I attended a Supporters Direct meeting as a member of the F/Reds Trust last night.



It's guest speaker was Brett Solly from the RFL, giving a presentation to clubs about the new proposed league format.



With what has been said & written I went along very sceptical re the proposals. After listening & seeing all the evidence put forward, & i must admit, that we was going in all guns blazing to oppose the changes, but a very sound plan was outlined.

It had all appeared to be a complicated way to go, but after the explanations, with a massive plus for promotion & relegation the change is warranted.



i have asked for the presentation to be forwarded to me & I will make it available for all to view to form your own opinions.



Cheers

Will be interesting to see!



I know they've been tinkering with the 'Option 3' proposal recently, but for me the changes are a ridiculous gimmick, much like the Club Call which ironically is to be ditched after this season I think. The logistics of implementing the split format just don't seem workable. There are too many problems that will be thrown up by bringing it in.

I'm open minded on the subject because I don't think the present format is working. Too many meaningless games towards the end of the season where clubs not capable of making the eight have nothing to play for. Also even if clubs make 7th or 8th spot it's highly predictable that they won't progress beyond the first playoff match.

I was very sceptical but became more open minded after this weeks Boots nAll.

On the main proposal,if I understand it correctly, the new 12 team league will now play each other twice before it goes into a play off situation.

The money that would have gone to clubs 13 and 14 will effectively be the 'new' money spread thinly to the other teams.

I assume there will be no special cases like London or Calalans have been in the past.

It seems better thought out than it was but the devil,as always,will be in the detail

The thing is: option 3 isn't the only way to solve those problems and, as someone else has said, I'd over-fussy and gimmicky.



12-team super league + 10-team licensed Championship; 1 up, 1 down. Job done.

This highlights a big problem with our game. I understand that these proposals are at early stages, but surely releasing the formats in a detailed way to the public would have been a great way to gauge reaction. It would stop people having to interpret options and come to conclusions and maybe even quench people's fear of what might come.



I'm very skeptical at the moment and look forward to seeing the detailed proposals. As it stands, I can think of dozens of reasons and problems associated with it but not any solutions.

Still not sure what to make of it all or what the objectives are and for what reasons they are doing all this.The whole process has been a total shambles with a total lack of leadership shown by the RFL,yet again.I personally think their time and effort would have been a lot better used finding a main sponsor and additional revenue streams which would be of a lot more benefit to all teams in these tough financial times.

If they are serious about making the game more attractive to sponsors,TV and the Fans then the salary cap situation needs to be addressed to allow clubs the chance to attract or hold onto the best players.Our game is at huge risk from the NRL and RU and the RFL answer is to start tinkering with the league structures.Whatever happened to Brian Barwick and all his Hype he was blurting out when he joined the RFL.

I hope for the sake of the game their changes work but at this moment in time i just dont see it.

I agree but the RFL are between a rock and a hard place in one respect.

If they consult they are accused of lack of leadership and if they don't consult then everybody moans.

The guy from the RFL on Sky,Rimmer was it-the one with the dodgy suit - seemed to be indicating that they'd put the plans out early enough to discuss with all stakeholders and,indeed,had already amended them to reflect the feedback,which does seem to be the case.

They need to achieve the balance between consultation and leadership, and they're giving the impression they've not done that yet.

They'll be a different solution for each person they speak to so,at some stage ,they'll have to bite the bullet and make a decision.

Problem is that the 14 have the power of veto over certain decisions.

The objective [iappears[/i to be to reintroduce some form of promotion and relegation because clubs outside of SL don't like the format as it is now. None of the solutions proposed so far address the fundamental problem of promoting a part time club into a full time league, and vice versa. The step is huge. As things stand, I strongly suspect [iany[/i form of promotion and relegation is going to bring back yo-yo clubs, and will see more clubs going to the wall as they try to avoid the drop, or overspend to get up into SL.



The underlying problem is that there is not enough money in the sport to make that gap smaller. So, instead of addressing the root cause - the lack of money - the RFL have decided to address the symptom.



For me, the system we have now is as good as we're going to get at the moment. It offers stability to the clubs in SL, and a clear target for those outside of it (notwithstanding the fact that the franchise process itself needs looking at).

Think the answer is a promoted club gets exemption from relegation the first season in the league. The rest of the league are still trying to avoid the relegation spot but the newly promoted team get that breathing space.



You with that idea still have promotion and relegation each season. You could at a push have top of the Championship V bottom of SL as a game before the Grand Final to see who plays in SL. Not sure on the last bit but it would certainly be a very important game before the main event.

Well, if that's the idea, it's even worse than I thought. After the griping about teams at the lower end of SL having nothing to play for towards the back end of the season, the RFL resolve the problem by giving the promoted team an [ientire season[/i with nothing to play for.



We also open ourselves to the situation where a team finishes second bottom, just missing out on a play off place by a few points, but a country mile ahead of the team that finishes bottom, and yet that's the team that gets relegated.



Christ on a bike.





Dear Richard Lewis,



Please come back. Please.



Thanks



Red John

THIS :-

[urlhttp://wobblyheadedbull.tumblr.com/[/url



and THIS

[url=http://www.leaguefreak.com/the-foundations-the-nrl-salary-cap-were-built-on-no-longer-exist-4975/This is Rugby League , and self Interest Rules[/url



to be succinct, It doesn't matter how creatively we play about with league structure ,

without sound financial backing and/ or much larger TV / Blue Chip sponsorship deals there is just not enough money to go round to make it a success no matter what league structure. It's a case of rearranging Deckchairs .



the Have's ( the top 6 ) remain in charge of the till and will be the focus of the TV , the rest will be fed scraps from the table and will be more prone to self destruction in a vain attempt to improve their lot. will cast aside any semblance of team building based on gradual development.



Apply this new League structure to Huddersfield , Catalan , p1ss poor a few years back now serious play off contenders



the RFL / SL cast adrift most clubs 18 year ago , they all but abandoned reserve grade rugby last season , now in a coup de grace, in an effort to be seen to be doing something positive they are shuffling the pack again . whilst the SL remains without a proper title sponsor in a year leading up to the most important International series in decades.. in a recession.

imho.