It's going to be interesting to see how they sell season tickets for 2015. The top 8 playing each other once is 7 games so some clubs get four home fixtures and others three.

It is also just as likely one or more teams will be assured of a top four slot as it is now before the end of the league season so you will still see coaches resting players and some of these fixtures will be meaningless.

Likewise if the 8th placed side has no chance of reaching the top 4 and this is easily a possible scenario, in fact I think it will be quite a likely one, what is the point to them of these 7 games?

The race to get into the top 8 may make the first 23 games more competitive early on but once things settle down I don't think it will continue and the top 8 will be seen a protracted play off about as attractive as the early rounds of the current play offs.



Have RFL officially said how this is going to work yet? I have read in the past all clubs will start on zero points and at the end of 7 games 4th v 5th will play off in a "million pound game". I have not seen anything official though.

Top and 3rd tiers points rollover, middle tier points reset. Top 3 of middle tier qualify for following year's SL along with winner of 4th v 5th playoff.

I actually think it will be a lot better. My only issue with it is keeping the Magic weekend as an extra game.

Also, apparently Leeds are selling season tickets that count for all home games pre and post split, hopefully us and all the other teams follow suit.

Aye not sure how ST system will work. No they haven't said it officially yet to be fair hope they don't go for the million pound game

how to turn a simple game into one where you need a degree in brain surgery to understand it. Just watched Brisbane v Warriors in a tight exciting game where every player gave their all in front of over 37,000 - bring on playin Fev (or who ever it may be from the lower leagues) 5 times a year in front of 2000. I suppose that is progress...

Next season will be a lot more exciting. The new restructure will bring a higher percentage of competitive games. I know that Rugby fans seem to have a tendency to be negative about everything but the RFL do deserve credit for this as it will no doubt improve the competition(s).

Will Accrington Stanley be in the mix, if so it means that I am starting to understand the

system.+++

Even if it looks like it [idoes[/i work, I'll lay odds that the RFL will bottle it in 5 or 6 years & dream up some other half-baked idea.
The franchise/licensing (whatever you call it) was starting to work. Would Cas be where they are now without it? would the French have as good a squad as they have with the support they routinely garner? All imponderables, but the experiment hadn't run its course before they decided to start fiddling & burned the paperwork. London & Bradford aren't victims of the system, they have been poorly run (on and off the field) for the last 10 years or so, and their demise was always when not if. What pillock was really responsible for thinking that setting up a league team next door to RFU headquarters was ever going to work?

The real problem is that we have an inept and incompetent game leadership who couldn't advertise ice-cream in Dubai & get it to sell.

I don't want to go into a Meltdown but I do agree that the RFL doesn't have the best people running it. As people on here have said, it is run by 'careerists' who have only ever worked in Red Hall and have very little experience of business outside Leeds. This is my criticism. As Lenagen said, Blake Solly is just a kid who's good with the media but he is no way fit to run a competition which hopes to expand in coming years. The competition would be better run by someone with proven experience and success in the business world and not by someone who gets promotions by taking Nigel Wood cups of Tea to his desk.

Hit the nail on the head.

Don't you see that as a problem though? I keep up with the RL media as I am sure you do but neither of us know the ins and outs of the 2015 competition.

It should be nailed down already. Looks totally amateurish it's not finalised already.

Have they ever considered a novel and unique system where the team with the most points over the whole season (ie the best and most consistent team) is given the title champions? Throw in all the marketing currently spent on Magic, Exiles etc into a revitalised Challenge Cup.

The new system has the following serious flaws:

You play 30 regular rounds just to gain a home tie in the playoffs.
Too many games.
As you don't take points gained into the relegation group clubs already booked into the top 4 / bottom 4 will freewheel.
A team scraping into 7th / 8th after 23 rounds will have no chance of making the 4 and will become cannon fodder.
The dual reg scheme will be discredited as you could finish up in the same comp as your partners.
Teams in the relegation group playing under different salary caps.

That was a previous experiment that was scrapped when the best team (Wigan) won it every year. Even the top 4 system is not so novel. It was the standard way of establishing champions until the 1970's when the First division was established with the team finishing top was declared champions.

And what's wrong with the best team winning it (and haven't one club dominated the current system over the last 8 years)?

You can draw up a similar list of flaws for the current system, or any other system we have had previously. Too many people are not willing to give the new system a chance and have written it off before it's started. No system is ever going to be perfect. At least the 2x12/3x8 system coming in next year means there will be more competitive games between the top sides and fewer games between top sides and whipping boys that are a forgone conclusion between a ball has been kicked. And it gets rid of this god awful top 8 playoff system that we currently have.

