The Parksider

Has over 20,000 fans prepared to pay to watch RL and can produce a home grown side to rival Wigan and Leeds. So the game desperately needs a club in the Wakefield area to harness and build those resources in one place which can return success and profit. As it is the Wakefield area has three useless clubs who have failed to win anything between them and have all been in the championship more than in the top four. Petty rivalries are killing the game there, that's why we need one club in the Wakefield district, I don't care who it is, you clearly do Steve......

I see what you did there. Your idea we have to have 10 "new" clubs in 10 places "across the UK" discounts the obvious solution that would be far more workable. Pick 10 big existing clubs, put them in places where RL has a strong presence, can attract five figure crowds, and has a large enough junior base to produce pro players. Wigan, Saints, Warrington, Hull, Leeds, Bradford Wakefield, Catalans, Toulouse. Pump all the resources in that and manage it across the board so its always on an even keel and properly funded. Now add in Leigh to make 10. So what do you think? (see what I did there?)

Very thought provoking, but for me we need to start talking clubs not "sporting principles". "Clubs want to get to the highest pinnacle" - do they? Do Batley want Superleague? Do Hunslet? Clubs may dream this, they may say they want this when selling season tickets but the reality is IMVHO different. The reality if you get in Superleague like London, Cas, Widnes and HKR have found is there's a massive bill to pay every year to make up the accounts. In a closed league do the bottom clubs not worry about their poor performance but are happy to just be there?? Are Wests Tigers and Parramatta Eels happy??

Oooh! You got a draw with Martyn. Well done Ponte. I think there's two distinct views - SL clubs overspending to get in the eight, against SL clubs fed up of trying to get above the glass ceiling - I think from what so many of the lower SL club chairmen have said that clubs like London (Hughes wants to reduce his burden), Widnes (SOC won't be a cash cow), Cas (Fulton no more from me). and HKR (Hudgell - can't go on funding indefinately) are certainly not going to spend big IMVHO but instead accept a drop into the eight as a way of avoiding having to find £500K a year to prop up their clubs. I don't think Wakefield or Bradford would DARE go on an overspending spree either. Both clubs seem to now just want to make both ends meet, so I see nothing in the idea that they'll bust a gut for the top eight, leaving the top eight to pick themselves really. On the play off idea as well as straight P & R I still have the Sheffield Question. As the strongest of the CC clubs they would still make an intensly weak SL club, and may end up struggling rather than "Building" if they had won an SL place on the field. Does the play off suggestion include a "subject to standards"? We may never know.....

I think you may have a good point there. I'm just wondering if I'll get an answer on the West Lothian...... Sorry "Sheffield" question whereby had we had a play off based on the last three years success of their grand final wins and had they won that play off would we be promoting a club into SL with a poor ground, no money for SL and no record of developing their own local players? Should standards apply or do we just run the play off idea without them? I think we should be told??

Blimey Terry, all these years when a dozen Rovers fans have constantly told me daily for years they are such a great side that they could compete with the bottom half of SL. I am pleased you have made that admission. Championship clubs cannot attract professional players nor afford to pay them when they are stuck in the championship. You won't build an SL squad without being in it. You could have offered to replace Bradford for 2013 and you'd have got 2014 as well. Rovers seem to want to go for 3x8. Doesn't smack of an ambition to be a big club that, maybe the problem is as I say, all the £Millions they have and the rules don't allow them to spend it....

Your a fighter old lad..........

We accepted the SKY contract for Superleague and left the other clubs out in the cold. We could have made a worse decision and rejected it and all be out in the cold.

I'm not sure they didn't back off when they could have touted for Wakefield or Bradford's place. It seems they support the 3x8 option, if they are that rich they shouldn't be afraid of getting straight in with the big boys.

Terry, their joint worth can be £1,000 trillion zillion....... They cannot spend any more than Ken Davey.

Agree 100% quote of the week for me!! I don't often like analogies, but the Supermarket.v.Corner shop is the closest one to Rugby League I can appreciate. If the game has a portfolio of both 23 corner shops and 14 Supermarkets, where is every precious pound best invested???

Second tier RL has no record of TV being interested in giving it any money at all, so it follows there will be no better sponsors and no snowballing. Second tier RL has gone from attracting 2,405 fans to 1.,020 over 17 years. Take out Fev and crowds will end up averaging 900. Interest is bombing year after year after year..... Last year 11 of the 14 clubs gave up their independence. In nearly 50 years of following this fantastic sport I've only seen one snowball which was the SKY contract to create Superleague that rescued top division crowds from 5543 to a high of 9431 whilst gifting the game tens of £Millions of pounds. It's everything IMVHO.

