Quote ="jools"All this constant changing of the game is part of the problem IMO.
Players, coaches, fans and sponsors have no idea whether what they are expected to buy into this season will be the same as next.
This constant harping on about "dead" or "meaningless" games is total nonsense.
How many premiership football games are "meaningless" - doesn't seem to bother them.
So what if wakey v Giants won't make a difference to the top four. It can still be a decent game and fans and clubs can still have their rivalries.'"
I think the constant changing of things jools is for a couple of reasons, One is the obvious one of trying to increase crowds, The other i recon is some sort of attempt to try and fool people into thinking the RFL are actually doing a decent job and are therefor justifying their salaries and Co Cars and so on.
Back in the days when League was reasonably supported, there was just 1 league, No P&R and the talent was far more evenly spread about the clubs, It was not unusual for players to be at clubs for 9/10 years, Some of what we regard as poor clubs today could hold their own with the best.
At the time Sky stepped in and brought in Summer rugby, the game was in it's death throws, only Wigan won anything for 10years, and that was because they bought all the best players some that rarely got a game but were not available to other teams. They were a cracking team for sure but the game was getting boring.
Sky virtually bought the game and will have the last say on what happens to the structure insomuch as they will have to like it . The real power leaving Sky out of it rests with the SL Clubs, They are the clubs that generate the wealth and it wrankles them to have to support the game below them and feel the Championship should stand on their own feet.
There are two sides to this "as there always is " 1 the championship can't stand on it's own feet because Sky don't want to know about it, Hence the continual changing of formats in the wild hope that sooner or later one of them might work.
2 the S League clubs maintain there isn't enough money for them to provide a good enough squad of players to lift the level of the game to anything like the Aussie game, and also fight off the dark side tempting our better players away from the game.
No easy solution because the basic problem for league is what it has been for many years now, It is just not popular enough, there are far too many other things for people to do with both their time and their money now compared with back in the day, On top of that it has to compete with Soccer " which is a hopeless task " ( not the case in Os ). So do we let the game below SL wither on the vine and concentrate on the likes of Toronto and the south of France, which Sky want, or do we try to carry on in an ever decreasing way spreading the money out.
Union is in a different position to league in so much as they are not particularly bothered about crowds locally. The top sides will pull roughly the same as S league, But at International level the game is at a whole different level to ours and it powers the whole game and makes it cash rich, In league people are not really bothered about the international game , they are bothered about their club, and being able to just tootle down the road to the local rivals on Sunday afternoon.
Union have sold their game big style since they turned openly Pro, Despite League being the better game " arguably " and pulling better viewing figures, Union are the ones who get twice the TV coverage and twice the money, so obviously the powers behind Union are of a different ilk to the ones behind league. Hence the power struggle that is currently going on between the RFL and S league, I think S league feel they can do a lot better than the RFL have done and It's hard to disagree with that.
Interesting times ahead.