If we follow the pattern Leeds have done and all potential home games count on the season ticket, then next year we'll get 11 games against the current top 12, then instead of games against London and Bradford, we'll have either 3 or 4 games against top 8 opposition, surely that's better?

Nail on the head! Loads of people will just moan regardless

(Some) People don't like change.
I think the new structure could actually work (but cash has to find its way to the second tier, or it [iwill[/i be a joke).

I think the licensing system could have proved itself, given another cycle.

The problem is that there are too many vested interests in Red Hall & elsewhere around the game to be properly impartial, and they all have too much of a short term view. I don't see or hear any planning for 8 or 12 years ahead, for example, which is what there has to be if we are to truly prosper & not just chase our tails.

The top four play off was because, way back in time, there was just one big league and too many teams to allow every team to play every other team home and away. For instance a Lancashire team played every other team from it's county twice but not so Yorkshire teams. It was therefore considered that the team finishing top could not be called true champions as they may not have played the same fixtures as the teams below. Thus a top four play off was brought in. That is not now the situation and the play off is just a way of screwing the attending public for more cash. The side effect is that clubs don't go all out to finish top if they can see an advantage in resting players for the play off series. Do you honestly believe that Huddersfield would have finished top last season if there had been no play offs. It's a crazy system and one that other major sports find unbelievable. Better to have replaced it with a second cup competition. The magic weekend could have been the first round of this competition and not the daft extra league fixture as exists.

I think you misunderstand. In business, organisations change for a reason - what reason has been given for moving from the franchise system to the proposed new structure? When was that communicated in detail to us, the RFL's largest stakeholder group?

I love this game but I cannot see why they want to introduce a new model so soon after introducing the franchise which has allowed clubs to develop a wealth of new talent? Fans are leaving by the droves, Championship crowds are pathetic and over half of the current Superleague clubs suffer from the same problem i.e. they cannot attract new punters - why? I would like to see a clear rationale from the RFL which sets out their case for change and a strategic plan.

As I have said before, we are sleep walking into a disaster

My point was merely that the suggestion of the team finishing top or a top 4 play-off (irrespective of why it was introduced) is not novel as was stated by a previous post. These have both been used before.

However, my view is that whichever system is used the 'best team' (as opposed to 'the most consistent team' usually wins the competition and is crowned Champions and so I don't have an issue with that. Having some sort of play-off system maintains interest until the end of the season. I don't go along with the assertion that it is just to generate money. So the question for me then is which is the best play-off system? Of those tried so far I prefer the top 5 system (because it gave more reward to those finishing higher up the table) although the top 6 system had it's merits as well. I am keeping an open mind on the new system which I think could actually work quite well.

I was being sarcy!

Top 8 play offs has eroded the importance of regular season fixtures for the top teams, and the lack of threat of relegation hasn't exactly proved an incentive/safety net for the lower teams to improve. Meanwhile we have got the likes of Leigh and Fev in the championship who have shown at times that they can compete with SL teams yet have the door shut to them in favour of the likes of London, Salford (pre-Koukash) and Wakefield.

I want regular season games to matter, and the opposition to have a reasonable chance of beating us, or at least get within a couple of tries of us. Far too often the current system doesn't provide this.

I agree that the new system is potentially better than the current discredited one. However pointing out some of its some serious flaws must be classed as moaning regardless in your happy clapper eyes.

The majority of fans I speak with are unhappy with the league, and the main reasons (other than the NRL and RU cherry-picking our stars and the standard of refs) seem to be that they dislike the top 8 play off system, how meaningless regular season fixtures have become and the amount of batterings during the season because the league is too big and teams like London are guaranteed a spot. The RFL get blamed for all of these things, so they go ahead and make a change to rectify these problems, and most people still criticise them.

I do think overall the game isn't run very well, mainly because the system allows self-interested chairmen to vote for what happens rather than the RFL having the courage to take the reigns, thus changes aren't always for the good of us fans. However, that doesn't blinker me to the fact most fans are closed minded to change and will criticise anything the RFL does regardless of what it is.

Could you imagine if the premier league had a video ref at the sunday and Monday games and the Saturday afternoon games had no video ref, there would be riots every non televised games

Totally agree with you there DaveO, we should have known the full system months ago. I hope the clubs know at least. I can only assume they do though, otherwise surely the likes of Wakey and the two Hulls, who know they are likely to be part of the 'middle 8' equation, would be kicking up a bit of a stink by now.