244 replies to this topic

[Trojan]

my point was that he had some need to talk.

But he was just expressing a commonly held view that doing away with P&R is bizarre. It means that the best team in the lower division don't get the chance to test themselves against better. This situation is almost unknown to sports fans anywhere in the world except the US - who don't play international sports anyway and Australia, which has a small population, concentrated in a few large centres.
Whether it's the right thing or the wrong thing (I happen to think it's already shaping up to be disastrous) it's certainly unusual.

[thirteenthman]

sydney clubs dieing off was talked about pre SL, not mergers.

mergers were forced on the game due to the peace talks

souths were told to merge, manly did merge

both clubs are now stand alone and very succesful showing they didnt need to merge, just be run properly

merging clubs doesnt grow the game.

Rugby League 1995, edited by David Middleton, has an interview with John Quayle, head of the ARL, which took place prior to the 95 season. He is quoted as saying that "clubs will be encouraged to consider merging but will not be forced to." It was being talked about.

I'd agree that mergers don't grow the game, but, keeping long established clubs in situ just because of their history doesn't grow the game either. and that applies equally to the UK as well as Australia.

Final point on Souths. There 'success' shows that they didn't need to merge, but to be taken over by a very wealthy man. Something plenty of RL clubs all round the world could do with.

[nec]

But he was just expressing a commonly held view that doing away with P&R is bizarre. It means that the best team in the lower division don't get the chance to test themselves against better. This situation is almost unknown to sports fans anywhere in the world except the US - who don't play international sports anyway and Australia, which has a small population, concentrated in a few large centres.
Whether it's the right thing or the wrong thing (I happen to think it's already shaping up to be disastrous) it's certainly unusual.

More unusual than re-election that existed between tier 4 and tier 5 for 50 years in football?

More unusual than the 7th team that finishes 23 points behind the 4th place team going up in the play-offs?

More unusual than the richest sport in the world ignoring technology to a laughable extent?

More unusual than stopping the game after 120 minutes and deciding the result with a completely different set of rules (Penalty Shootout - Americans find this particularly odd)

Everything seems unusual/weird/bizarre for a while, after which it becomes commonplace or is quietly dropped by the sport that implemented it. Union have talked about doing away with P&R to the Prem many times. There was a discussion on 5Live that stopping fear of relegation from Premiership would help England national side by stopping panic buys of foreigners and encouraging home-grown academy players (sound familiar?)

[l'angelo mysterioso]

But he was just expressing a commonly held view that doing away with P&R is bizarre. It means that the best team in the lower division don't get the chance to test themselves against better. This situation is almost unknown to sports fans anywhere in the world except the US - who don't play international sports anyway and Australia, which has a small population, concentrated in a few large centres.
Whether it's the right thing or the wrong thing (I happen to think it's already shaping up to be disastrous) it's certainly unusual.

acommonly held view isn't necessarily the right one, especially if it's based on ignorance, or only hearing one side of the story.
It seems odd that something like this can put a person off a sport entirely, but far worse things on the spoirt of his choice have no apparent effect on his enthusiasm..
Australia has a population of over twenty million.

Rugby League hasits own issues to deal with so they are bound not to correpond with the problems of other sports-see the quite extensive list supplied concerning soccer on previous posts.

[bowes]

But he was just expressing a commonly held view that doing away with P&R is bizarre. It means that the best team in the lower division don't get the chance to test themselves against better. This situation is almost unknown to sports fans anywhere in the world except the US - who don't play international sports anyway and Australia, which has a small population, concentrated in a few large centres.
Whether it's the right thing or the wrong thing (I happen to think it's already shaping up to be disastrous) it's certainly unusual.

Basketball, ice hockey and baseball all have a much bigger international spread than rugby league (basketball and baseball in fact dwarf rugby union even, ice hockey's comparable). Even american football is played a lot in Mexico, Germany and I think to a lesser degree Japan (Canada of course has its own version), though of course unlike the other 3 it doesn't have a proper international game

Edited by bowes, 04 August 2010 - 06:13 PM.

[Trojan]

acommonly held view isn't necessarily the right one, especially if it's based on ignorance, or only hearing one side of the story.
It seems odd that something like this can put a person off a sport entirely, but far worse things on the spoirt of his choice have no apparent effect on his enthusiasm..
Australia has a population of over twenty million.

Rugby League hasits own issues to deal with so they are bound not to correpond with the problems of other sports-see the quite extensive list supplied concerning soccer on previous posts.

