www.sportinglife.com/rugby-leagu ... ue-changes I don't.

www.sportinglife.com/rugby-leagu ... ue-changes I don't.

Without licensing, Betts would have lost his job years ago with how poor Widnes were in the Championship, so it's no surprise to me.

Neither do i,Betts is thinking about himself as usual.Knowing that Widnes could end up in bottom 4,get on with it and stop moaning

Shock. Team coach of team that has a good chance of finishing in the bottom 4 does not agree with the new system.

The problem with the old structure was that the RFL never kept to their promises with it so you had teams like Bradford, London, Crusaders, Cas, and Wakey that did not meet criteria on different things but then as an example you had my team Fax that met all the required criteria but could not get in because their figures were speculative. Swap any of Fax, Fev and now Leigh for Widnes and they would all have done just as well as Widnes imo. In Fax's case we proved it for many years in SL that we were able to compete at that level but because of one bad season of mis-management we paid the price and rightly so, its just that when we re-grouped and came back stronger we were never going to be given the chance to get in to the closed shop. We now have that and some of the weaker teams in SL do not like the idea that they could lose their place in the elite. Instead of spending money on improvement they wasted it on over the hill over paid players and will now face the consequences.

Silly Dennis ! It's called SPORT mate, you know...relegation is horrible & has financial implications, whilst Promotions is fantastic & exciting, but you don't really know what lies ahead.

Betts has had too many bangs on yed in his playing days..Clueless Dennis

To many bangs on YED

? Is this Lowton Dialect , Ian?

Hard hat on - but I heard Betts speak on this a couple of seasons ago and felt what he said did make sense. Throughout the Super League era it has largely been the case that Super League was full time and teams were given a shed load of cash and Championship clubs were part-time and provided with limited central funding. It is therefore impractical to have a system that works whereby a part-time club gets promoted and then has to revert to full time in a brief off-season and like in our own ill-fated SL encounter the team has to either recruit a team of has-beens or untried foreigners over for a jolly or ask the players that won promotion to turn full-time which could mean them having to give up decent jobs with only the security of having one season in the top flight and then having to go out and get another job if they get relegated and have to return to part-time.

Promotion and relegation wouldn't work in RL like it does in football because of the gulf between the leagues - the only way that it could work as a straight one in/one out format if there were 2 divisions of full time squads with only a reasonbly marginal difference in central funding. It does look like we're on the way to getting this scenario with 3 full-time teams but for credibility of the competition it requires a lot more Championship clubs to become full-time.

What he fails to mention that in the 6/7 year license period more top flight clubs went into administration than ever other time.

He also fails to mention just what was the clear criteria to get a golden ticket to this elite club. The way his club got in was due to the owner depositing £1m as an insurance bond not to mention wining and dining messars Wood, Lewis and co for several years.. (All ALLEDGEDLY of course)!!!

Todays set up allows for fresh blood to take over boardrooms and make clubs that were outside this elite club to grow and prosper..... oh wait a minute that might be his problem. Sleeping giants like Leigh are awakening.... watch out Denis the Leyther train is coming right at ya!!

That Gulf is being hugely reduced as we witnessed at Leeds and on Sunday. PT v FT would not get past the middle 8's barring a miracle, FT v FT is a much closer affair despite the funding inbalance. It is very evident that those with the most to lose are not looking forward to that middle 8 battle, and Dennis has plenty to lose.
Imagine Leigh v Widnes game 7 of the middle 8's winner comes 3rd - get the fences bought now LSV

Only reason Widnes got in.........

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Brad luv there is a massive gulf between funding and competition in the Premiership and the championship. That's what everyone goes on about at the end of every season when they talk about the teams being relegated. Personaly I couldn't give a zilchos for anything Mr Betts has to say because to come out with something as ridiculous as saying that licencing works look at us, when they have been propping up the bottom half except for one maybe two seasons is daft.

Although obviously I'd have preferred a different end result, that Halifax-Widnes game is up in the top 10 of games I've attended, especially as a neutral.

