So the new format is 12 teams, 5 team play off, 1 up and 1 down (the same as what we had in 2001). What are people's thoughts? Personally I'm not keen because

- We have missed a golden opportunity to promote three expansion sides whilst they are strong. This would have removed loop fixtures, and I suspect replacing Widnes with Toronto, London and Tolouse would have sat well with broadcasters and sponsors.

- No qualifiers or MPG means there is no guarantee that the team coming up is stronger than the team going down

- The top 5 play off system means you will often see the Grand Final teams play in twice within two weeks. Add in loop fixtures and the cup, and we could end up playing the same team six times - overkill!

- Play off attendances are always poor, because of the short notice, it not counting on season tickets, people saving up for the Grand Final etc, so why have an extended play off format?

Having said that, I can appreciate that having certainty over the fixture list is better for the clubs and fans, and the top 5 play offs are good for rewarding finishing positions. We needed to do something, because the sport is slowly dying.

All I can say is I was expecting so much more. I can’t believe we’ve gone back to top 5, we changed because it was cack! We continue to reward mediocrity and dilute the intensity of key fixtures with loop systems. Back to the potential of playing a team 6 times a season. Very frustrating!

Top five is fine for me but the loop fixtures are really a step backwards. Yes it’s better that teams will know who they’re playing in the summer holidays in advance but I don’t think manufactured fixtures against a team you may have already played 3 or 4 times is the way to go.

It’s a better set up then the current one but could be better.

Very underwhelmed to be honest,super 8s had to go but if the brains trust could only come up with this well it doesn’t bode well and I suspect we will be here again in 3 years ago bemoaning the lack of crowds,if loop fixtures are the way forward why did the sport get rid of them once before? I suspect Lenegan is going to have to blame poor crowds in future years on them much as he has done the super 8s.

Excuse my ignorance but what are loop fixtures?

Eh? How did that guarantee anything? Like any playoff system or knockout game they reduce the matter to who is better in a handful of games or one single game not who has been better over a season. That is always going to open to luck with injuries or one poor refs decision. With the qualifiers it was theoretically possible for a championship team finishing fourth to replace a SL side who finished 9th. Apart from it being crazy a side finishing 9th was up for potential relegation in the first place on what planet given the standards in the championship is a side only good enough to finish fourth in the regular season going to be good enough to handle SL? In fact what sides outside of Toronto are up to standard? If the defence of this format is the likelihood of 4th replacing 9th was so slim it will never happen then the qualifiers were a pointless and contrived exercise.



This is true and there has been little imagination as to what to do instead of the S8's. Playing teams so regularly won't help attendances IMO. Perhaps you are right about not promoting several sides this time was missed opportunity as this could have enlarged SL and reduced repeat features.




If we must have a playoff top 5 is the best one IMO. As you say rewards higher league finishes so ought to make every game in the league count. That said I'd simply scrap the playoffs and GF completely. All having a GF has done is devalue the cup and league and this is reflected in the attendances. I mean we are guaranteed a semi-final position so what is the point of going to any remaining S8 games and will Wane (and other coaches) be resting players etc? I do not think the GF has delivered on its promise of improving standards in the game as it is all supposed to be more intense. Other games are less intense because of it IMO.

What they have also not addressed is relegation from SL to the championship is still not viable financially. Look at Leigh. All their woes stem from having a side paid to SL standards then having to break it up once they could not bounce back up and as I have said many times before its peoples livelihoods we are talking about here with players who will have mortgages facing an uncertain future if their team is relegated.

So I am glad the S8's have gone and if we must have playoffs the top five is the best option but other than that it is underwhelming. I would have preferred no playoffs any more, the cup restored to a higher status and two or three clubs promoted with a return to the franchise system where promoted clubs are protected as Widnes were for a few seasons to give them a chance to establish themselves.

Will the magic weekend games be chosen from teams that are not in your loop pool? Just imagine if you get a weak opponent in Magic and your loop opponents are weak. The fixture list could be very one sided if your opponents are having a rebuilding year.

I actually like the current format, especially the middle 8s. It just seems like we are blaming the format for underlying issues and the fact the game is slowly falling behind its competitors. We just seem to be going round in circles.

Think we missed the boat here SL should have been extended to 14 teams with 2 teams relegated. I can see where the Championship clubs are coming from regarding funding etc but we need a strong SL once we get this the whole of RL would benefit .If I can recollect the championship had increased funding for at least 4 clubs to help them to be in a par with SL.It was not the championship that was losing out on gate receipts especially Thursday matches it was the SL clubs footing the loss. Time for all the SL clubs to have a reserve team I think Elstone has highlighted this. We should adopt the NRL formula as having a feeder club .

It'a a tricky one. I'm fine with top 5, and will make season-long SL matches count for more, which arguably is the most important thing. Should SL have been expanded to open the door more easily to Toronto or Toulouse or whoever? Maybe, but are they currently good enough? Perhaps this is as much change as we can hope for right now. I think it's step in the right direction at least. One thing I would have liked to have happened, and I've said this before, is for the winners of the regular season being better rewarded, but with a better trophy, and more money too, as per the Minor Premiership in the NRL.

It's the normal 22 games in the league and then 6 additional and 1 magic weekend for a total of 29 games.

I don't like the loop, would prefer to expand the league to 14 and have 26 regular games with the magic weekend being something different like a 9s tournament or something that isn't a double away game for teams.

