After reading through the detail I quite like it. It's not perfect but I think it will make for a greater number of meaningful games and the potential for an ambitious club to see a route to SL from Championship 1 albeit with strong financial backing. However I would hate to see some of the criteria from licensing such as stadia, youth development etc dropped.

The bigger issues not addressed through structure change are about finance, governance, sponsorship and player development especially with the farce over the changes to the U20's last year. I'd like to see those issues addressed before this season starts.

Plus the spectators and clubs won't know until the last week of the 12 team season whether there will be three or four home games in the 8 game part.
That will give the clubs and the RFL less than a week to sort out fixtures (it could be as little as four days if a club plays its last game on Sunday and is selected for the Thursday match)

What about the teams who have shared facilities (Wigan , Hull , Huddersfield, Leeds, Salford etc) how do their games get scheduled in the one week timeframe?

International break

Whats the difference between finishing 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th?

It boils down to the same thing: you have to win two straight knock out games. If you lose one you are out.

The only incentive is to get a home tie, but is home advantage really that important in the playoffs anyway?

Over the past five years there have been 10 playoff semi finals, 6 home wins 4 away wins. That doesn't suggest home advantage is a real decisive advantage especially as you would expect the home team to be the 'better team' as the playoff system should have rewarded them by putting them at home.

2009: Leeds beat Catalans; Saints beat Wigan
2010: Saints beat Hudds; Wigan lost to Leeds
2011: Warrington lost to Leeds; Saints beat Wigan
2012: Wigan lost to Leeds; Saints lost to Warrington
2013: Warrington beat Hudds; Wigan beat Leeds


If as a Warrington fan you were given the choice of two alternative scenarios:

1. Play every game as if it counts and finish top but then take what comes in terms of fitness/form in the playoff semi finals

2. Strategically manage the squad so that you are ready to peak in the playoff semis, even if that means dropping a handful of games in the season that could mean instead of finishing 1st you finish 2nd or 3rd (or even 4th?)

Which would you take?

Like I said nothings perfect, it matters not how you approach it and fitness/injuries are just the luck of the draw. Look at us picking up as many serious injuries as you're likely to see in the final turning us from being in control to having nothing but slight resistance in the 2nd half.

They could introduce 2 legs with an away try ruling for the draw or sudden death.

Top of the tree is the only way people won't argue but we have steered ourselves away from that.

My own personal preference would have been a return to 12 team Super League with home and away fixtures, MM weekend and five team play-offs to the old format. Truth is that there would never be a majority of clubs willing to accept the reduced revenue from a drop in the number of fixtures that would have given.

From what we have been given then for me (just considering the top 8 structure as not really thought about in any depth what being in the middle 8 would mean):

[uNegative[/u

1) selling season ticket is going to be crazy. There is a real risk that the final 8 set of fixtures could see crowds like the current play-off systems get if not part of season ticket. However if they are included in the season ticket then at the start of season the fan won't know whether those fixtures are three home games or four, whether they are against Wigan, Hull, Leeds and Catalans or London, Wakefield, Sheffield and Batley. Convincing that fan to fork-out the increased price season ticket (more fixtures = more £'s) is not an easy sell.

2) Although in truth its not all that complicated, as can be seen from the OP's post, some people will be turned-off by the supposed gimmickness/complicatedness of the format as it doesn't follow a straight home and away, first past the post basis.

3) In-sufficient reward for finishing first in a 1 v 4 and 2 v 3 play-off structure.

4) Perception of the competition from outside looking in is lunacy and change for change's sake which makes it difficult to attract credibility from a new audience or the southern based media.

5) I worry about investment in youth with the return of a quasi promotion and relegation system. I don't know what would happen to say the academy set-ups of Wakefield and Castleford if they are the two clubs relegated into the middle tier or what sort of academy set-up would be operated by say Batley and Sheffield if they were the two clubs replacing them. This is not even considering what would happen if one of the clubs that are one of the 10 RFL funding-supported academies (from 2015 forward) were to be relegated.


[uPositives[/u

1) Top eight knock-out play-offs have gone. Some play-off games under the top 8 have been embarrassingly poor no-contests.

2) Two dead-weights have been dropped from the top flight and goodbye to 4 of the fore-gone conclusion games.

3) Every point now counts. Top four will not be a given for any team. Wigan, Warrington, Leeds, Hull, Catalans and St Helens will all be expecting to battle it out alongside Koucash's Salford in the top four play-offs. It will make it interesting to see how coaches rotate their squads now they are faced with additional fixtures and the loss of the four "gimme" games that shouted out "rotate" previously.

4) It should provide a higher level of competition game to game to watch with fewer Hull KR v London SKY matches to endure.

