who cares, the weekly rounds don't really matter that much. It's all about the playoffs, so don't pay to much attention atm. It only really matters a few months from now.

Fed up fo threads like this. The NRL had blow out scores and no one goes on about them. Cronulla for the passed few seasons were woeful, as are Parramatt now. Lets look at the positives. We have 6 teams who can GENUINELY be champions this year. How many other leagues and sports can boast that. I also think those 6 teams could down in the NRL and do extremely well and at leats 4 finish in the playe-offs. The top level of SL is increasing which is great for international. The bottom will also get better, but even the super dooper NRL will always have a dire couple of teams eveyr year.

I certainly think it is progress made. Take Huddersfield for example, top of the league currently with a predominantly young, British side. Didn't think I'd see that 5 years ago. Also, Catalan are a dangerous side this year and they have something like 15 Frenchmen in their squad - some of their youngsters coming through look great talents.
We're never going to have a league with 14 equal teams. That doesn't happen in any sport, let alone one that can be really unforgiving to the lesser teams. A league that has less runaway score lines would be far more entertaining though.

Agreed
I dont think it could be any more obvious that a 10 team superleague, with a much imporved national league is the way forward

What would that achieve though? You would just have another 4 clubs become meaningless, poorly supported teams in the championship. If Super League was to be split up surely the best way would be to have 2 leagues of 8, with 2 teams from the championship being promoted to SL tier 2. Tier 1 would be highly competitive, whilst Tier 2 would be equally as entertaining as 8 fairly equal teams battle to gain promotion which would keep attendances high.

London will drop out in time....if they make it to 2014 as they are at the moment I'll be stunned. Who else would you say has to go?
Widnes will be stronger next year and deserve a fair crack at the whip.....but time is aginst them
Does the comp need 2 teams from Hull?
Wakey or Castleford?
Salford have a nice new shiny stadium
Bradford are on shaky ground...financially and with their shed

Leeds, St Helens, Wigan, Warrington, Huddersfield, Hull FC & Catalans would seem to be the best 7......I would say HKR, Bradford and one of Castleford/Wakey would be the 10.

Salford and Widnes, together with one of Castleford/Wakey would be competative in the 2nd tier, but I believe London would struggle initially and might even drop down further.

Of the new comp, I would immediately impose a 80% European BORN AND TRAINED quota, deliver 5 year franchises, with the worst performing team, graded on 4 OPEN AND CLEAR CRITERIA being up against the Best Performing from the lower division for the next 5 years.

The loss of London might reduce the amount of money on offer from TV, but then again, you flatearth lot would get your game back...

Rugby league is a sport of blowout scores. The nature of the game makes it this way. You can't stick your whole team in the penalty box or have 15 men rucking up the pitch.

As someone else mentioned the top Premier league teams tend to smash the lower ones 4 or 5-0 unless the wee teams really get up. So we may as well get used to it. Or do one of the only things that might slightly help and have the team who concedes get the ball from the kick off but I don't see why we should do that.

It's the difference between the top and the bottom

If the league was reduced to 10 teams it still wouldnt prevent blow out scores

But I stil, think 12 teams in SL makes more sense

It's all the fault of franchising!

I blame Garry Schofield, Rugby Union and the credit crisis

don't forget the Dalai Lama...that b'stard has a lot to answer for

The 2 x10 structure must be the way forward. We must improve the intl product and a more intense SL1 gives that. We must expand and the second tier allows ambitious teams a stepping stone - eg Toulouse. We must give the ambitious Championship teams a goal before it dies - look at yesterdays Championship gates, none broke 1000.

Two full time tens with £500k to SL2 and 1 up 1 down between them, and a 3 year franchise application to SL2. Expand to 12/10 then 12/12 when prudent to do so.

You keep banging on about this.
It doesn't matter how many times you state it though as it will never be anything but pie in the sky nonsense!!

I will keep going back to it as it is the only way forward, it is like a snowball rolling down a hill.

But it isn't
You would have a 10 team SL and then a championship by another name.
How hard a concept is that to grasp?

No, you would have two full time divisions containing 20 clubs, with the cream rising and the sheeite falling. If you think there are 6 FT teams in the championship then the moon is made of cream cheese afterall.

Police the salary cap properly and make sure every team can spend the full amount, and no more than the full amount. If you can't afford full cap you don;t belong in SL.

Nasty piece of work and I never liked his column in League Express

One of the guys on Backchat was spot on about one of the criteria being able to pull in a crowd of 10.000 minimum.
Theres no reason why an elite comp of 10 teams cant get an average home crowd of 10,000 for each team.
There would maybe have to be radical changes.
i.e. the idea of Salford becoming Manchester, team mergers etc. etc.... (only examples before I get berated)

I suppose this point of view is easier from a supporter of a team who would almost certainly be in the elite 10, but I honestly think for the sake of the game both comps need to be improved.
Also by making the national league stronger (or the idea of the 2nd SL league) there could be potentially more/closer/better games to be televised for both comps.

Having a few less games would be good to keep RL in the summer as much as pos too.
as a summer sport it starts in feb in snow, and the GF is almost always raining in october.

Out of interest. How does the format of the challenge cup work at the moment? i.e how many teams start off in the draw, and when do the super league teams then get put into the draw?

I did an article on this a while back! leeds.rlfans.com/readarticle.php?article_id=1746 What do you think?

I did an article on this a while back! leeds.rlfans.com/readarticle.php?article_id=1746 What do you think?

The worry in my view is not the number of "blow-out" scores in the regular season (you're going to get those) but the number of blow-outs in the play-offs, between the so-called "elite" clubs.

In last season's play-offs, we saw four of the nine games end in a winning margin in excess of 30 points, including two "nillings". That's the worry.

The top teams beating the dregs of the league doesn't bother me, but when you have the fourth best team in the league losing 47-0, 6th beating 7th by 50 points, 5th beating 8th by 32 points and 2nd beating 6th 44-0, then you have a problem IMO.

Let's be honest, last year's play-offs were pretty forgettable apart from one great semi-final at the Halliwell Jones.

I agree 100%...all the game needs is 10 teams in the elite averaging 50,000 fans each weekend and a sprinkling of pixie dust on those clubs outside the top leage to ensure that their fans don't drift away as they have done for 100 years when the team they follow drops out of the elite

Same as happens now then, but with less teams falling away.

At least things have improved. Before Super League we had a Two Tier competition. The Wigan were in the top tier, the rest were in the lower tier.

i've tried to forget about that one.