GIANTSTRIDES

After the 23 game regular season and we have a top 8, can anyone explain how those 8 will play off. Maybe Ponterover , who i think has read up on all aspects. It seems to me the simplest thing is to call the top team after 23 rounds, Minor champs, but what sort of playoff would then follow i don't know. I wish things didn't have to be so complicated, I can see how it may benefit one or two clubs short term, But i just see there being a corresponding loss at the top end.

And those who would be king.

There is a long thread going about this, But just for the sake of answering. 1 This money you talk of that is going to to be flowing down through the game, Where is that going to come from ? If you think that the SKY money from 2 relegated SL clubs is going to fund all this , I think you are going to be very disappointed. 2 A very odd thing to say i agree, But the huge amount of money he has put into the game will look like nothing compared to your season ticket, so i see your point. 3 What has been stopping this from happening before the impending Revolution , Could it possibly be the fault of the only section of the game that has been going forward and bringing in revenue perhaps.

I will Wellsy. Huddersfield are improving slowly at producing players, They still lag behind lots of clubs, and i think that is because they lag behind many areas in the number of Amateurs playing the game. To be honest i think this has nearly always been the case , So the fact that Fartown themselves had got to such a low ebb for such a long time, may not have a very big bearing . As i have said before Fartowns biggest problem is Soccer, Even back in the 50s when they had a good side, Town would still outdraw them, Although back in those days people could afford to go to both, and many did,

This is something i have questioned, If they show only the top games and ignore the second 8, Then the top 8 are going to be on TV a lot more than has been the case, Some of these clubs will lose revenue from this, Are they going to be happy. There is always the chance that this along with other issues has been looked into, It is surely not possible they would go ahead with this without sorting all such things as this

Yes they did finally win something, Rated 3rd out of 3 but i'm sure KD was very glad to win it, I Know i was, and winning anything in SL does not come easy. IMO people like Davy , Lenaghan et al, are not used to losing, They are winners in business, and they want to be winners in this business as well,They are not interested in playing at a lower level. No one really can Fault KD for his staying power, Huddersfield when he took control were at the very bottom, He has spent a fortune to get them to their current position, and all his talk is of the future, and he see's that future at the top level, so who knows. On the other hand i get the feeling that many people are accepting that below perhaps the top 8, It is going to be lower level, and they are happy for that to happen because they will be able to compete , I fully understand this, and who knows what club will be in that lower level in years to come. This is a realistis view but what bothers me about this is that somehow SL is going to have to pay for this, and is it going to work, or will it just be an expensive failure ?, We all know what it costs to run a top club and i just don't see this extra money going to the lower clubs getting them past the first rung, without massive help from a Money man, Which i know can happen sometimes, ( Fev seem to be well placed here ) There really should be some way to fund a strong second tier, and let SL take the game forward, Particularly on SKY,

No problem, I am not the best at expressing myself sometimes, My position is that i think the game is likely to become more and more about Money and Sky, Which makes it vital for me that we keep the Elite clubs Elite, ( whoever they might be ) This is not to belittle the fans of any club in any way.

No i know it's not something you were calling for, It's something you have mentioned once or twice that might happen, You are right It's a very real possibillity. On the face of it It should suit me well, I love to watch the big Derbies onTV Saints, Wigan ,Wolves, In fact all the top clubs, The Hull Derby is usually a cracker, But there is certainly a danger from too many repeated fixtures. After the best part of 3,000 posts ,i have seen no evidence of more money coming into the game, There are plenty of might be's and so on, Myself i just dont see fans retuning in their thousands to watch the middle teir games, that people seem to be accepting now will be at a lower level. I can accept the argument that it has to be tried before you will know, But all these fixtures that are going to swell the crowds were there before SL came along, Despite trying 3 leagues, 2 leagues and the traditional 1 league, the game has continued to go down hill as far as crowds are concerned. The game is so dependent on Money now that apart from the odd CC upsett it is going to take something very special at the better Championship clubs for them to get anywhere near the top clubs, and i also think there is a very good chance that the second tier will be dominated by 2/3 clubs, which will be just as boring as many say that SL is, In fact it will be worse because it will be at a lower level. For me a 12 club SL with P&R of either 1 or 2 clubs could be the way forward, This new thing will be given it's chance like all the others i expect, But SL has been getting more and more competitive, and next year looks like being even better, Why would you want to risk spoiling that. For me It's the best part of the game, Whatever level Huddersfield play at i shall continue to support them , But they are 1 tooth on the cog, as are all other clubs, If they get to a position where they can't hack it in the top league, then they have to go, till they get back to where they can hack it . I still want to see the best on TV, and i would do nothing that would jepodise that, It is by far the main reason i pay for SKY, There must be a lot more like me.