5) Clear guaranteed pathway for clubs to progress if they have the resources to invest (should be balanced against potential spending of money that isn't there in a desperation to maintain standing or following un-realistic dreams of betterment.


Couple of things I would like to see brought in with the new system are:

1) don't call the seven fixtures between the top-eight "play-offs". That is a tarnished term after the experience of top eight play-offs. I'd suggest calling it something like "The Super Eight Series" for marketing purposes with straight forward semi-finals and Grand Final to follow (see next item though).

2) I would have the team finishing first after the Super Eight Series games qualifying straight into the Grand Final with 2nd and 3rd playing off for the right to play them. Big reward for finishing first (and one week off could come in handy as well) and with only top three having a shot at the big one every game from week one of the competition would truly count.

3) Grand Final to be a double-header with two teams from the second tier either playing for a "plastic" trophy for being the best of the not very good teams or a play-off for the final spot of the four clubs who will be part of the top 12 the following season (although this is to an extent rewarding poor performance with a place at Old Trafford). Whilst not drawing in tens of thousands of extra ticket sales it should be at least six thousand or so, which would help in getting "full-house" signs up at Old Trafford.


Whether its the best solution or not I'm not sure however I really hope it is for the good of the game and we can stick with the structure for the foreseeable future.

Less scope as well for the manipulation to the fixture list to accommodate when those stadiums shared with football clubs re-seed the pitch to suit the needs of the primary tenants. We could well see more of what Wigan and Huddersfield have done in the past of playing home fixtures at the likes Widnes and Halifax.

I agree the commercial element of the season ticket package needs thought, but quickly I can see:
1. a 15 game ticket with the 15th game being home or away
2. a 14 game ticket with a game 15 voucher at say £10

The short play offs should stop complacency caused by knowing you don't get another chance

As Paul Youane says as part of his great analysis above, he would rather return to that 5 team playoff format that we had in 98 to 01. If you are to have a playoff, that was the best form of giving advantages, it was one of gradual elimination that placed the onus on teams finishing 4th or 5th to keep winning and winning and teams higher up with more direct routes to Old Trafford.

The 1v4, 2v3 is the weakest part of this new system. It has made even more of a lottery of the top four, which is where most of the criticism was: when people were talking about teams not taking every game seriously, they were meaning teams like us, Leeds or Wigan (or back in the day, Saints under Millward). They were not meaning the teams whose incentives have improved under the new system: the ones around the margins of 4th-6th, or the ones 9th-12th.

So in terms of addressing that issue of every game counting, they have made it count more for teams below the ones at the top but possibly made the league season [iless[/i important and the playoffs more of a lottery for those at the top.

However there is one hope for this part of the system. As PY mentions, the top 4 teams are now fairly even (us, Wigan, Hudds, Leeds) but what really determines whether it will make the 'fight for top four' competitive is if we can get to a situation where there are two more teams in that mix. In the Premier League for instance, although people complain about how nowadays there's too much emphasis on "top four" that actually brings a lot of intensity to the competition, because say Man City and Chelsea are guaranteed top four, you have Arsenal, Man Utd, Liverpool, Spurs and Everton who are basically in a 5 team for 2 spots fight. That makes for a good competition.

Our new system will work for intensity, if we could say that Saints and at least one of Hull, Catalans or Salford were all on around the same level as the top four teams.

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.

You could probably have a top 4 system like this as well.

Week 1:
1st v 2nd - winner to OT
3rd v 4th - loser out

Week 2
Loser of 1st v 2nd plays winner of 3rd v 4th - winner to OT



This format means 1st or 2nd only has to win one game to get to OT, and has the benefit of a second chance, or a week off

3rd or 4th have to win two games to get to OT and have no second chance and no week off

Out of interest I would love to know who was for and against and the reason they felt compelled to vote the way they did.
What do the guys in the for camp see that those in the against camp are not and what are the against camp seeing that the for camp are not?

Why did Catalan allegedly abstain?

The new top four play off is probably one of the stronger aspects of the system. There were a lot of complaints about the current play offs where you can end up playing the same team twice in a row, get a second life, teams in the play offs with no chance of getting to the final, teams winning it from 5th etc etc. Top four is relatively brutal - you need to be there at the end of the season, and with probably 5/6 teams that are fairly evenly matched, it will be very competitive to get into the top four. So it should mean all games are important as the top teams scrap for points. Plus it is a straight knock out.

However, whilst it would be unfair to describe these changes as re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, the RFL are certainly not acting on the core problem we have in the sport - lack of income. We need some hard nosed ideas as to how we bring in, say a 50 percent increase in cash. Even if these changes are successful, they are not going to be a game changer. It's more likely the whole system will be scrapped again in three years time.