I'm entitled to my opinion, and I'm entitled to express the opinions of others that I've heard without all this flak. I think that long term the RFL will regret abolishing P&R. Most fans of other sports see things my son's mate's way. Australia has a population of 20 million inhabiting the largest island in the world. They are concentrated in to small areas around the coast. I call that sparsely popluated.
Parky complained about other people "holding coats" it seems that you are all taking turns to have a go at me.
Well I've had enough. If a person isn't allowed to report the views of others without all this then it's a ######. I've finished with the forum.

[THE RED ROOSTER]

name='The Parksider' date='Aug 1 2010, 05:37 PM' post='2088428']
Always delighted to hear from you, listen to your views and largely agree.

Your probably in a minority on here...

So Whilst I see the point in terms of investment up to a point I still maintain that if people want to bad mouth clubs who are essentially unviable at SL level unless propped up by sugar daddy money they need to apply it to all clubs of that ilk and not just expansion clubs.

True but my point was that although essentially chairmen of sporting clubs are philanthropists you still like to feel that the losses incurred by the club you are chairman of are sustainable and that there is a potential market for your product in the medium term if you can achieve a modicum of success.

Its equally true that due to Rugby League being played in a confined geographical area you have a smaller pool of businessman who are willing to live their childhood dream by owning a Rugby League club. Quins current chairman is a Swintonian and before him a Wiganer was Chairman. There not exactly a surplus of London / SE businessmen ready to take the reins is there?

For me when you speak about the underlying strengths of M62 clubs, this is correct, but what it does is mean that if the investment is pulled out of a Widnes/HKR/Salford etc they will have the strength to carry on in the NL's. Pull the plug on Cru or Quins and that is that unless the RFL step in.

Now there another post in here stating that Quins and Crusaders should drop into the Championship. Yet again on Rugby League message boards you have posters ignoring those "elephants in the room" notably London Skolars and South Wales Scorpions both of whom are in the Championship 1. So the collapse of the "top down" expansion model represented by Quins and the Cru need not necessarily spell the end of expansion providing that the RFL took a long term 30 year plan with the intention of using championship 1 clubs with a geograhical spread across the UK as the focal point for constructing a RL community in the area with amateur clubs feeding into the semi-pro sides, The RFL should give financial assistance to create the infrastructure - the essential building blocks of the game - and ensure that these sides have secure tenure of the grounds they play in and develop contacts amongst the local business community.

If as we hear the junior development in London and South Wales ios so good then I am sure within 5-10 years both clubs will be knocking on the door of the Super League from the championship. Nor should this be restricted to the Skolars and Scorpions, you can apply this to other expansion areas such as Sheffield and Gateshead and perhaps teams in the Midlands, Scotland and the South East starting off in championship 1.

What I would call for is Evolution rather than Revolution in spreading the game.

What it also means is that you can get away with spending less than salary cap to break even if you have the advantage of being in M62 land. That strategy may work with a good coach and some quality accademy lads flowing, like at Cas, but only in terms of treading water. When it doesn't work we get the kind of situation that seems to be unfolding at Bradford, and maybe Wakey.

I don't see that anyone other than the top four clubs are self financing and competetive in SL, bad mouth one for not being able to pay the bills, bad mouth the other nine to be consistent.

Again true and Franchising has not fundamentally altered the divide within Super League between the haves and have nots. Putting aside Quins and the Cru look at clubs like Castleford who lose players like Michael Shenton to St Helens or Salford one of the clubs identified by Willie Mason as a club he would not join because he did not want to play in a side "getting smashed by 30-40 points each week". Are these clubs and Wakefield not beginning to atrophy bouncing around in the lower half of Super League battling for eighth spot and name any other sport that rewards clubs in the lower half of the table by giving them a theoretical shot at the title.

Please explain to me as a Quins fan how a cash-strapped club as Quins will be next season, getting smashed every week on the pitch, playing in front of ever lower crowds partly as a result and nailed on to finish last in any way aids the expansion of Rugby League as a sport.. and theres no evidence to suggest that Leigh or Featherstone would do any better despite what the Vicar says..

And that is the sober reality of franchising its no good creating a self perpetuating elite group of clubs if you are doing nothing as a governing body to ensure that you have a competitive league between those clubs and not taking a very long term view about the games expansion.

If there's a master plan for the game out there can anyone point me in it's direction ?

