Dave T

Not really, there's no need to go into panic mode because we lost to Hull in a semi final - age didn't show when we won a couple of close games against Leeds and Wigan, or when we wiped the floor with Hudds last round. Hull did very well, but let's not ignore what actually happened, it was 3 tries apiece, with a Wire one disallowed by the VR and 7 breaks to 3 for Wire. The telling stat was the 19 errors by Wire - this isn't an issue with age. Westwood has never been known for pace, even when he was a centre, and it was a strange one to highlight when he wasn't outpaced at any stage of the game, and in fact broke through the Hudds defence on 2/3 occasions. Riley's a good finisher but his defence is woeful, if you read my posts on here I have given him a fair bit of stick for that. Anyway, well done to Hull, but I'm ok with where we are, 1 point off the top of the table and played our part in a great semi final, no shame in that.

Indeed, there are only so many different names that can be used, ones that are currently in use in this country include: Premiership Premier League Championship Champions League Elite League Super League 1st Division 2nd Division Europa League There aren't many gaps or places to go without going with something like the Rugby Football League 1 and 2, but then that isn't accurate, it would possibly need to be the Rugby Football League League.

Hey, fans get plenty of stick here too - there is an argument that the journalists are just playing to the crowd too.

Unfortunately plenty of 'fans' have tainted the brand - it is difficult to go onto a forum or twitter without mention of: Sooper Dooper League Pooper League $uper League No-so-super League and so on. Who needs enemies?

I think when we act small time we get treated small time. Our Cup Final and Grand Final usually get good coverage, the bigger problem is that these are generally the only main events that we provide on a regular basis. Magic Weekend is probably next and the general media have treated this ok I have found, but RL fans and media have often been found talking it down. Whatever we think of Rugby Union coverage in this country, they probable have around 30 events per year which have well over 50k - up to 80k. It is massive compared to what we offer. This year we need to show the media that we are worthy of coverage, and we can do that by filling Wembley for the Cup Final, Old Trafford for the Grand Final, and then filling the grounds for the major events at the World Cup.

I saw one tweet from Irvine yesterday. Instead of just saying how good yesterdays semi was he had to mention Saturdays was so poor again atvthe start of the tweet. Why? It's like a reflex action!

those days went years ago. Westwood isnt in there for pace and hasnt been since his move to the pack. This didnt appear to be a problem for the first try.We've been written off by some for the last couple of years for being too old and slow but we're still there or there abouts.

But in all honesty, this crowd was expected, I pretty much called it spot on last week. We knew there were going to be thousands of empty seats. London are a basket case of a club, and tbh whilst it was a good turnout from Wigan, I'm sure plenty of them saved their £20-30 to buy tickets this morning for Wembley. Why focus on this over everything else.

And after the quarter finals which were described as the most depressing set of QF's for years (or similar)? This despite a very close game live on the BBC where Hull FC the underdogs beat Catalan. You also had Wire beating a team 2nd in the league very convincingly. Compare that to if Chelsea had played Liverpool in the FA Cup quarters and despite the close game everyone expects Liverpool stuffed them 5 nil. Do you think the reaction of the football journos would have been to slate it? I suspect they would have been worshipping Liverpool's performance. Instead in RL we end up discussing whether the cup should be scrapped.

Don't forget we are not talking 20 top division teams. Players in the 2nd division may be full time, but their wage would not be anywhere near as big as SL. These 10 clubs would have players who are on £30k rather than the average £65k in SL. This can allow younger lads to make a living from the game and aim for a place in either a SL club or progressing with their club. Again, as I often say, anything can be done, we can start again with a blank canvas if we want. Have a top 10 with a requirement to spend £1.8m on players - meaning that after central funding they have to self-fund around £5-600k themselves. Have a 2nd 10 with a requirement to spend £900k on players - meaning that after central funding they have to self fund around £3-400k themselves. Top 10 average salary of £72k 2nd 10 average salary of £36k

I think one of the important things to remember if a 10/10 structure was in would be that the 2nd division should be made of quite strong teams. Season 1 could easily see: Widnes Castleford Salford London Featherstone Halifax Sheffield Leigh Toulouse NW Crusaders It should be a division full of ambitious well run clubs. I think if you gave these teams a competitive environment with some funding, it would be a worthy investment. Without being harsh, I think we have too many weak teams in the Championship at the moment, a restructure to get teams playing in the right groupings is overdue imho.