True, that aspect of P & R across the "great divide" of finance is a major problem. A mountain to climb for the club on the up and a precipice to fall over for the club on the way down. The Million dollar question for those who favoured annual P & R was would it have been good for the game if Widnes who came bottom of SL 2012 but were being well managed and were steadily building, had been just thrown back out for Sheffield who sadly had built little by 2012? I got no answer. I agree for promotion to be a success a club has to have some time. Pseudo licensing came in via Mr. Lewis when he protected Les Catalans from being relegated as long ago as 2006. They are a success now. And so if your suggestion were adopted, it would retain the principle of licensing which IIRC Ralph Rimmer said in an article in RL & LE was to give promoted clubs time. It would not however retain the principle of picking the strongest 12 or 14 clubs. It leaves me firstly with the "Sheffield" question. Here's a club that has been in the Championship Grand Final three times in a row and won it twice. On promotion to Superleague on the field - and this club is the most capable Championship club on the field as they have proven, how many years will they need to build their crowds, attract finance and produce their own professional players?? Secondly and conversely, if they fail and collapse after two years as London Broncos have done, do they spend the third year like the Broncos limping out as lame ducks, being used to give Leeds youngsters SL experience? Your missing "standards" Martyn. Add those back in and as one poster says your play off idea is little different to what we have now?

The ten top teams average 11,000 fans against each other maybe more, the TV deal gives £1.68M per club shared 10 ways. A ten club league on paper has crowds that can sustain 10 clubs and has nearly £500K a club extra TV money. I hope that explains my thinking for you. There may well be bigger crowds to be found for just one club in Calder and one in Bradhuddersfax and one in Hull. Who know maybe someone "Elite" in the business world would want to be associated with a much more Elite Superleague and sponsor it. Who knows, as Canetman says the french are good at sponsoring their top clubs so maybe Toulouse will get Aerospace money. Who know, the public may be bored by them playing each other three times and it may all end in tears, fine we can go amateur knowing we gave it a proper go rather than drifting about with no real aim.

The best players who don't make it at SL do already filter down to the Championship. But if you then pay such players who are not up to professional standard a professional wage, how is that any benefit to the game?? To pay a championship level player say £30,000 a year is a waste of precious resource. It's better for him if he can find a job and pick up £10K for part time. There is a finite resource in quality players and salaries available. The game needs to try to stop top kids choosing Australia or Union. Therefore we need SL clubs to offer top wages and star billing. To put money into championship clubs to enable them to have full time players, means that money is taken off the top clubs. It's the top clubs who attract fans to watch the game, it's the top clubs who stimulate the kids to play and the best to consider one day playing for leeds and Warrington on the TV or even England at Wembley. If I count back Leeds talent production line I see one or two or three quality players produced a year and that's from one of the best academies. Leeds don't release top players and won't stop finding them by the overpopulated junior system being cut to sensible levels to create quality over quantity and stop ruining Youth Rugby IMVHO.

1. Yes I agree with you good sir, mainly on the need to run a proper business and look for real growth, not a multi-million debt to a rich man "just passing". Ring fencing a smaller SL should be enough to keep 10 clubs on an even keel. Why you would want to "slash budgets" and downgrade the whole comp is beyond me I'm afraid...... 2. Ah I get it, you want to slash SL clubs money and give it to CC clubs. I'm all for two leagues of ten in my dreams too but I do fear that there may be no French TV deal. I would also fear that the top SL clubs will just say "no" and that they will still hog the talent, that SKY will say "no" we want to see the top clubs on TV, whilst more talented kids choose another sport, RU or Australia. Your idea is a great thought and well costed out in the initial phase. After that I fear that helping Leigh to compete for the same resources as Wigan, Halifax to compete with Fartown and Bradford, Fev with Wakey and Cas, Hull with HKR will just bring standards down spreading resources too thinly. Where do you see any growth in this plan? What would Sheffield, Doncaster and Batley do with £700K other than use it for survival?? I'll stick with funding two French clubs and eight English clubs to £1,700,000 to eradicate rich mens debts, to offer high enough salaries to keep top players, to deliver an Elite comp for SKY and to grow two big sustainable clubs in "Calder" and "Bradhuddersfax". Big clubs attract fans and stimulate Junior RL to cut them all down in size is also IMVHO damaging.