[l'angelo mysterioso]

I'm entitled to my opinion, and I'm entitled to express the opinions of others that I've heard without all this flak. I think that long term the RFL will regret abolishing P&R. Most fans of other sports see things my son's mate's way. Australia has a population of 20 million inhabiting the largest island in the world. They are concentrated in to small areas around the coast. I call that sparsely popluated.
Parky complained about other people "holding coats" it seems that you are all taking turns to have a go at me.
Well I've had enough. If a person isn't allowed to report the views of others without all this then it's a ######. I've finished with the forum.

and I'm entitled to mine and no one has suggested that you aren't entitled to express anything.
What do you want to happen Geoff, people automatically take on board what you say without question?
Twenty million is a lot of people. As you say it Aus is fairly densely populated along coastal strips. It still means that it is a lrge, highly developed society, one of the major economic countries of the world..
I take turns wit no one and I'm certainly not having a go at you. I speak for myself. I'mas entitled to comment on what is said on this forum within the rules.

[The Parksider]

The 20 clubs idea is OK, but who decides who the 20 clubs will be?

A good example in Championship 1 is Gateshead. If they were to get the same money as SL clubs, they could probably attract new investors, better players and start attracting new fans. Their current position in the table will put new investors off, but given the opportunity they could thrive.

The other thing is, with a reduction in the Sky grant, what happens to the salary cap? If it's kept the same, you'll pretty much keep the system we have now where some clubs are spending up to the cap, others aren't. If you lower the cap, then the top clubs will either look for ways to bend the rules ot the players will have to take pay cuts. This would in turn leave the sport open to more raids by RU weakening the sport even more.

Who decides now in a satisfactory manner? Deciding only 14 get SKY funding is nowhere near as good as deciding on 20 and at the end of the day if you look at SL applications they have been around the 20 mark anyway. You will still have a league "on the outside" but it's a matter of thinking about something that may have to come about because Superleague could lose several clubs and have no viable replacements who could do any better.

The salary cap would simply have to come down on a 20 team league. It's pitched too high for a number of established SL clubs so it seems, and certainly if we lose clubs and others come in they can't afford full cap.

The dream of 14 clubs all in great stadia and all spending full cap is faltering, a simple redistribution of the figures isn't that radical.

I don't feel that the danger of anyone bending rules should stop you doing the best thing. Wether this is the best thing remains to be analysed, but you put your finger on the problem of players taking pay cuts.....

20 clubs operating to a £1.2M salary cap gives available wages of £24M a year. Currently the 14 club SL provides in theory £1.8M x 14 = £25.2M but not all clubs spend the cap.

However way you look at it though roughly the same money paid to a lot more players would mean a reduction in average wages.

Bad thing or good thing I dunno but here goes.

1. It's a good thing if the large wages paid to once star players, now over the hill based on "past performances" were ended.
2. It's a good thing if the large wages paid to overseas players were ended.
3. It's a good thing if in consequence young english players come into SL more
4. It's a good thing of sorts if our very best go to Australia for more money - we may improve the GB team
5. I'll go with Nobby - anyone wants to go to Union fine - we have another young RL player coming to take his place.

I don't worry too much about losing players because for me the strength is in the wonderful game we have. I can be just as thrilled by a top NL match as many SL games.

I do worry about Trojan leaving us though, no offence ever meant Tro - it's just a knockabout message board and besides maybe I personally am coming round a bit if that helps!!

[RP London]

But he was just expressing a commonly held view that doing away with P&R is bizarre. It means that the best team in the lower division don't get the chance to test themselves against better. This situation is almost unknown to sports fans anywhere in the world except the US - who don't play international sports anyway and Australia, which has a small population, concentrated in a few large centres.
Whether it's the right thing or the wrong thing (I happen to think it's already shaping up to be disastrous) it's certainly unusual.

It is unusual, which doesnt of course make it wrong as you point out.. and as has been said there have been a lot of sports looking at this with interest.

Cricket you mentioned it before has had issues with P&R becuase it was set up to try and help concentrate the talent so the games are more intense and you get used to playing against the best, yet becuase it is 3 up 3 down they have found that people dont leave clubs when they are relegated because they have a good chance of getting up next year. Also with the clubs in umpteen different formats you may be in div 1 for one and div2 for the other, this has chaned now a little with more regionalised non county champ comps and the movements are starting to happen. The national side getting better is more down to the academy process and the central contracts, the spotting of talent ad developing it longer with centralised facilities etc (if you ask people involved in the game) and has notihng to do with P&R which they haven got right yet... one reason is the clubs wont vote fr cuttin themselves out of hte loop and becoming a lesser county... very similar to RL..

personally there are quite a few sports i will happily turn on and watch, one of which is ice hockey but i have frig all idea of how the league works or how the play offs work etc, i will also go and watch the Steelers from time to time.. my reasoning.. i like the sport. A strange and bizarre format does not make the sport ###### or stop pople watching it, in fact sometimes it can actually be something to get them interested and spark offa conversation. IMO its rare people are put off by the structure of the sport to start supporting, it is more likely to affect those that are used to their club haing a chance at the top and being there (those that havent been up there for a while wont have as much issue) new to the sport is more than likely to be put off by poor performance etc IMO

[thirteenthman]

Who decides now in a satisfactory manner? Deciding only 14 get SKY funding is nowhere near as good as deciding on 20 and at the end of the day if you look at SL applications they have been around the 20 mark anyway. You will still have a league "on the outside" but it's a matter of thinking about something that may have to come about because Superleague could lose several clubs and have no viable replacements who could do any better.