Lot of sense in that.

You are correct being short of money is not good for the game. I didn't know i had suggested it was. My point was that the thread was about the new structure of the game , Or both sides of the argument for it . It now seems to have been accepted as a given, and the argument has shifted to money from crowds. Whether crowds will be up or down 500 here or there, does not address the question of where the clubs get the required £3.5 million every year , Which is what they need to compete at the top. The alternative seems to be as Parky keeps repeating, A 8 team SL playing each other over and over , and a lower level second tear. Desirable as crowds are they are secondary to the Sky contract, because if that is not delivered to Skys satisfaction it won't matter what the crowds are, And only IMO of course, Playing teams 4/5 times a year is not going to be particularly pleasing for them any more than for the fans. If you had read many of my posts you would know i have well covered how lucky i concider the Giants have been, But it proves that in their case, Crowds have not been the deciding factor in their limited success.

Agree.

Good post, and does anyone know how Sky will take to these oft repeated games. It's noticeable that the posts are now all about money, Suprise Suprise ! I thought this was all about the good or the game, Although I don't seem to see many mentions for the teams who are not going to be in the new 24 set up, There may be trouble ahead

I recon this thread has Probably run it's course for me, I am just repeating things over and over, I see some people as dwelling in the past , They see me as something else. We are all Fans at the end of the day, so we shall go with what's decided, Good luck to every team in the new season, And God please let us beat Warrington for a change.

I don't doubt what you say about blood in the water, I also don't doubt what you say could be the reason Fans are deserting their clubs, Allowing for that being true, Knowing the cause isn't stopping it is it. Problem is getting C clubs up to the standard they need to be at to compete with SL clubs, and on the field is only the start of it, I keep asking, Where are Fev or Fax going to get 10,000 fans from on top of a very wealthy man, I know you are thinking ,It happened at Huddersfield it can happen at Fax, I agree it can , and when it does they will very quickly be in SL. It seems fairly clear Fev are going to get their shot, Good for them, I truly hope hope Mr N has the staying power to see them through, The one thing in their favor is ,The second 8 is going to be easier for them than being in a straight 14 team SL, There's a thought that this will just leave a 8 team SL, is that a step forward ?

To be fair i was championing the Idea that the RFL get of their Thumbs and attempt to get a Tv deal for the Championship, The point is that the SL chairmen say there is not enough money for them to keep up the standards, but there doesn't seem to be any more money coming into the game . I want the RFL to spend some time on other things than formats that they claim are going to right all wrongs and make many CC much more successful, Where i ask is the money coming from to bring about this big improvment,Bearing in mind that the very people who are putting money in to their clubs, who in turn deliver the SKY money, are being branded as Greedy and wanting it all. Sky up to now have shown no interest whatever in the Championship, Even the Fans of most of the clubs ( according to Parkies stats ) are showing less and less as the years go by, SL by contrast apears to be on the up ( again acording to the stats ) despite a couple of clubs getting into trouble, and to be fair even in trouble they still deliver more Fans than anyone who can replace them. It makes more sence to me for SL to be left to decide it's own numbers, Let it fly the flag (so to speak) Lets find a way to make the Championship a success, Try and bring in the men who are running their own clubs successfully, I have certainly more faith in them than the RFL to come up with the way forward.

