There are more games overall, but elite players are only going to be affected marginally, principally because the play off weeks off are gone. Hardly make or break if this is the players union's main complaint.

Previous structure:
27 regular season. Up to 4 play off games. Up to 5 CC games = 36.

New structure:
23 regular season games. 7 8/8/8 games. Up to 2 play off games. CC entry is according to reports one round later so 4 = 36.

Have you ever seen a player performing at a high level for 30 plus times per year? That would be more apt. They can't seem to string more than five or six games at the level to produce a real quality product.

I would rather see less games of a better quality product, than 30 plus games of averageness.

You can spin it all you like, but the fact doesn't go away that the regular season is 30 games, as opposed to 27.

Yes there may be less play off, but regular season is 23 + 7, whether top eight or bottom four. And during that due to the new structure, and the reason those for it are applauding it, the players are expected to perform at a higher level as only the top four gets the chance of a GF.

So we have a 10 team SL home and away - no play offs the season would run from March to July!! the game would never get any exposure the season would be too short. The teams would be all be bust and if you are right you would still have 13 games of very average product.

Maybe they should just make the CC the play off i.e. the top eight teams play three rounds the GF is the CC final - that way the season is a maximum of 26 games - hate the players to be over-worked!!

Increase the number of games for clubs and internationals but limit the amount of domestic games per season that an England player can play.

That has its issues.

Would clubs be financially reimbursed for having chunks of their SC not allowed to play all the time?

If based on who gets put into a season starting England ETS then going on last years Leeds had 8 players in that squad, close rivals like Saints and Hudds only had 2.

What happens if players lose form and don't make the end of season internationals? McGuire and JJB both were in yet neither made the WC squad, so we'd lose 2 players for nothing. Wire had 6 yet only 2 made the WC squad. Would clubs and fans accept losing some of their key players for no reason?

Would Sky have liked the likes of Tomkins, Hall, Roby, Sinfield, Chase etc. possibly unable to play due to limitations put in place to help England in a tournament they weren't even showing. What happens if through a bad injury crisis you are down to the bare bones but your England guys have played too much already?

The Super League already has taken a hit by losing some of its best players to the NRL or RU in the past as well as not getting as talented a player coming over from the NRL nowadays. To lessen the amount of times you'd see the better individuals in the competition for a quite small International scene doesn't make sense.

I know in Cricket and RU players can miss huge chunks of club games because of International duty. But those sports don't just have an International scene realistically made up of only 3 teams who can compete.

Whilst the WC was great, we have to remember our limitations there. We shouldn't try and weaken club rugby for the sake of a few Internationals matches between 3 teams. The current players might not be as fatigued if we cut their work load down but soon the quality of players coming through would be lessened.

If England did win a tournament against Australia, then what? You've attracted the attention to the sport you've hoped for a long time but then you go into a club season where you don't see the best players as much thus not promoting the game as well and unlike the other sports mentioned above we'd have to wait 12 months to see the England team play against the Kiwis and Kangaroos again. And it would be no good saying we'll increase Internationals or try doing something mid-season because it has to be a 2-way street and the NRL and rugby league Down Under is doing fine without that and doesn't need it.

That makes the competition unfair - successful clubs are penalised for having the best players. It will just encourage clubs to have more overseas players. In cricket Yorkshire invest in developing Joe Root/Johnnie Bairstow etc only to find when they are the finished article they can't select them. The international game in Cricket/Rugby Union is a huge money spinner and underpins the sport - that is not the case in RL.

No need to go from one extreme to the other, there is an inbetween.

As I said a few pages ago, for me the answer is the structure they are putting in place, without the extra silly seven games for the top 8 clubs. Just keep it has a play off from there.

I would also have one weekend in the season put aside for a full competition nines tournament, hopefully getting media on board to televise.

Just apply that restriction to all players, say all players can play 25 games plus play offs and that's it, however you want to do that is up to you

Doesn't that just spread any already small talent pool even further?

The easiest way to reduce the number of games played by players is to reduce the number of games. Ideally, we'd be filling the resulting free time with a solid, commercially viable international series, but I accept that we're a long way from that.

If we wnated to grow the international game, and also keep the elite players fresh why not have reduced fixtures, but with an international break weekends. All European international teams play each other, with the exception of England.

This way we get to see the european game get stronger, and players for england get a rest, or get a decent training camp. People wouldn't have had a game that week so would potentially go along, particularly if a game was included in everyones season ticket price, you wouldn't even see a drop in revenue. The world cup has shown that there is appetite for internationals and not just at the elite end.

