I think it is a brilliant idea. The fact that we will get to see an extra game against the bigger teams is undoubtedly going to appeal to the spectators and the sky viewers, but as is evident on this thread, there is no pleasing some people.

I really don't know what the fuss is about. Anybody who actually sits down and looks properly at the new system will understand it. It gives incentive (to clubs below) and makes games more meaningful. I'd be very surprised if we lose any real supporters from these changes.

The more i look at this new setup, the more i like it.

I don't know how you can afford a new deckchair every year, you are clearly earning too much.

Congrats. on the new addition by the way.

many thanks... little deckchair is 9 weeks old now and a little terror.

and i always get a new couple of deckchairs before the new season starts

I am also coming round to it a bit more, I think with a tweak to the actual format of the top 4 playoff rather than 1v4, 2v3 which I think is the weakest part of the whole thing, then it would be a decent system.

The mid tier in 2015 and 2016 might look something like this

Hull KR
Castleford
Widnes
Bradford
Wakefield
London
Featherstone
Sheffield

You can replace Featherstone and Sheffield with two other Championship clubs, its just an example.

Effectively it will be made up mostly of teams with SL pedigree, with a ticket for a couple of the Championship clubs to come to the party.

If this works well, it will be an opportunity, albeit a difficult one, for a current Championship to win promotion through hardening itself to playing teams which will probably have SL standard players in them. The good news is if a small team can compete with those guys then there is less fear that if they come up they will be totally outclassed.

However if there are big discrepancies in salary caps and the former Championship clubs that get in the mid tier are totally outclassed every year so it just becomes a boring rotation of the usual suspects yo-yoing every year, then it will become stale quite quickly and also the supporters of smaller clubs will start thinking this is a sham promotion system designed to make it sound like they have a chance but with the salary cap realities stacked against them.

The other issue is if you do just get the same teams recycling round the top flight, who has it actually benefited? I expect it will be harder for the likes of Cas, Bradford, Widnes etc to secure sponsorship from next year onwards because sponsors won't be sure they will be top flight teams.