In most situations I would totally agree with you; its a reasonable direction for the debate but one I can't really be d with because its not strictly true is it?

When the first man put his hand in a fire and said 'ouch', I think it was proof enough for all of eternity that fire is indeed hot and he didn't feel the need to try it again nor ask his mate in the next door cave to have a go a couple of years later just incase he was wrong.

Alas, this is what I wrote...



You see, we're talking about specifics here, not dancing around and going off on tangents. Plonking a team from South Wales who were not ready, even with a 3 year guarantee of SL rugby, was in my opinion utterly absurd and was proven to be correct.

:3b3vkyiv

You really believe that????

well its relevent to the debate because in a very very short time crusaders have achieved a fair bit.

At the time the decisions were being made i would expect most people would have been happy had celtic being at the same point crusaders are. And this is with Crusaders being a better example of what you are arguing against. If we are treating them as separate clubs then Crusaders didnt build through the leagues as Celtic did, they didnt get to grand finals etc, and they are just a club plonked in a city and doing pretty well, and they cant be judged on last year just this, which is pretty good

If we are treating them the same the i think, that when they were admitted, most people would have been happy to see crusaders in this position in year 2.

Looking at year one it was terrible, year 2 much better. We may see in year 3 they grow again, and in year 4 better again with continuous improvement for a long time.

It may also be the case that in the end this doesnt work, but the next similar club does

to judge this whole system on one year (and even then only one part of it) and one example simply isnt a fair test, we are looking long term here.

no, it may have proved the wrong decision but not an absurd one. There was always a chance it would fail, nobody pretended any different, a mixture of some circumstances along with some poor decisions and poor execution led to the failure.

But has it proved the wrong decision? had we not given celtic the chance do you think we would have what we have in Wales now? Crusaders are looking positive, the scorpions are a real grass roots success. The opportunity for Super League has taken Wales from next to nothing to a decent amateur set up, a semi pro club and a fully pro club who are contributing to the competition. Would what we have achieved here have been achieved anywhere else

So you like the RFL havent a clue what to do with the Championships or how to help the clubs in it , apart from telling them to find a sugar daddy to finance them for the next 20 years

Exactly the same could be said for P&R. It had/has its pro's and con's but utterly absurd it wasn't/isn't.

No it couldn't, you tell me what is logical about relegating a full time team into a part time league?

What Blackpool has achieved has been on the back of good financial planning and patience.

It has not been done in the Super League or Bust (and if it doesn't work claim bankruptcy and start again) way that a number of Championship clubs have adopted.

If Championship clubs took a mature and realistic attitude towards their finances then there would be no need to a licensing system.

But they don't so that is why we have it.

Typo fixed!!

There are Sooooperdooooper league clubs who are/have been in financial straits as well and these include the "big boys"

It's logical to relegate teams who are clearly not good enough to play with the big boys.

Besides, your mate says that 'part time league' is doing just fine. I therefore really cannot see what the problem is. If its good enough for Widnes and Halifax then why not Wakefield or Salford?

The clubs there are being helped, the league itself and as a competition it is doing fine as it is, it is certainly healthier than it was 5-10 years ago.

Is this format its long term solution, probably not, but we arent at the point we need to make that decision. In 10-15 years we will need to look at what role the lower tiers play in the RL pyramid but the answers to that are dependant on where other parts of the league are.

There is nothing that needs to be done right now,

P&R was more absurd because it paid no attention to anything a club offered than its form.

Do you really think that Salford benefited from a year in the Lower Leagues only 2 years after they were in the playoffs?

Which clubs have benefitted from the risk of a some bad form or unfortunate injuries risking their fully pro status?

If relegation was so useful for clubs why do you think Leigh were happy to accept the opportunity to stay in the championship? wouldnt they have been better placed in championship 1?

How do you think the lower leagues benefited from being dominated by a club on a years holiday from SL?

Have a look back at some of the attendances several clubs were getting back then

As I said , basically you havent a clue what can be done to improve the clubs outside SL , neither have the RFL

Dont pretend that because you dont know the answer , that there is no answer required , at least 50 % of the Championship clubs are once again at deaths door , as for them getting help

Ahh, simple, transparent and clear conditions for determining promotion and relegation. How absurd!



I doubt any club in those circumstances has benefitted. It's the lower division clubs aiming for SL at the expense of the above team that benefit from an opportunity to progress into the top tier. Do you think Hull KR would have received the sustained backing of the new board which has resulted in extensive investment in the ground and at last a youth setup which is capable of drawing some of the better talent in the city if they had not been promoted?