That is a very good post, and you make some really good points, At the moment i don't have time to respond in detail, But i will answer some of them. I am not against promotion of any team, I am against promotion for the sake of being Fair, I don't see that what happened to Fax and others is helping the game in any way, It has been well discussed on here that the cost of staying alive in SL is £3.5 million, I know there are clubs in SL now that are struggling, but MO for what it's worth is they are there because they have demonstrated that they can get crowds in, ( London is a seperate issue for me ) I fail to see how any CC can come up with that kind of money, unless they are lucky in the way my club has been ( although i may be wrong about Fev ) To put it at It's crudest , You may be the worlds best Poker player , But if you don't have the entry stake you wont get a game. I see all your arguments and they are very laudable , They would be great in an ideal world , but we don't live in that world , Unfortuatly we live in a world that is powered by money. It is whether we like it or not, Survival of the fittest, And you are perfectly correct i am old enough to realise that. Regards a breakaway, I don't think for one minute it will happen, but i do think that someone needs to shake things up at the RFL. As i remember it till SKY came along League had ground to a very low level, with one club playing at a different level to all the rest, I don't want to get back to that state again, that's why i want to protect SL, To be honest i dont see this new format Transforming the game at all I just see it reducing SL to 8 clubs effectively, People won't agree with me but i would save clubs like Bradford simply because they have demonstrated they can be huge, I dont think Fev for eg will ever be as big as Wakey can be, (MO only ). So end of the day i think we will just have to agree to disagree, but i do respect your point of view.

Well you believe me or don't , But show me where i am wanting to hold any club back, Show me anyone who is stopping any CC from growing , I don't know of any SL club taking money from the championship, Nothing in the world is stopping Leigh being as big as Wigan except their own shortcomings, " and that's wigans fault is it", Or is it the whole of Super league. I wish there were a Dr K coming into the game every day, If there was i could see some sence to this. The only thing i have said is that i want to see any team Promoted to SL be able to hack it and be a success, I don't want to see anyone go through the same thing my team did, year on year, or what happened to Fax, or Leigh, It to me is quite pointless. You make out that everything wrong is the fault of SL You are wanting a bigger share of the money SL generates, and dressing it all up as some sort of saviour of the game, in which all clubs are one big happy familly, I want there to be a good vibrant league below SL, But isn't that where the RFL come in arn't they supposed to promote the game , shouldn't they be trying to get a TV deal for the Championship, A nice lucrative one so you can also help to fund the clubs in the lower league, because you surely have those in mind as well as your own club, Whether you like it or not League has to go forward, It can't stay in the last Century with 30 clubs all in on big happy league, It's now all about money ( that's why my club are where they are ) and if it's not , Why are you so bothered about being in SL anyway.

Well thanks for the responce mate, You have got it a bit wrong here and there, If you had read any more of my posts you would have seen , I have never championed my own club over another , I have repeatedly said i know exactly where we would be without KD. I have also always stressed It makes no difference whatever to me who the clubs are in Super league, and it doesn't. If the Giants benefacter wanked away tommorrow and we tumbled down the League to finish in the lowest league , I would still watch Fartown ( as i always have ) but i can tell you straight out it would not stop me wanting to watch SL on TV played to the highest standards it can be. I don't want to switch on and watch Leeds or Saints stick 60 points on Leigh or whoever every week, And don't tell me that it wont happen cause it happened to my team for 4 years, And that was a team with serious money behind them. The reason i want the SL chairmen to make a strong stand, Is becuse i have a lot more faith in them than i do in the RFL, as far as i can see The RFL has been sat on it's thumbs long enough, Dreaming up fancyful systems ,that replace other half tried systems, each one claimed to be what is going to change the game to what it used to be, and bring back Fans in Thousands. It's all a Dream, They may bring it in , But if they have any thoughts about it Revitalising the game , at all the clubs who are barely existing, and somehow take us back to the 50s while still being Magically in 2014, then it is a masive dream, There is not one thing other than an idea, That says one extra penny will be generated in the game as a whole. There may well be a few quid in it for a few certain clubs , but it will inevitably come from other clubs. Why do people not grasp the facts, Super league crowds have increased , CC are going backwards ,Sky don't want to know them, There own fans dont want to know them ( again i know the feeling ) Thats been happening for a long time now. A new format is going to put all this right in no time at all, Suddenly Sheffield are going to become a big club because they are going to be playing the likes of Wigan a few times, They beat Wigan at wembley years ago ,and pushed on to where exactly. Gary , Yes i have supported Fartown for 60 years, some of those years worse that you want to know, Before KD came along Huddersfield would never ever have got to the top clubs in the game again, I believe that to be a fact, but i still watched them and would have done till they disapeared , But i would still have " and did" watch all the top clubs on TV, Just because the Giants were not there didn't make the Leeds ,Bulls games any less enjoyable on TV. You can believe me or otherwise as you see fit, but i feel the same now, I don't want anything to dillute the Elite game in any way, It's the flagship comp and It's what will keep the game alive at worst, and take it forward at best I don't want to hold back any club Fev Fax , Leigh, Sheffield (I don't care who the Super league clubs are) But i want them to get to the same level before they go in, Rather than reduce the Elite level to accomodate them, ( which i think is a danger ) becuse anyone who thinks that a CC without either a huge amount of money ( could happen ) Or a huge crowd every week ( won't happen ) will be able to compete with multy million clubs ,i would say are Dreamers. I don't know what the decision will be any more than anyone else, I just hope that the SL chairmen make a strong case for keeping SL " Super", As far as i can see ( world Cups apart ) it is the only bit of Rugby League anyone is interested in commecially, the main money generator, The providor of by far the majority of junior players, What people buy Dishes to watch. What is to be gained by reducing the quality , or even risking it , Just to show a world ( who by and large don't give diddly about League ) how fair we are , to all the smaller clubs whose fans are deserting them, because they dont get to play clubs who will just thrash them. Perhaps my way may be best. I go to watch my club at whatever level it's playing (Years of at Bottom ) and i get to watch the elite teams on TV.