The salary cap would simply have to come down on a 20 team league. It's pitched too high for a number of established SL clubs so it seems, and certainly if we lose clubs and others come in they can't afford full cap.

The dream of 14 clubs all in great stadia and all spending full cap is faltering, a simple redistribution of the figures isn't that radical.

I don't feel that the danger of anyone bending rules should stop you doing the best thing. Wether this is the best thing remains to be analysed, but you put your finger on the problem of players taking pay cuts.....

20 clubs operating to a £1.2M salary cap gives available wages of £24M a year. Currently the 14 club SL provides in theory £1.8M x 14 = £25.2M but not all clubs spend the cap.

However way you look at it though roughly the same money paid to a lot more players would mean a reduction in average wages.

Bad thing or good thing I dunno but here goes.

1. It's a good thing if the large wages paid to once star players, now over the hill based on "past performances" were ended.
2. It's a good thing if the large wages paid to overseas players were ended.
3. It's a good thing if in consequence young english players come into SL more
4. It's a good thing of sorts if our very best go to Australia for more money - we may improve the GB team
5. I'll go with Nobby - anyone wants to go to Union fine - we have another young RL player coming to take his place.

I don't worry too much about losing players because for me the strength is in the wonderful game we have. I can be just as thrilled by a top NL match as many SL games.

I do worry about Trojan leaving us though, no offence ever meant Tro - it's just a knockabout message board and besides maybe I personally am coming round a bit if that helps!!

I can see where you're coming from on this, but will this help to develop the sport long term in the UK, or is it just a way of making sure more clubs have a chance to be successful? Would spreading the Sky money out over a larger number of clubs merely serve to weaken the standard of the whole league? I think it would for the simple fact we don't have enough quality players to go round. As a country we don't produce enough RL players.

The number of young guys coming into our sport is not big enough, and their only coming from a very narrow area of the country. Yes, you'll get some players who are top class, but we're missing out on potential players from elsewhere. Places like Wigan, Leeds and Hull can only produce so many quality players. On top of that you then have RU which can already come in now and tempt guys away with big money offers. Reduce the amount of money clubs can pay to players and the talented ones might start to look elsewhere. It's a dangerous road to go down and one that the sport can't afford to take.

You mention the dream of having 14 SL teams in great stadia and spending the full cap, but basically what you're suggesting is lowering the levels to suit the lower clubs. The levels set for SL aren't that difficult, it's just a matter of finding the right clubs (which at the moment they clearly haven't!). Why should the top clubs be penalised simply because clubs below them can't or won't come up to standard? And again I come back to the point that if you simply say 20 clubs you'll still have another group of clubs on the outer complaining about the injustice of it all.

The other thing to bear in mind is that if you reduce the funding at the top and players walk away from the sport in this country, the standard of the league might fall. Then you'll find Sky questioning whether they want to spend all that money on RL. I know they could just walk away at any time, but reducing the attractiveness of the league could hasten it. Really what we should be doing is making sure the league is full of clubs who can stand on their own financially. But that really is a pipe dream.

[Steve May]

But he was just expressing a commonly held view that doing away with P&R is bizarre. It means that the best team in the lower division don't get the chance to test themselves against better. This situation is almost unknown to sports fans anywhere in the world except the US - who don't play international sports anyway and Australia, which has a small population, concentrated in a few large centres.
Whether it's the right thing or the wrong thing (I happen to think it's already shaping up to be disastrous) it's certainly unusual.

What does he think about the fact that promotion and relegation has never been in place in the history of rugby league. If it had been then perhaps the likes of Leigh Miners or Wigan St Pats would have replaced Blackpool, Huyton or Doncaster.

It's completely untrue to say the situation is "almost unknown to sports fans anywhere in the World". It's been a very familiar situation to every RL fan for the past 115 years.


In all the endless droning on about P&R noone ever seems to want to extend it downwards. Is that because they fear that their club might end up playing in the Pennine League?

