www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague ... tlead.html

www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague ... tlead.html

Excellent outcome, RL needs to have a plan and stick to it if it wants to progress, chopping and changing the league structure every three years would be disastrous for stability and the game would be poorer for it.

Of course as a Trinity fan I know that my team, rightly or wrongly, would’ve been first in line to be ousted had the league dropped to 12, so of course I have a vested interest in the league remaining at 14, but even if Trinity were one of the stronger clubs I would still have wanted the league to remain at as it is.

There may be a player dilution right now but in time, with 14 clubs producing home grown players, this will be rectified and we will hopefully so a large base of club produced players supplemented with a small number of the very best overseas stars clubs are able to muster.

It would be interesting to see the vote, I would like to know which clubs voted to make it 12 again.

There must be quite a few ‘I’m alright Jack’ clubs who would prefer just the twelve clubs, it looks like the have-nots won the day.

There’ll be a number of posters on the V.T who will be gutted today.

I think you can be certain Cas, Wakey, Salford, Crusaders, Quins, Saints, Bradford and Hull KR voted for it to stay at 14, if only to help guarantee their SL status. That's 8 teams, so over half...

Totally agree devils advocate...we all know the stadium debate, but to throw a team out that regular beats and finishes higher up than alot of the other clubs is ludicrous..the RFL are chomping at the bit to get Widnes/Leigh/Halifax in.

Think you are spot on here pal.

That list is probably not too far off the mark, don’t know about St’s though, it’s a good job Bradford have gone backwards in the last couple of years, they used to part of the clique.

Not sure how you work that out. Widnes perhaps though I have never seen any real evidence to suggest they are especially favoured. SL had the ideal chance to get them in in 2008 and didn't. As for Fax and Leigh I don't go for that at all as neither offer anything that isn't already on offer. Leigh are simply too small, new stadium or not and I doubt Fax hit hardly any of the criteria. I'm not saying one of them won't take the place of an existing SL if that club fails to reach the required standard but that's very much in those clubs own hands. What I don't see is any great desire for it to happen, certainly no favouritism or conspiracy.

According to this mornings Yorkshire Post three clubs voted for a 12 team league, Wakefield was one can'.t remember the other two

We must be really confident about getting Newmarket.



The situation hasn't changed really. It's Newmarket or bust.

Wakefield voted for a 12 Team SL. Are we insane or are we so confident that we will have a new Stadium.

Can't believe it but if true I'm disappointed, its like Turkey's voting for Christmas.

I can’t believe Trinity did, very selfish to do so and potential very damaging if things didn’t go the clubs way. On the other hand they must be super confident of the new stadium becoming a reality.

Quote ="Gotrin"According to this mornings Yorkshire Post three clubs voted for a 12 team league, Wakefield was one can'.t remember the other two'" www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/sport/Su ... 6054234.jp Wakefield, Bradford and Hull KR.

Quote ="Gotrin"According to this mornings Yorkshire Post three clubs voted for a 12 team league, Wakefield was one can'.t remember the other two'" www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/sport/Su ... 6054234.jp Wakefield, Bradford and Hull KR.

I imagine that we are the clubs that need the money the most. If Newmarket comes off, we should stay in, 14 teams or 12. If it doesn't, we are out, 14 teams or 12. As a rugby fan, I want 14. The club has to stay in business though, and so I can understand the business case for 12.

I just hope we go for viable clubs and not just expansion for expansion sake. The atmosphere was poor on Sunday. Imagine if we lost Cas for Toulouse. The away games would be better than the home ones.

Having said that, getting Widnes to replace Salford would improve things.

Well, that’s blown my conspiracy theory of the ‘Big Boys’ wanting a bigger share of the pie

.

To top it all, we voted for twelve, either we’re very confident, or very skint.

What about the bit regarding moving the Magic w/e to the Capital, you just couldn’t make it up

.

It does say "it is understood" but if true I find it disappointing, selfish and very short sighted.

I guess we are probably taking the stance that if we dont get a new stadium then its the end of the road for us so what the hell. If we do then lets have a bigger slice of the cake.

Again selfish and not likely to win many friends from the rest of the Rugby world.

I'd love for it not to be true.

That’s assuming Sky are happy to invest the same amount of funds for a 12 team league as they would for a 14.

The club should be looking to the future and seeing that a new ground could open up new market which means the £200k or so they would get from a reduction in numbers could be made up with new support, just 1000 extra adults paying £20 each home game for the entire season would fetch in £260K alone.

I'm glad we haven't reverted to a 12 team Superleague. In the short term it may have helped a couple clubs balance their accounts but it would have been detrimental to the game on the whole.

In the long term i'd like to see us move to 16 clubs if financially possible, split into two leagues to help ensure there isn't a fixture overload. In a similar structure to that of America. Eastern & Western, such as

[uEastern[/u
Wakefield
Castleford
Leeds
Huddersfield
Hull KR
Hull FC
Bradford
Catalan

[uWestern[/u
Wigan
St Helens
Warrington
Widnes
Salford
Crusaders
Harlequins
Leigh

Wakefield for instance would play everyone in the eastern conference twice and those in the western once alternating H & A each season. Then the top four from each conference would form the play-offs. That would reduce the fixtures to 22 per season, 23 if you include the Magic weekend and ensure there is a continued space for the international programme.

The main downfall would be that two home games would be lost compounded with a smaller slice of the sky money. I'm sure though that the clubs and the RFL could find some way of increasing the fixtures if clubs needed too e.g. Wakefield play 4 western sides twice and 4 once.

On the upside it places more importance on games against those in your conference and may bring higher crowds for derbies. It would also help reduce travel costs for teams and would allow for an East Reps v West Reps (although it hasn't been supported well previously).

If we voted for 12 teams I'm disgusted, however I don't know if that was the case.

I posted something similar to this a while ago. We should start a campaign. I think its the best way forward.

I can confirm that we were =#BF0040NOT one of the clubs to vote for 12 clubs - as wrongly reported in the YP.



Apparently the news was founded on a rumour - proving that there are idiots who can get paid for the same kind of rubbish most of us put on here for fun!

Just to add to the rumour - if you take our team out of the 3 and add in another side who play in white with a red-V, you could be closer to the mark!

Now how much can I charge for that??

Amused

that anyone could even think we voted for it.

I have to say it seemed very strange. Certainly glad we didn't

Come on only the Wakey faithfull could believe that

Thats good to hear Phil.

The article did say "it is understood" which is carte blanch to put any old rubbish which they did. Unfortunately a lot of people will now believe the story and the YP aught to print a retraction. At least the news has cheered me up.