Bradford have been one of the major successes of SL, and SL needs clubs that can be major successes, not clubs who have either failed, or promise success, In some utopian game . Nice as that would be, League is a failing sport just about everywhere except SL at club level. So how are all these clubs who have been failing for years going to make the game stronger. Maybe we are just talking about 3 or 4 clubs, if so why? are we saying all the rest are not up to their level, Then maybe we had better get all the lowest clubs up to speed first before we start promoting the Elite clubs below SL. Don't know why people just can't be honest, This is all really just about money, We have people telling us how great their club is, and how fantastic they have done and how ready they are , I don't dispute it, but what do you want with super league then, You want to become one of these clubs that are the greedy grasping ones , who get slagged off by all the rest because they want everything. And when and If they are promoted ,they will somehow be different, How much time will they spend worrying about how Oldham Swinton Rochdale are doing, They will be so busy just trying to survive they won't give them a second thought. because for them it's all about getting into Super league, Just like it's all about staying in once you get there I know how mercenary that all sounds , but it's how things are , SL is the most disliked club ,that everyone want to get into, That's because it's where the money is, without it the game will just wither away.

There seems to be a lot of talk about mergers all the time, I have mentioned Mergers from time to time, But i have never suggested they could be forced on clubs, I think they would be desirable and could promote a truly Elite SL, That said the overwhelming majority of posters have made it clear that it is never going to happen. So the alternative for me ,Or at least what i would like to see happen is that SL takes control of it's own game, All the fans ( or most of them ) on here talking about upping the Sky money ( as thought it were a mere formality ) are clubs Fans who don't get much of it now and would like a lot more. I have read all the arguments on here about how this could happen and that could happen, I haven't read one single argument that has convinced me that 1 single club from the Championship can make the grade in SL, Unless they get a huge amount of money from somewhere they will almost certainly fail. That's not doom mongering, It's saying what will most likely happen. I have read how they may be able to grow their Fan base , If this or that is given a chance, Not one thing written has has said they will enhance the Elite comp, they have said they could in years to come, and they could make the middle 8 ( which pertains to them) very competitive with teams at their level. How having very competitive local derbies does anything at all to make the Elite comp and better i fail to see. I can see how it would be very good for some clubs, But how does it do anything at all for the top comp The time when sport could run on a shoestring is gone. Just to survive £3.5 million, What CC has got that kind of money, because any one promoted without it will be Cannon fodder. If we want to go back to the days of all clubs being equal, and being satisfied with it being a game just for Y/L where you could get to most games without much trouble, and your best games were always against your Neighbours, A real community game so to speak. Well i say let the Championship get on with it, nothing standing in the way of them getting it back to where it once was, Get a TV contract BT sport whoever , why do they even need SL . I hope the SL chairmen take a very strong stance, somone needs to push the game forward.