With any loop fixtures, I'd bet that Saints and Leeds will play the lower-end teams three times, and maybe four. They seemed to last time it was used



I dont get why they didnt go for 14 teams, 27 rounds, inc Magic, 14th gets relegated, 13th joins Championship 2, 3, 4 & 5 in a relegation play-off, at the same time as the SL top 5 have their play-off, with a survival/grand Final double header as a climax to the season.

If we have to have loop fixtures it has to be determined by the previous years league position as to who plays who. As others have said the magic opponent has to be someone who is not in the loop fixture list.

If it was just down to me I’d have had a 14 team league and a simple top 6 play off with 1 & 2 having the first week off then playing the winners of 3 v 6 and 4 v 5 for a GF place. I didn’t really like the top 5 last time as there are too many second chances and potentially too many weeks off.

IMO the reason for dwindling crowds is a lot to do with how the RFL run the sport.

Constantly changing structures; if we can’t keep up, how can we expect a neutral to? It looks totally amateurish and laughable.

Short notice fixture changes; it’s happened with Salford and us recently and it’s ridiculous. Fixture changes with less than a weeks notice in Salford’s case.

I’ve lost complete faith in the RFL to run our sport and I genuinely believe they will ruin rugby league in this country if they’re allowed to continue with the utterly inept, ridiculous and embarrassing way they run the sport. I hope Robert Elstone can turn it around from a Super League perspective and then make the RFL see. Otherwise our sport is done as a professional sport in this country.

I'm thinking that Ellstone (and co.) will be waiting for the current SKY deal near it's end and then go back to them with a revised plan of a 14 team league which includes Toronto (who I think will go up this year anyway) plus Toulouse and London, in search of an improved deal.

We're never ever going to get many more £millions playing in and around the M62 area.

From memory, it will be odds v evens based on league fixtures the previous year

1 v 2, 6 and 10 at home and 4, 8 and 12 away.

2 v 3, 7 and 11 at home, 1, 5 and 9 away.


Also it appears that the Magic fixtures will NOT be against any of the teams in the loop fixtures to avoid over saturation as in Wigan v Wire this year.

I was concerned when I saw that, on the proposals they put to the Champ clubs, the highest potential tv deal scenario they listed was the same as what it is now. They included scenarios where the deal is reduced, but not where it is increased. I really hope you're right.

Even the recent premier league deal is down on the last one so it doesn’t look good.

I saw a stat earlier that said overall viewing figures across all sports on Sky are down 12% over a two year period. In that same time Rugby Leagues viewing figures are down 27%! If they reduce the TV deal in line with that drop then the game is in trouble.

No wonder they’re considering things like a shot clock and golden point extra time.

Both Sky and BT realised that they had been played off against each other and as a result had vastly overpaid during the previous football contract negotiation. The football deals fell as they didn't force each other to pay more and more this time. I'm not saying that Sky definitely won't offer less come the next deal for RL but the falling cost of football rights link is being oversold IMO, any fall in the RL rights deal if there is one will not be to the same extent as with soccer. If people (the media included) repeat something often enough others will begin to see it as fact and you get a self fulfilling prophecy.

IMO the shot clock is more to do with all the cramp outbreaks that occur whenever a goal line dropout is to be taken. Did anyone except the Sky team suggest introducing Golden Point? Was that just not an example of Phil Clarke (or one of the others) spouting nonsense to fill an article? Golden Point ruins a game anyway as it is always an awful spectacle.

The latest “brainchild” (copied from the NRL) is for a shot clock to be introduced to reduce game times and golden point added for draw games.

Only the inept RFL could come up with a plan so ridiculous and laughable. Reducing game times whilst potentially adding time on?

The sooner this mob are out of rugby league the better. They’re destroying our game and have been for far too long.

All they are doing is considering what is already in place in the NRL. Hardly a ‘brainchild’.

The shot clock is a good thing imo, stops a lot of time wasting and speeds the game up increasing the chances of a better spectacle. The way they do it in the NRL it does require a big screen at every game.

I’m not a fan of golden point except for knockout games. Nowt wrong with a good old fashioned draw.

it seems a lot of Aussies don't like Golden POint and wish they had *proper* draws like we do. I agree. The shot clock is not a bad idea and works well there, though.

But if you want to attract a bigger audience, the main thing is clean up the ruck, in my view.

Totally agree re the " ruck" If you want to watch wrestling and mauling around on the floor etc then watch RU, the way the wrestle and slowing down of the play the ball has crept into the game in the last 10 years has greatly changed what we get as a spectacle. It needs sorting by officials and coaches or the speccies will continue to leave.

Agreed but the ridiculous obstruction rules need to be sorted out - but the biggest killer for me is the time taken by video ref decisions - so many replays of an incident takes forever and kills the momentum of the game- for any neutrals/casual watchers it must be really off putting. I would have a time/number of replays limit and then stick with the on-field decision (and have penalties if teams do not form scrums quicker - how long does it take to form up now?).

Hopefully we can agree to just give them rights to SL if that's the case. The Championship looks like an exciting competition next year even if it isn't glamorous. Maybe, for example, we can have a £35m SL deal with sky and a £5m Champ/League 1 deal with Premier/BT rather than a £40m deal for everything as it is currently. Then at least we have two broadcasters to compete with each other for the following contract, and Championship teams get an opportunity to market themselves. I can't see sky being that bothered as long as it doesn't clash, they would still be able to show the same games they would have anyway.

I can't believe people above think ruck speed and obstruction interpretations register as significant issues as we continue our gradual descent to eentually becoming a semi-pro sport, re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic!