The ground is being extended, granted it'll still only be 16k but that plan has been in for a while. If they survive the first year, can see the Premier League moolah paying for a major upgrade.

Plus, they're well run, and Holloway won't go out and blow his new-found riches, he'll invest sensibly.

At one point a few years ago, there were actually four full-time sides in the then-NL1 and things really seemed to be progressing, but licensing has destroyed all of that. Huddersfield, Salford and Cas have all been stronger for their time in the lower leagues, but spending three years away from SL would have seemed like an eternity and probably done more harm than good.

But, to me, sport is about emotions, and I just don't see how any fans can get excited about a mid-season announcement on a Thursday morning on Sky Sports News where a panel has decided your club is one of the "chosen ones". Compare that to that one piece of magic on the field, that one moment where you hug the bloke next to you and end up half a dozen rows further back than you started because of the sheer elation of [ithat[/i moment, and I'm sorry but there's only one situation where this sport will gain more followers.

I really dont care about soccerball

Exactly my point, when Hudds finished bottom several times and stayed up it meant the top side in the second division was not good enough off the pitch - if the top division had stayed at twelve then there would have been four or five teams full time teams in the second one, relegation brought more money to the lower division and could have expanded that number further

All the great moments in our sport happen on the field, the people who run the game shouldnt interfere with that, the less they do the better off the sport will be

Those clubs were only full time because they were spending beyond their means to try and get into SL. Doncaster and Widnes were two of the clubs, and they both went bust from it. Cas are definitely not stronger for their time in the lower league, it was also a massive setback for Salford who had made the play-offs the season before being relegated and are now back at the same stage they were 5 years ago. It helped Huddersfield, but only because the club was such a joke before and shouldn't have been in SL anyway, in fact they were only in that state to start with because of automatic promotion before they were ready.
Great. What's that got to do with relegation? You don't need P&R for that, or to get 'fans excited'. Our game is exciting already. Relegating full-time teams into part time leageus and vice versa is just absolute lunacy.

You've obviously never supported a side who has stayed up on the final day of a season. And I'm sure I'll get a load of stick from this, but I'm not sure that Super League is anywhere near as exciting as it should be. Extending the play-offs so that the lower sides have summat to play for, which as a by product devalues the whole thing as you can come in the bottom half of the table and still theoretically end up as champions!

I speak to tons of rugby league supporters (Super League fans, at that) through my job and I would actually suggest that the above is the more typical sentiment rather than Virtual Terrace protocol.

Everything just seems to be stacked to being decided off the field and, well, what's that got to do with sport?

blackpool are the next burnley,if the BOD are genuine the club will end up with a very good stadium,they will get a fantastic brand new training facility and they will be able to set in place a top youth system which will be the envy of many others...it all depends were all that money goes.

Who cares?

No, I haven't supported a side that's stayed up, but that doesn't matter. I'm not arguing about the merits of P&R as a concept, although it does seem a bit pathetic to be celebrating the mediocrity of not being the worst team in the league. Like I said, I would be more than happy to see P&R reinstated in the future, when it is viable. But the truth is that the previous system was not, it was an absurd system that was massively holding back both divisions in virtually every area.

would you do it.my guess is you would.
i dont think ive come across a bigger apologist for the RFL and its polices than you.it really is no surprise the game is going no were.

I don't agree with everything the RFL do. But at the moment it is run by forward thinkers. And if you think the game is going nowhere you are a clown and clearly living in your own world.

everything ive read by you suggest you are an apologist for the RFL.
who are these forward thinking people you talk about?.
my guess is its the chairmen of the same clubs who've been protecting there own interests for donkeys years and continue to do so.
as for being a clown thanks for the compliment its better than being the court jester.

A major barrier that exists in RL to reinstating yearly automatic P&R between the top two divisions is the massive disparity in spending power between the two divisions. A club in SL can spend up to £1.65 million on player salaries whilst a Championship club can spend no more than (IIRC) £400,000, around a quarter of a SL club. To hope to compete even with the clubs in the bottom 6 in SL in more than one off games a Championship (CC) club will have to spend much more than the £400k that they spent in the CC.