You may like to consider that top young players only go to the top. Hunslet's Carl Abelett, Jordan Baldwinson, Liam Sutcliffe, Paul McShane, straight to Leeds academy. Baldwinson then played one SL game and was off to Australia. Mike Ford's son George bypassed most of this and straight to top class RU and then on to the the international set up. There is then the question of the quality of players available. We are where we are and we know what we have got in terms of professional quality talent. Not enough to stock 14 clubs, maybe 12, 10 certainly? SL2 isn't a shop window for talent IMO, the SL scouts did the rounds on those lads years ago apart from the usual exceptions to the rule, I'd suggest?. The cutting of academies seems to me to be working on the quality of player, those in the know are clear that lads who will never make it have been signed on in numbers just to have an academy to tick the boxes. Many of the academy ratings are poor ones, many of the academies hardly turn out any professional quality players.

I remember every last one of them in detail and it merely shows we cannot sustain 14 professional SL teams. The first cut to 12 is very likely, a cut to 10 could eventually come. Your cut to Nil professional clubs has no reason or logic to it, as does the idea SKY will love a semi professional game in which we will lose all our stars. Let's agree to wholly disagree.

What evidence?? The clubs have confirmed they cannot sustain 14 clubs playing at top level but have confirmed the top 8 will be OK to be fully professional £6M turnover Superleague clubs. Simple as that. Dave is so right IMVHO saying "I think all you can do is create an environment for the game to grow ie. attractive to sponsors, investors and fans, and hope the clubs can grow themselves". 17 years tell us that environment is in a traditionally strong RL area within Superleague, My point is that Toulouse, and just one club in the Wakey area and just one in the Bradhuddersfax area could grow into as big a club as any. Just on a cold business view I think we can have a 10 club evenly competitive professional league, all clubs on £6M turnover and minimum 10K crowds.

We both made points on this earlier today. Taking 2009-2011 Cats would not have got to play Crusaders because by 2011 they had collapsed. Equally by 2011 Barrow who may have played Fev were bottom of CC and heading for CC1. What an odd play off series that would have been?? 2011-2014 would probably see Sheffield, Sheffield and maybe even Sheffield again play off to see who goes up!!, and Salford, Widnes and probably London play off to see who goes down. The thing could end up with a skint sheffield replacing a skint London. Martyn's plan suffers IMVHO because it fails to work out the realities of the actual events as they happen, and the state of the actual clubs likely to be involved. Good "on paper" though!

It's all proper debt. Some is owed to directors who won't take it back (Salford), some is owed to directors who may take the assets on default (cas), some is owed to the bank (Bradford). Behave yourself! Where are you going with this!!!! Winding up orders all round?? RFL to appoint an in house administrator,to accelerate debt clearance? believe me a debt free SL paying it's way is the business model, and on that model we could get growth, which debt certainly is not.

I was fascinated by Barraclogh's thought that there are 14 SL clubs plus Toulouse and only one place left for a championship club (Featherstone) in the top two "eights" as we stand. I have suggested before that nobody is discussing what these proposals will really mean for championship clubs...... So is it really a "Whole game approach"

It's just a plea for a return to 1995 my old friend. We have a SKY contract to meet, please don't forget that, and you yourself agreed in the thread we had on the SKY contract that there's no going back to 1995, without it we're going back to amatuer i.e. 1895.

Can we settle for the proposals meaning us having "a 12 club Superleague cutting to an 8 club Superleague after round 23"? I suppose one remains a Superleague club now because at your final match of the season you are due to be in Superleague again, your name remains on the roster. But under the proposals you are put with 4 Championship clubs if you come 9th. or lower and you have to win back your SL place so you have effectively lost it until you win it back?? What do you think Griff?? Also what's the weather like in Fev??

2. We can't run the game on the hope rich men may one day come riding over the hill. We have 37 clubs - who is putting the £Millions in?? Davey, Moran, Koucash. That is just three and two came along when there WAS P & R. You've given me nothing to back the idea annual on the field P & R attracts rich investors 1. I welcome your pragmatic approach here to finally admit clubs at the top of the championship are just as likely to be as weak in SL as the named weak SL clubs in Superleague. I also welcome you now realising Sheffield have no resources to become a true SL club. We have made some serious progress. It's been worth keeping this thread open Now how do we get a strong Superleague given you also admit we only have eight strong clubs?