Been away a couple of days, just read the last 6 pages and one thing is very clear ,Everyone wants to see league prosper , we just see different ways of doing it. Iv'e found myself agreeing with certain bits of Posts from almost every poster at some stage, It's evident that some people disguise what they want for their club as being something the game needs to do to go forward, but that's natural enough, and indeed my own arguments could be said to be coloured by my wanting to see the best the game has to offer. I do believe in saying things as i see them in reality rather than what might happen, or maybe this will come about. I see RL in todays world as a business, like any other, Yes it does invoke passions and such, that selling Parsnips or whatever doesn't, The other thing that is different ( I don't know this for sure ) but i don't think many of the owners pumping money into their clubs expect to make a profit in the sense someone selling Veg would. For eg , I would say K Davy would be over the moon to get the Giants to a state of self sufficiency, and yet when you hear him speak, He gives every impression he is there for the long haul, The club as far as i know is going forward off the field as well as being competitive on it, The reason i am speaking about the Giants is because they have climbed from rock bottom to winning the league, This shows that it can be done ( as many people say the smaller clubs can do ) Now the fly in the ointment for me is, If K D had not created the sort of organisation off the field as well as the team on it, would the Giants be where they are, Or where they were. to me thats easy , they would almost certainly be gone, and It's taken many years besides the money to get them where they are. Now what i want to know ( and i keep asking is ) who from the championship can do the same, I am not interested in what might happen if this was done or that came about. Or comparisons with soccer, ( they are worthless ) People talk about they can run their clubs responsibly, and live within their means and so forth, But to me that is perfectly reasonable in the Championship, SL is a whole different ball game, Unless they get a man who has the money to do the job, Or can pull in very large crowds, they are going to be the whipping boys of SL, And i have been there , and it's not good. So we have to have a structure cobbled together to stop these clubs from being whipping boys, That sounds fine , but what is the cost going to be, It may well suit the ambitious few clubs ( who think they can make it ) but what about the effect on the very top end of clubs. There have been some very strong arguments that we will very soon have a 8 club SL, (Parky ) with a stronger that Championship second 8, But is there any evidence that Sky will have any interest in the second level at all, And will a 8 team elite meet their requirements. I have to agree with Parky that the Games biggest headache is shortage of money, yet all the effort seems to be about continually changing formats , In the hope that something will cure that. Looking at it as a business rather than a sport is what is required by Owners, leave looking at it as a sport to the Fans, The more money a club has the more successful it will be , the less money then less success, And if it is short enough, Then It's down the pan, Anyone who underestimates the importance of Money in any organisation, or more importantly people with money, know little about business, This idea that 3x8 will revitalise clubs and swell their fan base to numbers they have never been, sounds great , but i just don't see it working. I know it could work if this was done , If that happened, should this come about. All i can say is why wasn't it happening before SL, all were on level playing field then , Why did Wigan win everything year on year till it became monotonous, Because they saw where the game needed to go before anyone else did and they became full time Pro. I want to put a scenario, suppose ( god forbid ) it suddenly emerged that wigan, Leeds, Saints, Warrington, Hull, or Fev ( were they in SL ) had been seriously mismanaged in the way that Bradford have, Should we ( as some would argue ) Penalise them heavily (as Bradford have been ) and relegate them, Which in reality is penalising , and in all probability losing the fans ( in big numbers in most cases ), and promote a club who will do very well to survive, or do we find a way to save the club in the greater interest of the game, ( something a lot of posters on here claim to have at heart. I can only repeat what i have said before If this new format comes in , So be it , It will soon sort out the ones who can produce, Whether it will have done the game any good could be another matter

And me, Great idea but at this stage just an idea.

But i was asking for people's genuine opinion if they thought any of those teams as they stand could live with SL, It was sort of quite separate from the thread if you like, I don't really want to know what is likely, or Possible, or what we want to happen . Just a straight opinion on if they could make it. My opinion is, I don't think any of them can make it as things stand at this time, I think some of them believe they can but , It's a bit like when you cost the building of your new house, as the saying goes double your estimate and you will be nearer the true cost. Remember this is just an opinion, but i can't seem to get anyone else to give one, You did however answer my post , so i thank you for that.

One of the better suggestions.

I think he meant which world. It would be good if this ever comes about. The first question that comes to my mind is , Why would the 17th richest man in the world want to invest in Leigh ? But thats just my cynical side , It would make for some serious Derby's.