Good luck matey i for one dont want to see your club go bust all the best.

what a twisted and bent way of looking at it

pray tell what exactly is twisted and bent about it - seems perfectly straight and rationale to me..!

For goodness sake. This has nothing to do with a franchise points system for the simple reason that this is a one-off way of dealing with the abnormal occurrence of a club going bust and how you make a sensible decision for the good of both the Champ and Champ 1.

In any event, Leigh happen to "tick the boxes" both from a "franchise" perspective (if you must call it that) AND from a performance perspective - as I have already said. So its a moot point. What do you suggest - the beaten GF (Oldham) and us play a two legged winner takes all match-up to decide who takes a place in the Championship? Weeks after the season has finished - is this fair or reasonable?

You are kidding yourself if you think that Champ 1 and the Championship are purely played in a halcyon P&R format. Where teams cannot get relegated or have special dispensations, you are messing about with "reality" in a serious way.

mapleyther

Whatever they decide to do they need to hurry up. Clubs need to plan ahead. We're announcing season ticket prices next week based on CH1 fixtures. If we were to be put back in Championship there's an extra fixture. To be honest, I can't see the RFL being so kind to us anyway.

The problem here is if they have asked to go down, then surely thats a simple decsion for the RFL. Are the RFL trying to 'force' them to stay in the championship, hence the delay or have they not actually asked to go down.

What is baffling me at the moment is if the RFL restructure the leagues and make the Championship a 10 team league how will it benefit anyone. Surely the Championship needs to be a 12 team league for the clubs to bring in more income.

But that would mean only a 9 team Ch 1, hardly fair to those teams incomes, best way is for one league based on a geographical fixture list.
With the play offs deciding the champions.

If they start selling cheesy chips at Swinton, then I dont mind sacrificing the trip to Batley in its favour.

If the RFL go regional it is vital they consider these important things.

why cant they play each other 3 or 4 times as they do in scottish football.

what is it with "we new the rules"so did Gateshead but what did that matter nothing .

It should be 1 league with this years Championship teams playing each other home and away and playing the teams that were in Champ1 just once next season ( other way around for this years Champ1 teams)................. this would give more fixtures and more income.
At the end of next season it will go off the final standings at the seasons end......... top half play each other twice and the bottom half once - would generate more money for the clubs outside SL and even the table up regards points therfore creating a exciting season.

Then again this is the RFL were talking about.

That would be make for a crazy first league table...a Champ 1 side could beat all the other former Champ 1 sides and lose against all the Championship sides, yet finish above a Championship side who lost a few matches against Championship opponents..

However, this may then be evened out, when teams from France, the North East, London, etc. are awarded 'special dispensation' points, when playing against 'heartland' teams, and by a 'sliding' bonus point scheme, depending on geographical location and margin of defeat! Also, as there would be no P&R, all teams could then take place in the end-of-season play off, (with a non-seeded draw, of course) to decide who appears in the Grand Final!

An East and West division with play offs makes good sense. Smaller clubs get the benefit of a good following from larger clubs (which in C1 they generally miss out on), and the larger clubs still get games other larger clubs.

Oldham for example will take just as many if not more to Widnes than Sheffield would, whilst York may take more to Halifax than Barrow would.

Every week is full of local derbies which are often a lot more competitive, which can create a bit more regional interest than the currrent format of say Blackpool v York in front of 300.

Get Starbugs 'free away travel' going, local clubs working in partnership with each other, and regional businesses getting more involved with a regional product, and its a winner.

would help as well

The East/West Divisions sounds a bit like the North American format for baseball, NFL, basketball etc - that I have become very familiar with. The difference here is that you still play teams from other divisions..but the points totals are compared only against other teams in that division.

So that would really defeat the purpose of what we are trying to achieve here - in terms of local derbies.

What you have to be careful of is getting the right balance. In baseball, Toronto are stuck in a division with Boston and New York Yankees, which makes it extremely difficult to make the playoffs (being crap doesn't help either).

As long as the play-offs themselves are open and not geographically based then in theory the best teams will emerge from each division to face each other.

Does anyone have enough time on their hands to propose who would be in the 2 divisions?

I am not sure the teams split as neatly as we would like once you throw Cumbria, London, Gateshead, Toulouse into the mix.

Slow news day.......



11 teams each

East

Halifax
Fev
Sheffield
Batley
Gateshead
Doncaster
Dewsbury
Keighley
York
Hunslet
Bramley

West

Barrow
Widnes
Leigh
Whitehaven
Oldham
Blackpool
Swinton
Rochdale
Workington
London
Toulouse

Gives 10 home league games, plus minimum of 3 NR cup games in a group format = 13 gauranteed home games. League winners get the old Lancashire or Yorkshire Cup.

Top 4 from each go into a national play off - 2 groups of 4 based on seeding so the top 2 from each region dont end up in the same group, home and away = 3 more home games each. Top 2 straight to a Grand Final.

Remaining teams go into 2 national groups of 7, 3 home 3 away again based on seeding. To keep it interesting, the top 2 go straight to a Shield Final as a curtain raiser to the Super League GF.

Total minimum home games for all clubs = 16.

e mail this to the RFL

Bramley aren't moving up for 100% certainty

I'd go for 2 divisions of 10 with playing everyone twice within the division and the teams in the other division once for a total of 28 games (18 within division + 10 against the other division). Hard to know who to cut if everyone survives (I'd rather they'd brought this in than letting Toulouse in then it would match perfectly)

Dont be silly. Generating 16 home games, a year full of local derbies, big clubs still playing each other, provision for expansion clubs, and incentive till the last day of the season..... its far too simple.



Bowes.......re Bramley, I put them in becuase they appear to have the same potential as half of the C1 clubs and it evened the numbers up. Tolouse and London ended up in the West group again to even the numbers up between the two, no other reason. Besides, Toulouse in May is quite apealling to me

What I was getting at is that with the current format certain teams in Champ 1 realistically has no chance of promotion to the Championship and suffer gate wise from not playing any of the top championship sides................ maybe the East V West divisions would be better at putting money through current Championship 1 sides gates.

Bigger crowds for them = more money to compete for better players signatures and will make the lower leagues more competitive...... makes sense and have a end of season play offs involving the top 4 finishing teams from both divisions.

not the Rfl,send it to the club chairmen if they think its a good idea they can show some balls and demand it

I have to say the east west division idea is one that would appeal to all the clubs, fans included. Local derbies spell bigger crowds and that means more money for clubs.

I understand what your saying but I don't think its as simple as people seem to think because as I see it the season appears to finish on completion of the GF. And from that date Leigh were officially relegated, before Gateshead issues/voluntary relegation (if that's happened}.

Would we be the most appropriate club? yes
Would it make sense? yes
Would I like it to happen? Yes

But how do the RFL justify picking us from all the other clubs in our league? Look how we felt when Celtic were picked above us, how will Swinton/York/ etc feel? They'll probably have been rubbing their hands at the potential of a big pay day when Leigh visit.

The RFL have a very difficult choice, reforming of the leagues is a good option.