You are Col Saunders and I claim my £5

What has that got to do with anything ?
This is what you posted



Winners , ie ' on the pitch '

In the final , who get there by being the best ' on the pitch '

We already have two ' national ' amatuer comps , and as far as I can remember , heartland clubs have contested all the recent relative finals

It doesn't work , only one thing will expand the game at pro/semipro level , money , money provided and administrated by the governing body and its member clubs

Ahh I said the winners could apply to join what would be a franchised Chp.
They would have to show that they could be sustainable at that level which is why I brought crowds into it old boy.
We dont want two national conferences we want regional comps with national finals.

But franchising is not working and is an anathaema to the UK sporting public at whatever sport.

Pro RL is in a hole and franchising the Championship would make that hole bigger. The bigger the hole the more difficulty in getting out.

Why not introduce franchising to footie ? Why no European League instead of a European footie cup comp ?

Why are Blackpool FC or Wigan or Bolton in the premiership ? Would they be if the FA had introduced franchising ? And would footie be better or worse with franchising do you think ? Ask a footie fan.

So you are suggesting that a club playing in a totally inferior competition could qualify to apply for the Championships by winning one match ?

How do you judge ' sustainable ' when a club is at amatuer level ? ie it is not actually paying its players or charging very much if anything for admission ?

This club then has to jump to paying a squad of players and then suddenly all the other associated costs

Think again , the jump from amatuer to a single Championship is bigger than a jump from the Championship to SL

We need more clubs at semi pro level so you can run two tiers which then flattens out the hill between amatuer and SL

Well I thought it was well known that Claudius was more of a Cluedo man.

Baffled. I just cannot understand Cluedo though'anymore than I can Monopoly.Is it buy buy buy and you can't lose ? A touch better than Bingo ? Or a raffle ?

Well it does help being an academic in cluedo, just keep away from the study when the clergy are about.....

Was it because somebody nicked the ' Boot ' and that was his favourite ?

You said a ' final ' , you meant a play offs , if that was the case all the clubs outside the heartlands would go out first round , so youd still be left with Siddal,Leigh East/Miners,East/West Hull,the Cumbrian clubs , or scariest of all Queens from Leeds

2010 - Warrington Wizards 23, Huddersfield Underbank Rangers 18
2009 - Bramley Buffaloes 38 v 22 Huddersfield Underbank Rangers
2008 - Celtic Crusaders Colts 26 v 4 Bramley Buffaloes
2007 - Featherstone Lions 42 v 30 Bramley Buffaloes
2006 - Bramley Buffaloes 30 v 8 Hemel Stags
2005 - Bradford Dudley Hill Demons 28 v 26 Bramley Buffaloes
2004 - Coventry Bears 48 v 24 Warrington Woolston Rovers
2003 - Warrington Woolston Rovers 42 v 6 Teesside Steelers


The obvious exceptions - Crusaders Colts (now the basis of Scorpions), Hemel Stags (been around 20+ years), Cov Bears and Teesside Steelers. All made up of local talent to their area, all bar Crusaders Colts born of organic, local growth.

There will be NO distinction between the amateur and the pro game. Clubs that can afford to pay players will do so, clubs that can't, won't. P&R will be restricted based on criteria at key thresholds (eg, enclosed ground, number of seats, turnover, certain requirements for full-time staff, etc etc), but it will be possible to move all the way from entry level to the edge of Superleague.

The licencing system for SL exists only because the jump from part time to full time and back was killing business planning. That's the fault line, the finance.

It would be simply a waste of time bringing Underbank or Wizards into the game as 'Semi Pro' in the interests of RL expansion unless they played their matches in the non heartland areas which they both are near to. Underbank are near Glossop & Warrington near Northwich.

The game should use its strong amateur teams to expand the game into non heartland areas, instead of developing weak teams in new areas & then trying to make them compete at a high level.

