Big meeting next week about two twelves, three eights, which seems to be looking the favourite.

I follow what happens at the end of each phase of the season and who you play next. What's not so clear is what you're playing for.

How do you win $uperleague 2 ? Presumably, top the table at the end of the twelve club phase. Otherwise, the likely winners of $uperleague 2 will be $uperleague 1 clubs.

If that's so, what are the middle eight playing for ? Just promotion/not being relegated ? Do they just need to finish in the top four or is there some point to finishing first ? If there is, what are they playing for ?

What are the bottom eight playing for ? Just to avoid relegation to Nuclear Wasteland 1 ? The top two or three clubs probably have enough points to do that after the twelve phase so they just need to trundle on for another seven meaningless games. Under the old system they'd still be in with a chance of the Grand Final but, having missed the cut, they're doomed to some third rate competition. Again - are they playing for something ? If so what ? And more pertinently, how will the public view that achievement ?

Do you keep your points after the end of the first section? Its a crazy system!

Apart from the middle eight, yes.

After the split no points in any of the three leagues should be carried over otherwise it becomes a pointless exercise, I presume league three will have playoffs and a GF?
The biggest question for me is how is central funding going to be distributed? will it be the proposed pyramid payment where if you have one bad season then your central funding for the following season is dramatically reduced or have a good season and your quids in? if that's the case then some clubs are going to go belly up for the sake of having a bad season or bad run of results.

I would like to see some form of prom/rele but how that can be done I have no idea the gap is currently to big and no championship club has £500k - £1million a year to chuck down the plug hole just to survive in SL

It will be a glorified Championship 1 with very little coverage that will be forgot about until Grand Final day or whatever they decide will end that season

Griff,

for the middle tear - why not carry forward the results from the games you have played against the other teams joining you in the middle 8, this would mean that you carry 6 results forward. You then play 8 more games home and away to the 4 teams that join you from the other league. so say it was salford, london, wakey & cas joined by Fev, Eagles, Fax & Leigh in the middle group then for Eagles they would retain the results from the Fev, Fax & Leigh games payed earlier in the year and then play salford, london, wakey & cas home and away.

This would then mean at least all the teams have had equal games same teams home and away the league get resolved based on a "full" 14 game fixture (every other team home and away). Though it does mean one extra game to fit in the season, which is not an easy task, unless we cut down the end of season GF playoffs by a week compaired to the 1st and 3rd group of 8.

For groups 1 & 3 they could either keep zero pts, all pts or only the pts against the teams remaining in their group.

As Duckzilla has expressed and you have in the past the biggest issue is how is the funding to be dealt with.

That's a good idea !! It'd mean playing 15 teams twice over the season instead of some teams twice, some once and some three times.

On the other hand, it's too many games.



As regards funding - apparently it's got better since the first announcement but it's still not good enough. If you don't make the cut out of $L 2, I'm thinking that you're going to slip further and further back.

It just leads to clubs throwing money into the pot to chase success. I don't think you can legislate against the deep-pocketed backer but I don't think we should encourage it either.

my brain hurts

Not too keen on playing the superleague teams twice, now time for another system with a radical twist for the middle 8

How about keep the points as suggested by FevGrinder then play each team once as proposed but this is the radical bit no GF but just an extra set of fixtures 1st plays 8th 2nd plays 7th 3rd plays 6th 4th plays 5th for double points the first 2 matches might have no real bearing on the overall table but 3 v 6 4 v 5 could be interesting and could decide who gets promoted or not .

With regards to the bottom eight clubs why dont they play for the northern rail cup each team keeps the results against the other teams and play each other once bottom team is relegated and top 2 contest the Northern Rail Cup

Finally with regard to funding they will be SL1 with 12 teams and SL2 with 12 teams why dont they split it ratio 2/1 SL1 to SL2 Sky have the rights for Superleague Rugby for the next 3 seasons ending in 2016 however with BT Sports having Rugby Union they might want to get one over on sky sports so revenue TV rights could considerable increase for 2017

We will definitely play some games in 2015. HILLSBOROUGH LAD knows.