Quote ="wrencat1873"The point is, if you start a season in a competition, then that is what you are competing for ie SL League Title.
There can (and should) be only 1 winner, although we already have 2, with the Leaders Shield and GF Winners.
If you start in league 1, then you are playing to win that competition.
It should be enough for clubs, to compete all season and know where they are in relation to other teams.
As for staying in SL, if you don't finish in a relegation spot ie bottom, or 2nd bottom (if there were 2 relegation spots, then you shouldn't be relegated.
If you take a look at the historical SL tables, you usually see that there are 1 or 2 teams that are poor, in relation to the others and most of the rest, broadly speaking, are pretty competitive.
Ok there may be a clear leader or, maybe 2 or 3 teams clear at the top but most of the league is competitive but, this clearly isn't good enough for the people running the game.
And bearing in mind that we have 2 teams dropping out at the end of the season, it is quite likely that the 4 teams in the "relegation" pool will be close to the 8 (in terms of points on the ladder) and yet 4 of these clubs have to play in a pool with 4 pretenders from the second tier.
You seem happy with this but, it is fundamentally wrong.'"
I'm happy to watch Rugby League, whatever the format. If the new structure is a failure it will no doubt be binned in a few years....Heck, if it's a raging success it will no doubt be binned in a few years too! What I do believe is the new format brings about the return of promotion and relegation with much less of the disastrous yo-yo effect.
This year the 2 clubs facing relegation are going to be hit hard & find it tough to get back into super league, but after that the remaining 12 teams will be unlikely to change often.
All clubs were in favour of a drop to 12 teams and promotion & relegation being returned. Bearing that in mind is it any surprise that the majority of clubs that voted for the new structure, which means they can finish bottom of SL year in year out and still never be relegated, happen to be those that will be in the mix at the bottom end of the table?
Most people believe, rightly or wrongly, that promotion & relegation are vital for the game in order for it to progress and stop stagnation. The new structure allows this light at the end of the tunnel yet should in theory be the most stable structure at the top end, Super League.
If championship teams can get promoted playing against SL teams in the middle 8, whilst playing at half the salary cap, then they fully deserve to be in super league & should provide good competition when their cap is doubled, this as opposed to possibly being promoted when they're better than the championship but still a long distance from even the bottom clubs of super league.
It's seriously weighted in favour of SL clubs staying where they are, after this season of course...But if the structure is stuck with & more money comes into the sport maybe in time the cap in the championship will be raised and we'll see 2 competitive leagues instead of half of one.
how strange