To use arbitrary but nonetheless plausible figures - If a club is relegated spending £1.2 million and replaced by a club spending £400k the relegated club has to shed two thirds of its salary bill (meaning likely half to two thirds of its squad including the better players) to fit under the cap in its new division whilst the promoted team has to spend 3 times what they were to assemble a squad good enough to compete and try to avoid an immediate relegation. Shedding the wage costs may not necessarily affect a club that has been in the SL for a few years too badly but a club that yoyos would be in real danger financially. Such a club could have to increase player wage spending threefold on promotion (ditching almost all of their CC squad as many won't be up to SL standard) then when relegated in their first season they would have to shed most of that newly assembled squad to fit in with the cap back in CC and would go through the same each season squad wise giving them no stability. They would also have greatly increased costs every other year in the hope of getting an increased income that is never sustained due to regular relegation.

Whilst providing great excitement for fans and players involved P&R was and would be again a disaster for clubs. We do not have the parachute payments that soccer has that allow a chairman to say "we will spend only what we can and if we go down then so be it but we will continue as a club". There is no monetary safety net so clubs will always strive to stay up at all costs.

If we ever get to a stage where the clubs in the second tier can afford to raise their cap to within 25% of the SL cap (with at least half of them spending that cap value) then we could look at the possibility of reintroducing automatic P&R between them. In such a scenario a club being relegated would be able to retain (if they were willing to stay) the majority of their squad whilst clubs in the CC would be able to recruit a squad that would be capable of competing in SL (at the bottom end at least) without too many additions should they gain promotion. The impact would not be as great on the clubs switching places and the promoted club would not be starting with such a massive disadvantage.

This situation is unlikely to happen though as the clubs in the CC and CC1 last year voted to reduce their respective caps as the smaller weaker clubs could not compete with the bigger, stronger ones and so wanted to lower the cap to increase their chances of competing. The only way that the the stronger, ambitious clubs in the Co-op leagues could cause the cap to rise gradually to get up towards SL cap level would be to remove the weaker clubs from that decision making by creating a licenced CC that included only the stronger, more ambitious clubs. This would require the removal of automatic yearly P&R from all levels of the pro leagues however and I would imagine that once it has gone altogether it would not return at all.

P+R is a disaster, impossible to reinstate - you really have been reading the gospel according to licenses havnt you? as has already been pointed out, several clubs thrived under it before, despite the problems and inequalities, it would have been easier to remove them than to remove P+R
Basically you want the door closed further, put more boxes to tick to make it harder to get into superleague - if you kill the lower league clubs then the whole sport will suffer, if you keep all the money in super league then the other clubs will struggle to survive

Since the introduction of licences and the scrapping of P&R between SL and the second tier no club in SL has gone into administration or liquidation.

In the final season of automatic P&R Widnes overstretched themselves in an attempt to gain promotion and went into administration. Where there still is automatic P&R (between CC and CC1) we had Rochdale at the end of 2008 (trying to avoid relegation), Doncaster 2009 (to gain promotion then trying to stay up), Gateshead 2009 (gaining promotion and to avoid relegation) and Keighley 2009 (to gain promotion) all entering administration (liquidation in Gateshead's case). Whilst other clubs like Oldham have lurched from crisis to crisis trying to chase the dream.

P&R does destroy clubs, given the stability of knowing that they will not fall through a trapdoor allows clubs to develop their infrastructure. A club that knows it will not be going down can invest in ground improvements or build their youth system etc. The threat of relegation means that they only spend on players and so the organisation does not get stronger. Though it removes the exciting conclusion and rewards from each season the licencing system is the better one for the clubs and sport as a whole. Many of those bemoaning it would not be if their clubs were in the SL just as many SL fans that back it would hate it if their club were outside the SL. Those who see the benefits for survival of clubs understand why licences and not P&R are needed. It is the moaning and personal choices of CC and CC1 fans not to attend the games that will kill the clubs in those leagues rather than licencing. The CC is a competitive and vibrant league, the clubs will not wither even if staying forever at that level if people stop whingeing about the "closed shop" and support them whatever level they are at.

Which clubs thrived under it? Widnes lasted a couple of seasons, went down and then went bust, Salford yo-yoed, Castleford yo-yoed and would probably still be yo-yoing if the automatic system was still in place. Huddersfield benefited, but only because automatic P&R had put them in such a dire state to begin with. Other clubs like Wakefield spent years signing garbage overseas players and playing in front of crowds of 4,000 because they couldn't develop due to the threat of relegation. How would you have 'removed the inequalities'?

Talking about 'killing lower clubs' is ridiculous. How many of them had a realistic chance of SL? One, Widnes, who are a lot better off now than under the previous system which led to them going bust. For the rest of the clubs, SL was nothing more than a pipe dream and if they ever achieved it chances are they would probably have ended up going bust.