But there isn't such a huge gulf between the full-time players at the foot of the Premiership and the top of the Championship - apart from the odd blip, sending a team up from the Championship into SL over the last 15 years would just have been sending a lamb to the slaughter. I am very much in favour of promotion and relegation but if it had been there over the last 15 years it would just have been a farce. Like I said, we are only now starting to get a bit of parity in funding but the RL need to do much more to make regular p&r work.

Very true Brad, 15 years goes back to 2000, lets see Widnes went up and , stayed up. Salford went up and er, stayed up. Huddersfield went up and er, stayed up. Leigh went up and luvved up. HKR went up and er, stayed up, Cas went up and er, stayed up

So we had one flop from a Leigh team that was miles away from today and was on the way down even when winning promotion imo, the Widnes year would have been our time

Not wishing just pick up on that one point as I agree with your post on the whole, but is the necessarily the case?

1997 - Hull Sharks (those were the days), not relegated since
1998 - Wakefield promoted, not relegated since
1999 - no promotion (Hunslet won Grand Final)
2000 - no promotion (can't remember who won the Grand Final....!)
2001 - Widnes promoted, took four seasons to get relegated
2002 - Huddersfield promoted, not relegated since
2003 - Salford promoted, took four seasons to get relegated
2004 - less said the better
2005 - Castleford promoted, relegated the following season
2006 - Hull KR promoted, not relegated since
2007 - Castleford promoted, not been relegated since
2008 - licensing kicks in

So when you look at the days of pure P&R, only ourselves are the ones who could be said to have got battered every week. Castleford have more than recovered from their yo-yo, and even then they were only relegated on the last day in 2006.

The new system will at least give an indication of whether clubs will be able to mix it with the bottom of the table, and the fourth team will at least have a decent amount of notice that they've got a sniff of winning promotion rather than potentially sneaking through the play offs and being entirely unprepared in the event of a Grand Final win.

It does obviously require that rarity of the RFL choosing a policy and giving the time, commitment and finances it needs to flourish, but this is the best chance in a long while to build a number of clubs who are ready to step up in to SL should they get the chance.

Bloody hell Mo, you could have added a bit more detail....!

absolutely spot on Matt,

the cycnic in me says the RFL willl review th enew set up in a few years as i believe it has the ability to create a Yo Yo because actually 3 teams this year could go up which would of course mean 3 coming down.... Where as if it was one up one down only one team would be going up

Don't do detail

I agree with the thinking the RFL will review the situation in a few years but for opposite reasons. I think they will have no choice because SKY will want movement between the 2 divisions hence people calling it the 'spin dryer' league and when this does not happen SKY will pressure the RFL to tweek the format.

Licensing was a crazy innovation which caused a decrease in attendances for most clubs' now it has gone crowds for most clubs will rise.

How anyone can think no chance of promotion to the top league is a good idea for our game needs to realise our game is primarily situated around the M62.

The guy who introduced it probably thinks monopolies are a good idea. They aren't they lead to complacency and mediocrity as they do in commerce which is why they were made unlawfull in democractic countries.

Every club needs to have ambition. Licenscing is plain daft.

We all know the reason Betts is all for franchising, if we had a system based on performance & success & not on secret handshakes he'd have been sacked years ago. Makes me laugh when people talk about the amazing franchising success story that is Widnes Vikings. They won the Northern rail cup, having "ticked the box" spent 2 years winning nothing as a mid table Championship team, spent 2 years as the whipping boys of super league getting hammed most weeks but it all finally paid off last year when they finished in the bottom half of the table & got knocked out of the play offs in round 1, what an amazing success story, someone should turn it into the feel good film of the year.

Top Post, in fact post of the decade that mate

For this new structure to continue and succeed will require more central funding further down the Championship, otherwise all you will achieve is a moving of the ' Gap '

Agreed. We've pushed 2 clubs to the good side of the gap (Leigh & Fev). Everyone below them will struggle to compete. I don't see Leigh or Fev relinquishing that position unless more money is given to other championship clubs.