I think two years to develop on and off field, bring quality youngsters through, then one season to all go for it.

At least with P/R the system is transparent, notwithstanding any agreed criteria regarding club structure etc.

British people like 'fairness', whatever that is, and the current system seems unfair as it is too far detached from on-field performance.
I would go for a compromise; if your average position was in the bottom 3 or 4 over the 3 year period then your top-flight status would be 'up for review' and then other factors, as now, would come into play. The link between playing standards and P+R would be clearly re-established.
I think they use a similar system in South American soccer somewhere, but on a rolling average over 6 years.

Is it really that transparent though???

It can still be influenced by factors outside of what happens on the pitch.

Didnt Wigan blatantly flaunt the salary cap to avoid relegation.

The RFL didnt think so, although they didnt finish bottom either.
I think their legal team was a bit too good for the RFL ?

Argentina i think.

Three year average position decides promotion and relegation

No relegation just keep adding teams once they are ready, once SL is at 16 throw a lot of Sky money at the championship for the next 3 years voilà p/r returns!

Nice idea, but how many games do we want to be playing. If we play home and away ,thats 30 games, plus magic weekend.

I know it is a completely different game but footballers often play over 50 games a season so I don't see why rugby players couldn't play at least 30.

Cas didnt finish bottom either.

The RFL docked them points the year after for their blatant breach.

The point being,relegation wasnt just decided by what happened on the pitch.

These are well paid full time professional athletes, they'll cope, and in all fairness i never really here them moan.
Perhaps after looking at some CC scores they could enter a round later.

Plus play offs & internationals ? ouch.

That is an extra 8 games maximum for some players giving a total of around 38 games which is the same as a Premier League season but if you look at some footballers play 60 games a year. I am sure the clubs would be happy more games because it would mean extra income in terms of gate receipts and also match day income. Also as a fan i would be more than happy for the season to be extended because it means I would get to watch more matches.

That I think should be the goal, to have successful P&R the gulf in class between the top and second division needs to reduce somewhat. Whilst setting up licensing for SL, the RFL should be diverting more money to help the championship clubs build their off field infrastructure so the change in status for the promoted and relegated team isn’t such a shock to the system.

Cricket has a two division system which seems to work well. I don’t follow it but I’m sure I heard the England captain plays for a team in the second tier. I don’t think you get the whole sale changes that RL brings to a squad when promoted/relegated.

You are correct, It does work in Cricket but the main reason for this is the fact that counties in the two divisions receive the same amount of money from sky. This is something which is very unlikely to ever happen in our game.

I think it something that should be looked at to help ease P&R back to the fold. Perhaps not split evenly between the two divisions, but something like £800K for the SL clubs and £400K for the CC. As it stood P&R wasn’t sustainable as the gap was just too big. HKR survived by racking up huge losses.

My opinion is theres too much focus on the 'elite' clubs in superleague and not enough attention brought to lower league teams, and to outsiders to the sport they may never hear of lower division rugby teams which to me detracts from the competition across the country. By pushing really weak expansion clubs to top flight status too quickly u r making the lower league competitions look worthless of watching when it comes down to off field criteria propelling ur club to promotion. I think more money and attention spent on the lower league teams who are slowly improving on the field need to be helped and not stood behind the limelight on newly formed distant clubs

Absolutely right man, at least P/R means that more people would take an interest in whats going on beneath SL, although there will always be some bias to the elite division in any sport.

With regards to amount of games player i don't think the Aussies play each other home and away. Whoever you don't play twice one year you could the next in rotation. With regards to challenge cup they should tender some games to sky to see how this is received.

I agree wrencat there needs to be and its obvious to have bias towards superleague, thats where the best talent is, i just look at it from fresh eyes as when i look at sky sports news or another football programme even though premier league fixtures and chmpions league games feature as most important news they have lower league confrontations in amidst the action and tbh i dont really follow football but it gets everywhere and i end up knowing (unintentionally) more results in lower league football than in the world of RL. I know this is down to money the large fan base etc, but for me The SuperLeague show again focus's too much on the same teams every week- how the hell does that expand ur sport??? The superleague site should have updates and clear links to lower league websites there needs to be more support networks i think

Again, I agree with you. Not so long ago the results were always given for the 2 divisions of rugby league. I wonder whether there is some influence from elsewhere as to why we are publicised as a one league sport.

The simple answer is that franchising is supposed to STRENGTHEN the game and the only way it can do that is to continually add clubs to the franchise rather than a mix & match exercise every few years.

Clearly, this would soon lead to an unsustainable season for one league, but once we get to 20 teams you can have two "conferences" of 10 clubs. The two sets of ten would need to be based on (say) the odd & even places of the previous year rather than a straight split of the top 10. This would ensure that one conference couldn't be perceived as being "better" than the other.

Expansion of these conferences could continue every three years or so as other clubs are able to gain franchises.

Play-offs would determine the conference winners with a Grand Final deciding the overall competition winner.

Simples

Something similar to the current NFL then.

Interesting concept folks, effectively doing away with relegation and keep adding new clubs as the become strong enough to join the party. Not how it all began, but it could certainly work.
The important thing here would by tring to have a strong group of clubs. However, over time I can see there becoming a SL1 & SL2, perhaps with P/R between the two leagues.

How many SL clubs will vote for a reduction in funding, and on the flipside, how much money, when SL was initially formed, that was given to the 'lower league' clubs was frittered away on overpaid players rather than stadia and infrastructure to grow them?

You also have to remember that we're very lucky to have any Championship/Northern Rail games live on telly. Only football has a game live outside the Prem every week. Even union only has sporadic coverage and mostly towards the end of the season. (Cricket's two divisions are there just to provide competitve games though the season with the sole aim of producing England players. Financially, without Sky, most of the counties would be in deep, deep trouble.)