Sounds daft but maybe the RFL should pickedtwo teams they want to promote then have a Final for them? Whoever wins it gains promotion?

For example they may want Leigh and Widnes to both have a licence but want to only give one out. Game at Wigan on Warrington to decide who goes up and wins promotion, big end of season event...

Same with relgation. RFL may want to to bin Wakefield and Castleford. Big game at the Galpharm or Headingley and the end of the season to see who goes down..?

From a purely selfish point of view, I wanted Blackpool to go up so that they could develop/extend their ground. They'll go straight back down again and, viola, a nice sparkly new stadium we can play semi finals at (and have a weekend on the lash)

What an honest post

Hollaway in the interview after the game in the dressing/media room was very level headed and genuine in what he was saying very down to earth bloke, in response to taking semi finals there i dont think we have cat in hells chance next year of staging the rail cup there as what they make off the final will be small change to what they will make in the PL

There simply isn't any legitimate comparison to be made between a fully pro soccer club being promoted to a fully pro premiership, with the enormous amounts of cash which that involves, and a semi-pro RL club being promoted to a fully pro SL, with the very limited amount of cash that involves. You may as well say that our world cup should have the same newspaper coverage as the soccer world cup, or our players should get to marry ex-girl band members like soccer players do. There simply is no comparison to be made with soccer.

And now you are only going to get relegated and suffer the consequences of it, if your club isnt run in a sustainable way to contribute to the league, If that was the case then the Championships would be the better place for you.

the problem with P + R was, and still would be, that there are very very very very very few clubs outside SL that could come into SL and put together a competitive side and not massively overstretch themselves. Hull KR needed to get themselves into nigh on a million pounds of debt a year, pack the side with overseas players just to finish 2nd bottom.

Hull City have done the same, they had two seasons in the sun and now their very existence is being questioned.

Some clubs arent, and never will be big enough to survive in SL and it would be detrimental to their long term stability to let them try. Some could do it fairly easily,

some however if given the time, space, and support to grow could find reach that level. Super League allows these teams to do so, the EPL doesnt, it gives them a couple of years in the sun then bankrupts them.

The RFL have nothing to apologise for. Richard Lewis should be knighted.

Not in a million years will franchising provide this either.

Catch 22. A nationwide lack of interest and shortage of players good enough to fill two FT leagues means it will take at least a generation and a very strong wind to happen. Do you honestly think club chairmen outside of SL will continue to invest in their clubs (to a level a few steps away from SL) on the off chance that one day 20 or 30 years down the line the game will develop into 2 full time leagues?

It's not going to happen is it?



Hull Kingston Rovers did OK. Huddersfield came back much stronger after a few years of propping SL up and ended up with a Challenge Cup Final appearance a couple of years later.

What made no sense was misalignment of the season ends and cash distribution; any new club coming up were a month behind the SL clubs in terms of recruitment. Too much TV money went in to the hands of second rate Aussies instead of infrastructure - youth, stadia, the game in general.

For over 10 years people have argued 'this is SL money, not for the likes of Batley and Leigh' but turn a blind eye to their clubs paying hasbeens and neverbeens thousands of pounds a week whilst their terraces crumble and roofs leak.

HKR might have spent/lost a fortune to survive in SL, but what about the debts of all other SL clubs? What's their excuse?



Bolton cannot complete with Chelsea any more than Salford can compete with Leeds.

Sheffield Wednesday, Leeds United, Swindon, Southampton, Oldham, Charlton, Leicester, Derby, Notts Forest, Watford, Palace, Ipswich, Coventry, and Barnsley entered financial abys soon after relegation form the Premier league.

Bolton chairman Phil Gartside, a respected member of the FA Board recomended a two teir Premier League and an end to relegation. There must be plenty flatcaps and luddites in the country because he was laughed out of the house and ridiculed in the media.

P&R still exists in this sport because its what makes the game interesting and the reason why 38000 people from little old Blackpool made a 500 mile round journey for 90 minutes of football.

What football have done since the likes of Charlton and Barnsley went down was to (rightly or wrongly) distribute its money more evenly. Even if Blackpool go down they have up to £48m over 4 years in parachute payments to soften the blow but you dont hear Man Utd fans crying 'thats our monay that is'.



No, P&R will always have its pro's and con's but plonking in a team from South Wales who were not ready, even with a 3 year gaurantee of SL rugby, was utterly absurd and after the huge fanfare damaged the game far more than Leigh and Halifax's poor years in SL ever could.

In the sjort term (ie next season), maybe not. But once they're back in the Championship we'll be back.