Tommygilf

A few inches is important because that is our standard that we sell and operate in. It helps make every SL match of a same basic standard that the sport, league, and clubs know what they can sell, where and when.

Huddersfield and Salford failing are the opportunity for Bradford/London/York/Oldham/Halifax to overtake them and bring value to the top flight which remains the only part of the entire sports portfolio that brings in any money.

For a TV product these are literally the most important aspects yet to you they are "silly". Says it all.

They still have to pay something and turn up. If they weren't interested they wouldn't.

At least Jet2 have a great reputation online oh ...

https://www.facebook.com/share/1AsC93CTga/ New France Home and Away. Interesting Retro badge too.

No they aren't but they are in the overall UK sporting ecosystem which is the comparison with RL. I think we're in a financial situation that means our costs are lower. We have significantly smaller FT squads, from experience I'd expect it to be smaller coaching set ups too. Our only direct competition for players is the NRL who whilst clearly having some impact, is less impactful on our wage inflation than say having the French Top 14 on your doorstep is. The European competitions too require both larger squads and far greater travelling commitments than our annual or twice yearly jaunt to Catalans. I agree however that funding is the key issue here. Clubs who cannot afford to pay £x in wages, will inevitably make the league weaker and less intense as talent is more thinly spread. Unfortunately, despite all the claims to the contrary, I do not think there is a long term plan for 14 teams right now. I think the whole feeling is incredibly short term and is about a value of around £5million p/a to the whole sport. That is to say the combined costs and benefits of a 7th match a week, no loop fixtures, a promoted team like Bradford with their hordes of away fans, and not paying IMG £450k a year.

They do also have 4 (for the time being) Welsh clubs, and 2 Scottish, plus one in Northern Ireland too. They also have FT squads double the size of ours, and a proper European cup competition to factor in as well.

You can have absolutely woeful clubs, worse than Championship ones, stay up with P/R purely because there was 1 club worse than them. In this system multiple can move.

There is certainly an advantage to being in SL of course, but that's to be expected, literally any system would have some sort of advantage like that to some extent. Straight P/R does this too for example.

Its a 3 year average for those points. This is from the gang who threaten legal challenges, laugh in the face of sport england rules and regulations, and have bullied their way into control of the sport. They don't care and will do whatever it takes.

Sorry Harry I thought the points about Grading being dead would be enough to cover that. But yes the suggestion of paying even more money here is as stupid as you suggest it is.

A) London did far more than just be promoted and everything was rosey. They didn't take the first round of trial gradings seriously, hence the massive jump when they suddenly did. B) if we are cherry picking clubs into SL regardless of Grading, then grading is dead, so none of the rest is worth anything.

Still also waiting on decisive action from the many organisations Nigel Wood now leads on the Salford fiasco...

Whilst I can see what you are saying, Oldham have had money for what maybe 2 years in the past 30? Their record isn't great and past glories are nice but don't count for too much in the here and now. I think they certainly could build up to that point though soon. I would still place York above them for now however.