That is quite a spectacular jump to a totally unfounded, paranoid-based conclusion there. Well done.

OK then , Why is it excellent news for York , if you are going to post something as obscure as you did , expect people to make something up

I don't have to explain myself to you, on a Monday night, in January.

It might just tip me over the edge.

So it was because you are less likely to be getting relegated , no problem , why didn't you just say so , it isn't a crime

Are there 3 clubs in CH1 strong enough to step up and compete in the championship? IMO not a chance. There will be some serious mis-matches of games which won't be good for the division. Could they not stagger teams in when it is apparent they will add to the division?

The Championship is very competitive and it is no surprise that the fans are happy with that. The clubs however are not all happy with it as many struggle to keep going particularly in Champ 1 when faced with gaps as long as 6 weeks without a home tie and also having only 9 or 10 guaranteed home ties in a year. The clubs need more games and having more teams would provide that.

On your second point. That may be the way it ends up happening as nothing has been finalised yet, the statement refers only to a proposal that will go to the clubs for consultation before being no doubt amended in one or more ways before being ratified. The plan is for Championship of 12-14 clubs and Champ 1 of 10-12 clubs. At the end of this season they could promote 1 club and relegate no-one to bring Championship up to 12 teams and admit one more club to Champ 1 to make a 10 team division. Thereafter adding clubs to Champ 1 whilst promoting suitable teams to the Championship to get to 14 and 12 teams in each. Also whilst a new club may be 200 miles from say Oldham it may be quite close to Skolars, South Walesn Scorpions or Gateshead making the outpost clubs less isolated and filling the gaps nationally.

Not to mention how it would effect Championship 1 , the balance at the moment is fairly good , wholesale change isn't what is needed , add 1 club every 2 years if there is clubs out there able and willing

Yes I know , there isn't enough clubs , but what is being suggested is wholesale changes in a very short time span , the Championship clubs are all struggling from top to bottom , in both divisions , dont forget we do have promotion and relegation , which at the end of the day is what sets the level for the actual team , and at championship level we are still a sport , hopefully they dont cock it up for us

so does anyone care that the rfl seem to be promoting mergers by offering double funding and a guaranteed place in the championship?

who decides who will take the space created by teams merging? will it be an expansion club or a heartland club and who will get priority? what if there are no teams strong enough to come up?

how can other championship teams be expected to compete with a salary cap based on 40% of income against merged teams with double the central funding?

what happens if a team wins promotion from C1 (and meet the minimum criteria)? will they be told they can't go up because 2 teams have merged and taken their place?

what if the merged team doesn't meet minimum criteria for the championship?

would anyone actually support a merged club when they've been supporting their team for x number of years?

too many questions, not enough answers.

Cougars should merge with the Rabbitohs (same colours) plus share home games with free transport (paid by the RFL) to the "home" games, away from Cougar Park.


I could be persuaded by that!!!

I might be if I could see anything in the [url=http://therfl.co.uk/news/article/20862RFL statement[/url to suggest that was the case. You've presumably seen something I haven't. Care to share it?

What? Challenge bizarre, paranoid, conspiracy theorist claptrap and ask for facts? But that would be the end to civilization as the VT knows it. The thin end of the wedge.

I've not seen it myself, but apparently it was reported in the RL papers this week

it's written quite clearly in the league express article who seem to have seen the actual proposals or wouldn't have been able to put as much detail into their own article.

second to last paragraph. "The proposals also appear to offer incentives designed to encourage neighbouring clubs to merge. Double funding would be available to any club formed by the amalgamation of two others until 2014, and a place in the Championship would be guaranteed."

this suggests to me that a) the RFL are essentially promoting mergers by dangling a pretty big financial carrot and b) the league express have seen the proposals hence the sentence "the proposals also appear to offer..."

ta – I'm beginning to think I should fork out money and sign up for a subscription to LE.

Don't be daft man

Why do they have to be neighbouring clubs, that has hardly been necessary before? (Carlise/Barrow; Gateshead/Hull, Sheffield/Huddersfield)

How many options are there for neighbouring clubs if you exclude Super League sides? Workington/Whitehaven; Batley/Dewsbury; Doncaster/Sheffield; Rochdale/Oldham are just about it off the top of my head and I can't see any of them happening soon unless one of the clubs was about to die anyway

well as long as everyone's happy their club executives are strong enough to turn down double funding for up to three years then that's okay then!

i'm sure they'll be the first to complain when it actually happens and realise they could have at the very least tried to do something about it when the proposals were at the consultation stage.

Don't get me wrong, I am not in favour of mergers at all. I do not see why 2 clubs who may be failing in every way should get the place of a team which may be ticking more boxes on it's own and with double the money to boot

Is this a back door way of getting rid of the leftover CC1 clubs who do not qualify for the new CC?
All this will do is to lower the standards in CC1 by promoting amatuers to make up the numbers.
As i see it the RFL are rationalising the league into SL and SL wanabees, and all the rest can go to hell!

The problem with a merger is that the stronger club tries to retain its identity, ie Hull/Gateshead, Huddersfield/Sheffield.

What would happen if say Hunslet and Bramley merged but played out of the South Leeds stadium?

It's not just a case that they try to, rather that one of the clubs has to retain its identity otherwise you end up with a mish mash team which neither set of supporters can relate to. The Gateshull and Shuddersfield mergers were only mergers in name, but more accurately takeovers.

Surely the biggest difference between amateurs and (semi) professionals is the funding to enable more (or full time) training which they currently don't have or can not commit too. There must be plenty of talent in some of those areas who would blossom under a professionally run trainnig regime in a competition made to test them?

the problem is that assuming expansion teams will be given preference for getting into C1, the player pools may not even be big enough to sustain a C1 calibre side. yes they will benefit from having a semi-professional side in the area but as we've seen with london and gateshead, developing a decent sized pool of players takes a hell of a long time and won't just appear before 2012.

Or it will look to make a number of stronger clubs to make the Championship as strong as possible, with clubs that may have more pulling power in terms of getting funding from external sources (i.e. local authorities).
Looking at clubs like perhaps Hunslet/Bramley to make a stronger second Leeds club, Batley/Dewsbury to make a Kirklees club, Wakey/Fev (Wakefield Rovers), etc. Or clubs in neighbouring L.A.s to make a regional club like Rochdale/Oldham (North Greater Manchester), Workington/Whitehaven (West Cumbria), etc.

I don't necessarily believe that this will be for the benefit of the game, but I don't believe it would be to the detriment either in some cases if the clubs are being doubley funded. Just depends on how much potential these clubs think they have on their own and how much they think they might have as part of a wider catchment with less competitors.