Restricting the number of games doesn't address what I feel the real problem of the longer season: the short off-season. The off-season is the only time players will make worthwhile gains in strength and speed.

The season finishes in September and starts again in February for 90% of the players - that's 5 months - how much time do they need to gain strength and speed?

So effectively a 22 game regular season - 25 games maximum?

Yes. That is the right product for me.

With the CC however, that would still be up to 30 games.

The off-season for international players is little over two months. Some of that is effectively in-season due to what kind of training needs to be done close to games.

International players represent a tiny proportion of the players in SL. So is five months not sufficient to build up strength and speed or would you suggest they have more time building up strength and speed than they do actually using them. It isn't as if they are starting from a zero position they are already very fit athletes.

You would potentially have as long an off season as the season itself, that is OK for the likes of cricket where the weather dictates not sure RL could financially stand that.

I think the issue with how many games our international players play becomes relevant if their international opponents play significantly fewer.

I recall a recent example in soccerball in Euro 2012, when we played Italy. Having had 2 (relatively old) central midfielders play virtually the whole tournament, they came up against Italy, who had more options, their players had less game time (and in many cases had played less over the season). People p!ssed and moaned that the English players should be fit enough to play. Which of course they were. The fatigue level was not such that they literally ground to a halt. But all that matters in that situation is the level of fatigue relative to your opponent.

In that particular situation it was a minor sub-plot, because England were garbage and Italy were much better anyway, but the example, I think, stands.

If (and I have no idea what the NRL workload is) our players played a longer season than their antipodean counterparts, that could well have a detrimental effect when they play them in the autumn. And it isn't as if we need any more mountains to climb is it?

At the moment, our top players (the ones who might well play all the play-offs, most rounds of the Challenge Cup and then some internationals) get a tiny off-season and play far too much rugby.

On top of that, a combination of the professional era producing bigger, stronger athletes and the 5 yard separation of old being raised to 10 have, over time, allowed the collisions involved in top-flight RL to be like hundreds of minor car crashes per game. Which is not healthy. More games equals more crashes, and I think the sport as a whole, in every country, needs to think hard about player welfare with that in mind.

Aren't those the exact players we want to have the strength and speed they get shown up to be lacking? Aren't those the most important ones to develop?

For the others, there isn't five months of work available. They'll lose 2-3 weeks for an end of season break, which is just as necessary. Pre-season conditioning would start 8-12 weeks out from the first game. That leaves 5-10 weeks available for non-international players and no time at all for international players.

Yep, I worked out for the World Cup how many games on average each squad for England, NZ and Australia had played in 2013 before the tournament started. I wish I could find the post again! But the England squad was the highest by a decent margin.
IIRC a SL player could play currently play 36 club games. 27 rounds, 4 playoffs, 5 cup games & 1 WCC. (Potentially 38 in new system). Compared to 31 for NRL players. 24 rounds, 4 playoffs & 3 State of Origin.
Over one season it's not much difference, but in my opinion it's the cumulative effect of regularly playing 10-20% more games per year.

It's not the only reason, not having reserves, having weaker squads etc play an important role in this too but the number of games is an issue in my opinion.

Not at all - you want strength and speed of all the players to be improved.

So teams finish end September - they come back into training last week in October so they have two months of conditioning from an already high base - no skills just solid conditioning, they then have a month of combined conditioning and skills surely that is sufficient.

The international players will have specific programs - we are only talking about 25 players some of whom are from the NRL - but surely whilst they are in camp they are working on their conditioning as well as their skills.

Ive always been a fan of promotion and relagation but im not sure yet about theis convoluted plan.
I think our main emphasis should be on the re-negotiation of the Sky Funding in the next couple of years.
I belive this is our best opportunity yet to finally catapult our beloved sport into the limelight and make it the top sport we all believe it is.
Sky are under enormous pressure now after losinga big chunk of Premiership football, Champions League football and some Rugby Union to BT Sports who are now apparently sniffing around Rugby League too. I think doubling of the Sky funding should be the absolute minimum and some serious funding for the 2nd tier level (currently the Championship)
Watching the mess our RL Administrators have got us in and the debacle over the Stobart funding I have no confidence whatsoever in their ability to ensure the best funding is acquired when the new deal is up for renewal.
Although licensing is soon to finish, some procedures with harsh penalties need to be put in place for over spending on salary caps with certainly more adequate accounting and checking procedures which have been woeful lately.

Sky Sport has had its day. A huge money loser designed merely to sell their technology - a strategy BT has only recently begun to ape. We'll probably get another deal from them - maybe even improved - but it'll consign us to what will by then be very much a second-rate sports channel.