and how is it going to be different this time? do they have relegation dispensation? yeah truly idiotic was your response. the difference between bradford and leigh is night and day. biggest difference is fan base. how long till these clubs start moaning about salary cap? or how is it fair they have to compete against teams with a lot more funding, my guess two years tops.

Some desperate arguements in the first few hours as you get with any change. But more reasonable minds coming to the fore.

I'm behind it but I can see issues. The day the rfl give special dispensations any system looses credibility.

Indeed. It's almost a shame that the cap isn't being planned to bring this even closer. The recommendations so far basically amount to

SL: Highest paid home-grown (assuming over £100k) unlimited, £1.725m for the next 24 players.
Tier2: Highest paid home-grown (assuming over £40k) unlimited, £860k for the next 24(?) players.

With a few more dispensations or something to promote squad building that is useful (home-grown etc), lower tier sides run well could be very close indeed to the bottom of SL run less well. Sadly though, if the flexibility only applies to players that take a long time to develop, it still acts as a bit of a block on any financial backers just buying their way up to the top quickly. If they want to do it, they have to invest long term which can be off-putting.

Imo we should be encouraging people to splash their cash in the game quickly (without just directing such money into inflating wages of existing players as in football). The obvious way to do this is to soften the cap and bring in luxury taxes on player spending above the threshold, and then to reinvest anything made from these into the sport.

Completely agree,the same goes for over generous parachute payments which will just give you an uneven league again

I think people haven't considered that along with an elite group of SL clubs there is also a small elite group of championship clubs. Namely Leigh, Halifax and Featherstone.

I thinks its pretty certain that most championship sides, and I include Sheffield in that, will be unable to increase their spend on players. The three aforementioned clubs do probably possess the means to spend slightly more than the current £300k cap and remain financially viable.
It will therefore be interesting to see which clubs will go for SL, and which will instead take the middle route option of spending extra on players to guarantee a top 4 championship finish, and therefore gain access to the playoff series without having any real ambition of getting into SL itself.
By finding the right balance the likes of Leigh could give themselves a nice financial boost via the playoff series, without ever having to achieve the millstone of SL status. Their loyal band of fans could be kept brainwashed with the illusion that one day they may achieve the SL dream.

The home grown player is capped to 100k regardless of how many players there are at the club.



Also suggesting we should encourage short term fantasy spending over long term investment is silly. The last thing this sport needs is a couple of people to come in throw their cash around and leave again. Imagine the state Salford would be in koukash left now.

Sadly, clubs are cynical and for the bottom 4 clubs it will all be about preserving SL status. So what happens in this scenario?

A SL club can't get out of the bottom 4 places with 5 games to go
No SL points are carried into the middle 8 section
The whole purpose of the season is to finish in the top 4 of the middle 8

This being the case, as a SL coach, I can pretty much throw the academy/squad members in until the end of the season as the games mean nothing. My top players could lay on a beach for a fortnight ready for the middle 8 games.

When we've won 4 of 7 of the first middle 8 games (thus securing top 4 and SL status for next year) I can then throw the kids back in for the last 3. The play-offs mean nothing.

Yea Bradford have a bigger fan base, but only because of there consecutive years in SL, if they had been in Leigh's position ( or fax, Fev etc ) with no prospect of getting out if the championship where do you think their crowds would be at ??? Plus why the obsession with fan base if a club wants to play in SL then allow them too it's everyone's dream to see there side play in the elite league in that sport even if only for 1 season.

Good, you can explain it to me then.

Purely theoretically, say the bottom four clubs in SL are Cas, Bradford, Widnes & Catalan and the top four Championship clubs are Fev, Fax, Sheffield & Batley.

Presumably each team will play the others once, with the Championship sides playing four of their seven games at home.

Will the Championship sides play at home against two S.L sides & two against two Championship sides?

Who will the S.L sides play their home games against?

I’m sure there's someone at Red Hall frantically throwing an excel spreadsheet together as we speak, but with an odd number of matches it’s open to criticism.

Not idiotic at all. The biggest difference between Leigh and Bradford in terms of playing strength is quite simply well over a decade of Sky money. Bradford have squandered the money and won nothing for many a year - they are going backwards in all areas. Naturally they have a bigger fan base than Leigh (they have a much bigger catchment area for starters), but they have a bigger fan base than the likes of Wakefield, Cas, Salford, London, Hudds and probably one or two others - so what?