The RFL could approach universities and businessmen and say "Bring money into the sport or an idea to make money and we'll give you x% of profit on the idea or the money you bring in".

It would be nice to see them bringing in new ideas - you could forgive them if they tried new approaches, even if they failed. But you just feel they are looking inwards and are not capable of the 'big idea'. We need some sharp businessmen in the RFL focussed on making money. We need the board of John Lewis, but unfortunately I think we have got Woolworths.

Woolworths? More like Ratners.

Not often I say this, however I agree with pretty much everything said by Paul above. I think it is exciting and of course it will take a bit of time to get our heads round, yet the complexity of test cricket has hardly done it any harm?

I've heard talk that it will put the 'new fan' off however as someone who came into the sport later in life I think that is rubbish. People when introduced to the sport are primarily concerned with figuring out the laws of the game, all the rest just comes with time.

Roll on 2015!

ohhh this is great! We struggle with our image now, imagine a superleague fixture on TV that has London away at Barrow's state of the art Shed....!! for those living in the past this will be real treat..........




I Dont like it, we struggle to get new spectators because they think the game has complicated rules never mind the league format. Anyway It'll last a couple of years before its changed back.

the league this year will be very close and I believe any one from five can win it and that will be nothing to do with fancy half wit formats...

That also leaves a path for anyone wanting to start up a new team in a new area and sell it to the locals of said town/city, not just a Barrow.

Presumably you don't lower yourself to watching the sport outside of SL, but I can't see Barrow making the top half of the championship any time soon so you have no need to worry. However if you want to look at something pretty I suggest a trip to the garden centre!

But what we have now, which we have never had before, is a system where a team can finish 4th and then win Super League by virtue of winning two games.

Thats what it basically boils down to for the top teams: two games. Whether you are 1st or 4th. Bearing in mind there could be 8-10 points difference in the league between 1st and 4th, it enhances the 'lottery' element at the end of the season.

Good for being brutal and piling on the excitement and keeping the unpredictability going, but it will not be popular with those that think there should be a reward for consistency.

Given that its been Warrington fans who were particularly vocal about the unfairness of the old system, I wonder how we would react if a team finishing 1st was knocked out of the playoffs straight away by virtue of losing ONE game to a team finishing 4th that was 8-10 points behind it.

I wonder how the last 3 or 4 weeks of the season will play out for the teams who are 1st and 2nd in the table: they might well have 'secured a 4th place finish' by then and their last few weeks would be a case of resting players to keep them fresh for the playoffs.

I wouldn't write Saints off as top 4 contenders & as for the second bite of the cherry ,,the Wire wouldn't have got to OT in 2012 without it.
I think to make the competition more equal throughout what talent is available will have to be spread thinly throughout all the clubs.

well you presumed wrong first off. So with that out of the way are you happy to disband the licencing system which was due to "force" Wakefield and Cas play in first class stadiums, now it appears they can stay in the dilapidated stadiums and attract no new fans whatsoever......great idea.

I'm sure you are aware being as big a fan as i am of the lower leagues Sheffield will play out of Owlerton stadium from next season..... its a hole I remember "fondly" from watching Wires play there in the mid/late 80's. how do you explain to a Wakefield Cas Widnes or London fan that the game is moving forward when the above clubs bar widnes are no longer required to move into fit for purpose stadiums and they will end up playing at places like Owlerton stadium...!!!

its a step back to the grim old days ...but one good thing is this (the scramble to avoid relegation) will explain to Koukash why we need a salary cap

Well there are bound to be problems in changing the format. For instance, just think what fans will say in a few years time when you ask them was Ratchford better than say Briers or Harris. Some will say of course it was Briers because he scored more tries. But others may say, ah, but Ratchford had to play in a more competitive system without the likes of London. He had to kick faster because the opposition were much quicker and more aggressive. Yes, if the worst comes to the worst, we can always say that all three were both fine players that entertained the faithful, scored some wonderful tries, but had different strengths and weaknesses. But we might never find out who was the best.

How has licensing improved stadia in Super League? We have Barton, but other than that and a new stand in East Hull funded by the EU Wakefield and Cas are no closer to moving and London will be playing this year in a stadium which does not meet the 2011 criteria.

In the Championship you have the LSV, Keepmoat and South Leeds Stadium which are class facilities, whilst there have been significant improvements in Dewsbury and Featherstone. Yes, Sheffield have moved back to Owlerton however it was that or leave the city and there are plans for a purpose built stadium in the future. You may argue these improvements were bought on by franchising however speak to any Championship Chairman and I promise you they will say otherwise.

Other than Owlerton (Bramhall Lane will quickly become available again) where in the top end of the Championship is unsuitable for Super League? Batley maybe, however it is easily the best day out in rugby league!