www.skysports.com/story/0,19528, ... 65,00.html positive news ,the comp is much better with 14 teams playing every team home and away is the right balance ,could be bad news for one club dropping out at least ,out of the clubs listed who do you think is most at risk

www.skysports.com/story/0,19528, ... 65,00.html positive news ,the comp is much better with 14 teams playing every team home and away is the right balance ,could be bad news for one club dropping out at least ,out of the clubs listed who do you think is most at risk

salford for me. they have no fans, a rubbish team and the new stadium is a pipedream. We can then sign ratchford

typo corrected

think wakey are the prime targets myself ,not that i would wish it on any supporters tbh bad way to be relegated

Thought Salford had something sorted out for their stadium. Sure Bomber mention something on Radio Manchester last week.

I think Wakey are in more trouble, they have struggled to pay tax bills never mind building a new stadium.

Crusaders will stay up I'd have thought - the rfl have put too much into them to demote them.
Quins will stay up, too, purely cause they're from London.

Leeds, Wigan, Ourselves, Warrington, and Hudds should all be safe. Bradford, too, with their new stadium.

KR would be on that list, too, as they've done well recently, and apart from the away end have a decent stadium and a pretty decent support base.

I can't see Saints going down, even if they don't build a new stadium, as they're too big a club, really, to be demoted.

I'd personally like Castleford to stay up, I like the Jungle, but they'll need a good stadium to stay up, so if that doesn't go through then they could be in trouble. They'd probably be the third team to be chosen to go down, if the Rfl decided to put three down, otherwise they'd stay up in my eyes. They've a good set of supporters too.

Cats have no issues. They're french, decent squad, good home crowds.

I could see Wakefield having some problems staying up, tbh. We all know that at least two teams will go down, and i think Wakefield will be one of them. Not the largest set of supporters, but a fairly good team and coach. However, they've probably got the worst stadium in SL, and if they don't get their new one sorted then I can see them definitely going down. Add onto all that their tax issues. Doesn't look great.

Salford are the other team that I see going down. Tipped by most/all to be bottom two this year, their stadium is pretty naff, too, and again don't have the largest or greatest set of supporters, and I don't see them building a good squad, as I see their best players leaving them (Myler, Turner, Ratchford won't be long), so they're not really building anything up.

So Wakey and Salford going down, rest staying up, Widnes + one other to come up.

We do?

Not the only ones

They have to, really. The fans of snubbed teams will kick off if there's only one change, plus, only changing one team doesn't really alter the league too much, and it'd be a bit boring.
Two's an educated guess of what I feel would be most likely.

good decision, if only because we don't want the ridiculous unbalanced end to the season where clubs played a few 'extra' games to make the number of games up to 28

i dont think its as easy as that.

why would widnes come up? why not halifax, leigh or a new franchise?

why wouldn't london or cas drop down?

the a and b licenses from last time are safe (a Hull, Wire and Leeds, b Wigan, Saints and Bradford)

and i'd say Hkr, Catalans and Huddersfield.

the rest is a lottery.

despite all the hype and the big attendance for the leeds game, I wouldn't put money on the crusaders making it all the way until september yet, a lot can happen before then. As far as that goes who knows what state Harlequins might be in also by then. It could just be someone comes up to replace a team that disappears, these teams do not have a big enough following to cope with maybe 6 or 7 defeats in a row, just speculation of course.

the right decision from the rfl to keep it at 14 teams thinks its to early to go to 16 but going back to 12 would be a step back for rugby league in england. but obviously there are teams who are either not performing on the pitch or off it and the rfl have to be strong and have the bottle to drop and promote teams who deserve there status. super league is a good comp but needs to become even bigger so changes need to be made. can someone comfirm to me that toulose are not eligble and they have to reach the grand final. these would be mine 14 teams at the moment

bradford
castleford
catalans
huddersfield
halifax
hull fc
hull kr
leeds
toulose
st helens
wakefield
widnes
warrington
wigan
let me remind you that this is at the moment things can change for example if leigh get to the grand final or whatever then you could put them in instead of wakey but this is at the moment.
quins - 3 1/2 thousand average crowd not good enough for a top tier league i dont care about were they come from and also they also struggle on the pitch coz not spending to full of the salary cap that should be in the criteria.
crusaders - going from last season and the stability of the club then at the moment they dont deserve a licence but things can change and if they can improve crowds dramatically and are better on the pitch can see them staying to be honest, they have the stadium aswell now. but 3 1/2 thousand crowds just arnt good enough.
salford - poor stadia, 4 1/2 thousand average crowds should be replaced by widnes.
toulose- good stadia, estimate average crowd of 7k, help france develop and would be competitive on the pitch.
widnes - good stadia, fianancally good now, estimate crowds of 7k for first season
halifax - good stadia, 7k average estimate
so thats quins, crusaders and salford out who average 12k at most together but with toulose, halifax and widnes they would get 21 at leaste together.

You are aware that Crusaders 2010 home average exceeds that of Harlequins, Wakefield, Huddersfield and our neighbours?

Bring back Promotion and relegation keeps games more competitive.

Of course, there's nothing more exciting than speculating on the next team to go into administration because they spent money they never had, in the hope of spending more than one year in Superleague

we cant have promotion and relegation at the moment becasue there are to many teams who are not ready and not upto standard for super league. for example barrow would off been promoted to super league this year but there facilites are clearly not upto super league standard

Barrow?

Are you puddled or what?

Workington had the opportunity to fly the Superleague flag for Cumbria. Please tell me, what happened there?

on the back of 1 novelty game against the champions, lets see what the average is in a couple of months time if they've only won say 1 or 2 games. Surely you haven't forgotten the folly that was Paris SG have you? I believe they started with a huge crowd for their first game, wonder what happened to them

first game? didnt they do that last year?

Two seperate issues really. They have to pay their own tax bills, the stadium will (or won't) be paid for mostly by partners - Wakefield Community something or other, I think.

iirc our North stand (just 1 stand, not a stadium) was costed at something like £6M. There is no way the club could raise that themselves. Even if we were making FC-esque type profits (of about £100k, was it last year?), it'd take 60 years to fill the piggy bank.



The massive gap in funding is the reason they aren't up to standard. Even before the end of P&R SL was almost a de facto closed shop, with the same teams bouncing up and down. Making P & R 'work' would mean redistributing money from SL to the Championship, to narrow the gap. Realistically, I can't see that happening. Edit - and as far as facilities are concerned, nobody is going to invest significantly in something that may well only be needed for one season.

Didn't the RFL guarantee when the franchises were first introduced that 1 NL team would be "promoted" into SL at the next round of franchising?

Yep, and they are standing by it, it seems. Widnes, Fax and Barrow are all eligible to apply - others may win that right. So one will go from the current C-list.