[nec]

I would agree with what steve says about the tiers below cc1. I also wonder whether fans are being conned by their own boards of directors. The whole process of licensing allows these clubs to shout loud about wanting promotion whilst never having to worry about how they would finance it because they don't fulfill the criteria. The rfl can then be the bogeyman when the club had no aspirations towards elevation anyway. Batley have been honest about the limits of their ambitions, I wonder how many other chairmen or CEO's will hide behind the big bad rfl?

[thirteenthman]

What does he think about the fact that promotion and relegation has never been in place in the history of rugby league. If it had been then perhaps the likes of Leigh Miners or Wigan St Pats would have replaced Blackpool, Huyton or Doncaster.

It's completely untrue to say the situation is "almost unknown to sports fans anywhere in the World". It's been a very familiar situation to every RL fan for the past 115 years.


In all the endless droning on about P&R noone ever seems to want to extend it downwards. Is that because they fear that their club might end up playing in the Pennine League?

Correct on all points. Even football, which is often lauded as the prime example in a debate on p+r, only introduced automatic p+r from the Conference to what was Division 4 in 1987. My home town team Crewe Alexandra escaped relegation on a seemingly annual basis thanks to the re-election rule in place at the time.

In RL back in 1993, when the likes of Chorley and Nottingham were demoted to the NCL, automatic p+r between the NCL and division 2 was discussed, but nothing came of it. I seem to remember Barrow were lucky to get away without going down at the time. How times change.

Edited by thirteenthman, 06 August 2010 - 07:48 AM.

[dallymessenger]

Final point on Souths. There 'success' shows that they didn't need to merge, but to be taken over by a very wealthy man. Something plenty of RL clubs all round the world could do with.

thats my point. merger is like when clubs have failed.

privatisation is a much better option.

manly took that route too after getting out of their mergers.

mergers dont work with long established clubs in the top flight.

it might work for something like workington / whitehaven but not cas / wakey.

[thirteenthman]

thats my point. merger is like when clubs have failed.

privatisation is a much better option.

manly took that route too after getting out of their mergers.

mergers dont work with long established clubs in the top flight.

it might work for something like workington / whitehaven but not cas / wakey.

That depends on your definition of failure. What about St George and Illawarra though? Had St George failed?

And 'privatisation' is strange way of describing what happened with Souths and Manly. They both happened to get a very wealthy backer to pump money into the club. It's not really a 'route' you decide to take. That sort of thing just happens.

And as for Workington and Whitehaven merging, there's more chance of Wakefield and Castleford merging, and that's never going to happen.

[LINNERS]

In my opinion 3, 5 and 6 are arguably better than what we have now in those areas

It's easy to say this as these are the mergers on the list with the least successful clubs at the present time but as an opposing fan to these teams i'd be more than happy to see them stay as they are. There isn't enough room for everyone in the top division so we need some competition down below!

[nec]

It's easy to say this as these are the mergers on the list with the least successful clubs at the present time but as an opposing fan to these teams i'd be more than happy to see them stay as they are. There isn't enough room for everyone in the top division so we need some competition down below!

Depends whether strategically you think it is important and whether the spectators in that area think it is important to have a SL side as the pinnacle of the game in that area. I think it is much easier to make that argument in Cumbria than in South Yorks or N Manchester as spectators in those areas can relatively easily access local SL sides. There is no reason why clubs cannot retain a Championship side whilst launching a Joint Venture for SL though.

[Keith T]

I would agree with what steve says about the tiers below cc1. I also wonder whether fans are being conned by their own boards of directors. The whole process of licensing allows these clubs to shout loud about wanting promotion whilst never having to worry about how they would finance it because they don't fulfill the criteria. The rfl can then be the bogeyman when the club had no aspirations towards elevation anyway. Batley have been honest about the limits of their ambitions, I wonder how many other chairmen or CEO's will hide behind the big bad rfl?

Do you mean something like "We will be in Super League in 10 years time" David.

[dallymessenger]

That depends on your definition of failure. What about St George and Illawarra though? Had St George failed?

And 'privatisation' is strange way of describing what happened with Souths and Manly. They both happened to get a very wealthy backer to pump money into the club. It's not really a 'route' you decide to take. That sort of thing just happens.

And as for Workington and Whitehaven merging, there's more chance of Wakefield and Castleford merging, and that's never going to happen.

both souths and manly were taken over by outside entities, much like a company on the share market being taken private. these new owners then cover all their losses and in souths case turned a loss of $3 million pa into a profit of around $1 million.

private ownership of clubs is a better solution than mergers as clubs retain their history and fans and get someone on board who hopefully can make the club sustainable.

if workington / whitehaven wont merge then nobody is merging in english RL, its a dead duck