthy number of players. This was clearly demonstrated this year with: numerous players out on dual reg and on loan; players in England Academy squad; 1st team squad regularly fielding plenty of home grown players; u20s winning the league leaders and grand final.

Thanks seb, I get your point, and I was in no way trying to be negative towards Warrington as a club or town. BUt I think you've kind of agreed with me. Its the financial stability that Moran has brought that has enabled the club to do the right things. Your term was that it underpinned what was going on. could this all have happened without his cash with the same effect? I dont think so.

Mr Murphy, I am going to say something for first time....WELL SAID, good post

I suspect the answer to that is probably yes, but it would have taken a lot, lot longer.

Some people tend to think that all you need is a rich benefactor and all is solved. Sadly that is not the case though. A strong club looks like an ice berg with the benefactor sitting at the top. But there is an awful lot that needs to be done 'below the water'. The town / city need to be on board and recognise that the club is part of their heritage. This helps in hundreds of ways, not just grants, but planning permission, business contacts (property leasing), club profile, partnerships (world cup) etc etc. Then there are the networks that SEB mentions, all doing their bit to bring in money from individuals, to very small business sponsorship, to the larger business (corporate hospitality and perhaps discounted services eg building !). Then the school networks, where a healthy system provides not just juniors, but also potential supporters from the parents and staff. Finally a club youth system and strong scout network for the different RL regions. As SEB points out, a large amount of work went into these areas both prior to, and during the Moran era.

I dont know exactly, but I suspect it was primarily Moran's money that paid for our big signings (including TS). That I would argue, accelerated the speed at which Warrington became a major club in RL, but I would like to think they would have got there eventually because of the focus of running the club in a professional way (Andy Gatcliffe) and treating it as a business.

Finally, Moran is not just a money man. He is a skilled negotiator and is involved in selling the club to prospective new signings (players, coaches, staff). Much of his business is based around marketing, a skill that is sadly lacking from many RL clubs (and organisations) and that is a core requirement for a rugby club these days. And of course he will bring a wealth of business contacts that end up supporting the club via hospitality suites, sponsorship, discounted products and services. So yes, Moran's money is very important, but he brings an awful lot more to the party than that.

Winslade's, Can't say I disagree with any of that at all. Warrington has benefitetd from Moran, and the game is benefitting from a resurgent Warrington club. Gatcliffe is under rated by many outside of Warrington and REdhall, but he's a real asset to our game. seemingly every bit as much as a top loine player. Much like Peter Deakin was with us in the early days of SL!
At the Bulls we could do with a few million to back up the work that's being done by the BUlls foundation, and the successful but underfunded youth dept. We've kind of been forced to bring kids in, but the quality of scouting locally (Whitehead and Bateman both from less than 2 miles from Odsal) and nationally (particularly it seems in Cumbria with the likes of Donaldson)means that these kids are good enough to compete. this needs to be the way forward for us, and many other clubs. BUt I fear that unless we get a serious money backer, our main funding stream in coming years will be selling our better players to the richer clubs, and that doesnt really provide a way back to the top without a financial sugar daddy!

Yes I followed your troubles over the past few months with interest - Addy and Ardvark ? I think provided a lot of interesting detail, not the least because they are / were involved in insolvency and law respectively. I suppose you have to be optimistic really as it could have been a lot worse - not only were you eventually bought, but you still have a licence (albeit for 1yr). And I know you have an excellent group of U18 players coming through - I hope you have retained them and not let Leeds pinch them ?
Looking at the more gloomy side, I think you are correct about the money. I don't think your restaurant owner is exactly leaking cash and yes, you do need a 2012 version of Deakin. But RL is strong in the Bradford area and you have a fantastic set of supporters. Look how Leigh managed to turn their fortunes around from virtual bankruptcy to one of the strongest teams in the Champ., and all in 12 months. They have a much smaller supporter base, but extremely active set of workers.

Anyway, I genuinely wish you all the best for the future, RL needs a strong Bradford club. If all your supporters get behind the new board, I am sure you will come through this, even though it may take 2-3 yrs.

No, I haven't agreed with you. You seem to be saying that it was Moran's cash that enabled us to start doing good things. This is not the case. We were already doing the good things before he took over and we are still doing good things now that are not all funded by him or even by the club's everyday income streams. For example, both the Vice Presidents Association and Supporters Trust provide significant support to the Youth Development department. Then there is the highly respected Wolves Foundation that has been doing excellent community work for many years.

Simon Moran has undoubtedly provided very welcome cash inputs at time of need (not least the transfer fees for N.Wood and Westwood in 2002) and given us financial security through his ownership (i.e. that means we are not at risk of a consortium looking to take profits from us or with motives conflicting with those of the fans). This has definitely lifted us to a level that it would either have taken us longer to get to, or perhaps we would never have quite reached. But don't confuse that with us only being about his money. We are a very strong club on lots of different levels.