That years holiday of Leighs is lasting a long while.

Excellent analogy , when was the last time a SL club was relegated after winning 45 % of its games in a season ?

In fact in SL that would now get you a chance at winning the GF , how absurd is that ?

NL1 GF 2006 will be one of the greatest days of my life and the emotions totally outweighed the day we were awarded a licence in 2008, that was more relief than anything.

I don't know how old you are but Fax's record in it's 8 years in SL was not that bad really as follows:

Final positions -
1996 - 6
1997 - 7
1998 - 3
1999 - 9
2000 - 8
2001 - 9
2002 - 9
2003 - 12

It's not as if we had one year in and couldn't hack it like Leigh ( although the odds were against them from the start due to the way the RFL is run )

People only seem to remember that last disastrous year but forget the other 7 where we were definitely competitive and certainly not fighting relegation every year. Average finishing position over the 8 years was 8th.

you mean like when Dewsbury considered just not playing for a year to save money? or Leighs plight on 02? Or the death of Bramley? Fax between 02 and 06? Keighley in 00-01? Yeah the leagues were very healthy just a few short years ago

as opposed to you who just doesnt have a clue! Now isnt the right time for major changes to the lower leagues. They need stability for the next few years

And they now get more money and more exposure than EVER before. Dont pretend there ever were halcyon days of good ol' lower league rugby, there wasnt.

Im not sure simplicity is a plus point. Tossing a coin would be simple but it doesnt make it a very good idea.

And once you ignore the paranoid rantings of the victim mentality transparency really isnt that big an issue




No i dont. I also think that had they not won that one play off game, they likely wouldnt be in SL now and wouldnt exist. Had they been relegated in their first season up they would likely have gone bust too.
Hull KR bet the house on going up, and it came off. For Widnes it didnt. Theres the two sides of the P+R coin, and why it is a good thing we got rid of it

Leighs holiday was in SL

Leigh finished in a relegation position. They knew the rules beforehand like everyone else. You cant use it as an excuse to say you shouldnt have been relegated. Especially as you yourself have argued so clearly that Leigh deserved to go down.

Besides it doesnt address the point in anyway, If relegation benefits clubs why did Leigh not want to be relegated? in fact if clubs are stronger post relegation werent Castleford the real winners when they lost to Wakefield?

i think the playoffs could be re-thought but they are going ok, there is no desperate need.

It's a good job no one is suggesting tossing a coin then. I think the fairest, most transparent and obvious way (given this is RL we are discussing) to decide which team move into or out of the SL or between other leagues is by moving the best teams up and the worst teams down.

I don't think the current system has solved anything.

Humans are "wanting" animals and for some a little bit isn't enough they just want more.

The old system lent itself to splurging the cash for a season in the hope of quick fix promotion, typically three teams a year tried: the one that got promoted didn't have adequate systems in place so stood the risk of immediate failure, the other two had a choice of overspending for another year or cutting costs to survive and face lower table mediocrity.

The new system has upped the ante - it's now a three year cycle, so those that "want" have got to overspend for longer. We will still see teams overspending and still see teams going bust.

If Toulouse happen to get promoted to SL then amidst the screams of anguish will be the dull thud of teams going to the wall.

I meant no slant on Fax, I'm old enough to remember way before SL and us playing at a packed Thrum Hall with Championship Trophes going there.



As you rightly said, their last seasons results have been used many times to beat clubs likes our up with, thats all.

As for the rest of the P&R/Franchise argument, its back to where it all was oh so frequently, so I'll leave it all for Smokey and Starbug to resolve. I'm sure they love each other really.

Relegation is obviously not good for the club being relegated. But if they failed to finish above ANY of the other teams then they can't complain about going down.

And the upside to this was a team who HAD performed in the championship/NL's and had finished in a strong league position and had got through the play off's and won the GF was given a shot at SL in place of the team who had failed to compete.

Some teams couldn't cope (Leigh) and went back down. Others competed for a few years (widnes) before going back down. Some made a success of it (HKR). Thats sport, some teams make it, others don't.

Just because people want P+R back it doesn't mean that they ENJOY being relegated or that its good for them. It works both ways. No team WANTS to get relegated but that doesn't make it ok to just scrap relegation and make it a closed shop.

Id rather go for the best way. Thats whats important for the game.

I'm sure the fans of whichever club is kicked out will agree with you , anyway you keep avoiding the simple stuff , as you plainly have to complicate everything to keep up your arguments