If they have more fans they will be able to generate more income off of them....it doesn't give them the right to a guaranteed fixed Sky handout every year - they will get it if they earn it on the pitch.

Leigh will at least have a more level playing field than has been the case for a long time. We'll see how we go...no doubt that most of the time the SL clubs will emerge from that middle 8 and back into the top 12, but every once in a while they won't, especially if they run into financial problems. There is now a trapdoor that is slightly ajar. I think that has to be a good thing.

I would imagine that championship sides will play 4 home games ( 2 SL teams & 2 Champ teams ) & 3 away games ( 1 SL team 2 Champ teams ) leaving SL clubs with 3 home games ( 2 SL teams & 1 Champ team ) and 4 away games ( 2 SL teams & 2 Champ teams ) but how the fixtures will run or pan out is nothing to do with understanding the structure of how the leagues will be formed b4 & after the splits.

your just proving my point. bradford have much more of a chance of providing something to super league than leigh, halifax or featherstone. As it stands the salary cap is far to low and its never going to be raised if the clubs replacing the bottom clubs are worse which they are.

What gives any championship club the right to receive sky money at all? they have provided nothing to sky or super league.

And what have Bradford provided the game over the last two years? Headlines?

fans and viewing figures no doubt about it. If they had decent management and a decent Loan to actually get them out of the mess they are in they would provide a hell of a lot more to super league as well. The difference is all these championship clubs that keep getting mentioned have great management and they should be applauded for that they are coping in very difficult circumstances but will they have ways to be come financially stable and spend up to the full cap? no because they don't have the fan base. We don't need more mediocre teams coming to super league for more blow out scores.

also who chooses which championship clubs get extra money to finance the raise salary cap? because surely they can't afford to fund all of the teams.

So bottom clubs in super league will have to wait for 22 games before they have a chance of realistically beating teams because they can't afford to spend all that money and run this risk of being relegated. Not to mention the drop in attendance because the first lot of games mean nothing and the play off away support won't be good enough.

So it seems nothing has changed. Featherstone can't be mentioned in the same sentence as Bradford.

Embrace the changes, be positive about it. More games have more meaning. Bigger crowds, more buzz, excitement.

Whatever the change was going to be, some clubs wouldn't be happy, some would.

Super League clubs shouldn't have any problems against Championship teams, seeing as they are so superior.

As long as people bang on about SL club's superiority I'll keep throwing basket cases like Bradford, Wakefield, Crusaders and Salford back into the mix. It's the failure of SL clubs that has brought about these changes. Get over yoursves.

how about you just reply to my answer to your question. crusaders have absolutely nothing to do with super league any more if anything its just another example of a team with no fan base going broke trying to keep up with super league clubs.

EDIT** also a weak administration of the game has allowed miss management of super league clubs.

Can anyone answer the follwing.

Has anything official been announced regarding the central Sky monies distribution for SL and Championship Clubs. What will the salary cap be in the Championship?

+1.

I don't why you bother on here, waste of time and energy. Maybe see you at the game tomorrow, come down and say hello. I'll be pitchside taking photos, but will be taking mascots on the pitch prior to k/o - so spottable.

Like London Broncos? Are they super? Take off your little private members tie and get a dose of reality. If it's so ing great why the changes????

No but they have an owner who is willing to back the club as much as possible and foot the bill along the way and the potential to be the largest club in super league (will never happen i know but its a nice carrot for the RFL). But your avoiding my previous post.

What part? The fan base? No worse than bottom half of SL. Only Castleford and Widnes got decent crowds in lower league. Or is it the "ifs" in the Bradford bit? If ifs and ands were pots and pans.

I wouldn't be sat here having this conversation with you if half the teams in SL lived up to their billing.

no i agree but rather than cutting their losses the RFL insists on giving those failed clubs a fair chance against lower opposition. Other than London broncos which teams from the championship have a larger average attendance?

I have no problem with championship clubs but what i do have a problem with is the reliance on RFL funding and slim chances of the improving the league in terms of playing quality and attendance. tell the truth will having championship clubs in super league provide another strong team or just a mediocre team?