Sadly for the game the non heartland areas are on our doorstep. e.g All of traditional Cheshire, Liverpool, Knowsley, Manchester City, West/East/North Lancs, North Derbyshire, Westmoreland etc

..you're missing the point. Pretty soon there won't be designated 'pro' or 'semi pro' or 'amateur' teams... clubs will pay if they can afford to. They might only pay winning money, or only pay one or two players. Teams will move up or down divisions based on results, albeit with some gateway criteria at key points. Wizards, playing at Wilderspool, might be promoted into the third tier, but then so might Coventry Bears or Teesside Steelers.

The gap between tiers needs to be as smooth as possible with 'doors' at key points enforcing clubs to improve all aspects of a club to move up or down. The bottom of the Chp would be one as well as, obviously SL.
What I dont think teams do enough of is applying for grants or gvt money. Facilities at many amateur league teams are dire whereas cricket teams apply for grants and have some really good facilities.. why.. i dont know but it needs looking into

Er, we got £29.4m from Sport England, behind cricket and football, level with Union, way ahead of anyone else.

We don't own much in the way of facilities compared to those three sports, but in broad terms we are regarded as experts in getting government funding by pretty much everyone else.

Wilderspool ?

Yeah its still there, and in use, my lad played there last season.

Wembley 71: Dont think there is a point to be missed. You're either an Amateur Club or a Professional one. Clubs that pay wages to players are companies & the players employees whereas Amateur Clubs have no employees just in the main members of the club. For either Underbank or Wizards to pay wages they would have to form a Company & become a business. Very different structure.
PS dont tell the residents of Warrington they are paying for another stadium at Wilderspool (which is due to be demolished for houses).

I can see the point that you are trying to make, but the 'trend' is largely in your head. Yes, these are good, solid amateur clubs, and yes they are all from traditional towns.
I find it interesting though, that in your haste to rubbish everyone outside the heartland, that you seem to have forgotten Coventry, Teeside, Hemel et al... I'm sure that it was an entirely genuine oversight, and not one made out bias though.

Not really Nik , just that Coventry , Teeside and Hemel arent a patch on any of the Heartland clubs I mentioned as regards playing standards

And I cant really see that changing for quite some time , you might get the odd player or two but team wise , nah

That'll never catch on!

Mm. Your delineation between a club and a company is not as clear as you think - clubs can pay contractors for services provided (coach hire, pitch hire, buying kit), and can equally pay players for services delivered on the field without necessarily being a company...

... but without going into the legal niceties, RL is one of the few sports that has a formal distinction between amateur and professional, and that's going to change. We'll be much more like soccer or rugby union, where clubs can come to local arrangements to pay players at whatever level they can afford.

My local (tier 9!) union club pays its coach £4k a year, and pays some of its players to play, and pays travel expenses for others. It turns over around £30k a year running two open age teams only.

At tier 5 and 6 (that's South West 1 and South West 2), where many RLC players come from, players regularly get winning money at least, of £50 up, and some are on match contracts of up to £250 per game. Coaches at that level are getting £15k for two sessions a week and a game.

Union, incidentally, has 5h1t-loads more money that we do... but the point is, clubs will pay what they can afford in league, too, and my bet is by 2015 players will be being paid down five or six divisions, even if not much.

Thats pretty much what I wanted to express.
If you get a club a few tiers down willing to pay even winning money, you'll get the best players in the area, or you would hope. Easily good enough to challenge up to C1 if you have the revenue stream

Exactly. You might even get big business involved when they realise how little money it would take for so much success and exposure.

Think of Formula 1 - teams called Red Bull and (in days gone by) Bennetton, ot even TNS Llansantfryd (sp?) in Welsh footie.

A couple of Million quid from a certain building society and Cheltenham & Gloucester Warriors, or Bristol and West Sonics, could be in SuperLeague getting massive amounts of tv and press coverage every week. Cheaper than a tv ad campaign, that's certain!