We'll have to disagree, Matt.

Ironically, Liam, the reason they couldn't apply this year is that they won nowt. Which is precisely the one criterion that the fans want.

Well our attempts to be labelled an "expansion/development club" were rebuffed a while ago by the RFL, and Dewsbury is only 20mins away, so yes, I'd say we are.

Yes, Badvibes, it's official. We're a "heartlands" club because then the RFL don't have to give us any money.

Fair enough.

The idea behind franchising is to have a league of teams that are relatively stable (I know people will quote Crusaders, 'Quins and Wakey) playing in comfortable modern stadia without the fear of being relegated after one poor season. I'm yet to be convinced one way or another if this works just yet but we'll only find out if we give it time. The other alternative is one that's been tried and proven to fail. P & R might be a carrot for some teams but there are others who simply cannot afford or even cope with promotion. I've lost count of the number of teams that have spent big in the pre SL years chasing the dream and when they finally achieve it and ultimately suffer relegation the following season it's at the huge cost of almost sending the club into oblivion. The choices are you support a relatively stable club who might go up but when/if they do they will have at least three years grace to get themselves established at the top table. Or you allow the clubs who are bankrolled by sugar daddies to battle it out to win promotion and then fail miserably the next year. There are few examples of clubs winning promotion to the SL and then staying there.

Hence why we need to close the gap, not open it

And how do you propose to close the gap? Letting a semi pro club become a fully pro club overnight and have a season in the sun before the letters from the tax man come pouring in? Attendances might initially improve in the SL but when you are rock bottom and taking some hammerings they'll soon drop off again. The game should be looking at expanding the SL slowly as and when clubs satisfy the necessary criteria. Conferences may be needed as an overly large number of clubs would not be able to play everyone else twice a season. Then when enough clubs of the right calibre are there can we possibly look at making it a two divisional SL with P&R but between two leagues that consist of full time professionals. This of course all boils down to the almighty pound.

What's wrong with me today ?

I'm agreeing with deluded pom now.

If you have lost count , there must be a lot , so away you go tell us who these clubs are ?

And while you are at that , I'll give you , Widnes , Huddersfield , Salford , HKR , Wakefield

Why ? Lots of refs lose count before they get to six.

In football they have a parachute payment (2 years) that helps the relegated club out and helps them adapt without the total loss of revenue that relegation brings,that is for 3 clubs in football,Surely the rugby football league can spare that for one club as it would be 1 up and 1 down,Just a thought,They seem to have enough cash to bail out Harlequins,But its rules for some and rules for others,Which other sport changes the promtion issue,places etc every year,We won the league 6 or 7 years ago and had to go to a play-off,the year later the rule had changed,theres no consistency,Frankly the rugby league are a bit amateurish.

Imagine the uproar if you get a yo-yo team that gets, for example £250,000, every time they are relegated and regularly achieve promotion the following year. There's plenty who will tell you that the RFL have never pored money into Harlequins (or any previous incarnation). I agree, consistency is required. Something RL is not good at. I also agree that RL can come across as amateurish at times.

Didn't Huddersfield finish bottom three years running? Weren't Wakefield saved because the team who were entitled to go up didn't meet the required criteria? So I'll give you Salford, Hull KR and there's also Hull FC.

And Leigh.

Yes they did , but that wasn't the question , which clubs have gone up and then straight back down ? , you said ' countless ' , and let's not forget that every year somebody has to finish bottom , a fact often overlooked

In the SL era ( since that is the discussion point ) only Leigh and Cas have gone up and then been relegated , Cas have also then finished bottom and not been relegated

Relegation is the best thing to happen to Huddersfield , it gave them the chance to rebuild a completely demoralised fan base

Just how many SL seasons have had automatic P&R bearing in mind this is SL 16?

Is it none ?

Well making sure you beat any clubs that are looking to submit bids for the franchise, You keep them out of the GF and the NRC Final then you are in.

Always going to be at least two clubs eligible to bid under the current rules.

You only have to make the Championship GF to be eligible to apply so if, for the sake of argument, Fax win the NRC this season and us and Leigh make the GF, what have we got to play for for the next two seasons, other than a bit of money? We've ticked the box and so have two others, so we can't have the place to ourselves. Rubbish.

I'm a fan on franchises just not this system. Needs to be a better system in place were it's on a year-on-year basis. Not the 3-4 year gap we have now. However, sadly, we've just got to deal with the conditions the RFL has set and do what we need to.

We was 80 minutes away from being able to apply last year. Let's move on and get there this year, tick that box and improve our crowds to tick the 2,500 box too.

I know I've been defending the franchise system on here but I do agree with you Liam that the current model isn't the right way to go about it. Fans are being switched off and that elusive 2,500 average crowd may as well be 10,000 to some teams. I initially thought it was the right way to go but the more I think about it the more I think it's not as good as it could and should be. Three years might be a good length of time to find your feet in the top flight but it's a long time kicking your heels in the lower division.

The whole franchises thing for me is best summed up by the announcements earlier this season that Widnes had been awarded a 'franchise'

A club got promoted by a bloke stood on a podium, reading a piece of paper on sky sports news. If that's sport then i'm african. It was absolutely panned by the media and rightly so.

Show us some links HL because I don't remember the media "panning" it? Ignoring it yes.