Is yo-yo'ing a big issue? SL1 - Workington relegated and struggled financially SL2 - Salford came up and finished 6th, Oldham relegated and struggled financially SL3 - Hudds came up finishes bottom, Hull came up and finished 9th. No teams relegated ************************************** SL4 - Gateshead admitted. Wakefield promoted - finished 11th. No team relegated as Hudds/Sheff merge. SL5 - No teams promoted. Hudds bottom no relegation. SL6 - Hudds finally relegated - come back much stronger. SL7 - Widnes promoted - finish 7th. Salford relegated - still going in SL with a rich backer. SL8 - Hudds back up, finish 10th. Halifax relegated struggle financially. SL9 - Salford back up, finish 9th. Cas down. SL10 - Leigh up and back down! Widnes also relegated for Catalan. SL11 - Cas promoted and back down (finished 2nd from bottom) SL12 - Hull KR up finish 11th. Salford relegated. SL13 - Cas promoted, finish bottom no relegation. So during the first 13 years of SL, we had 7 different clubs that suffered relegation, with 3 other clubs leaving the SL (Gateshead, Paris and Crusaders). We also have 5 of the 14 teams in SL currently not original members of SL1. There seems to be an argument that yo-yoing is an issue, when I think the bigger issue is that a relegated team cannot always manage the move down to becoming a smaller company on a smaller budget. People will blame relegation, but often the reason these teams are relegated in the first place is because they are poor teams/clubs. Cas are a team who could be described as a yo-yo team during the last decade, they got relegated because they were poor - has licensing helped them? Plenty of teams got relegated and didn;t come back up, nothing to do with yo-yoing. Plenty of teams get prmoted and don't go back down, nothing to do with yo-yoing. IMHO the bigger issue is the step down is too large - a solution like Pottsy suggests, and to a slightly lesser extent the RFL proposal, this addresses that funding issue. There has been a tendancy recently for people to scare-monger too, asking what would happen if a club like Catalan had a few injuries and got relegated - all the hard work would be undone - I ask, when has this ever happened? Look at the above list, no so-called top club has been relegated due to a few injuries. The weak clubs with the smaller crowds and smaller budgets generally get relegated.

I agree with much of this, I'm ok with the splits halfway through, but I think it would work much better from a logistical and funding point of view if we stuck to 20 teams. 24 feels like too many.

I think some people are getting bogged down with the recent stuff. Let's be honest if the media were being negative about this, then personally I think that'd be fine as it is well worthy of challenge as it is a controversial move if it comes off. The bigger issue is that many RL journos are negative about pretty much everything all of the time. We get a low crowd, the game is dying. We get a poor game, the game is dying. We see a club struggle, the game is dying. We see 75k+ at Wembley, the game is dying because of the thousands of empty seats. We see England playing well, it's rubbish because it should be GB. and so on... There are plenty of great things about our sport. There are plenty of things to complain about. If it was balanced it'd be fine, but we get very few positive stories.

The RFL have been very open on this topic.Lets not forget, this proposal will not go through without club support. It looks like Barwick responded as Sadler brought him personally into the debate.

I dont agree.The stadium in Coventry is around three times the size of LSV.

thats all well and good Mick, but the reality is that Wigan would probably have taken 4k to Coventry, London 500 and maybe 300 neutrals.The crowd would have been rubbish. People need to stop dealing in fantasy rl on things like this. 5k in that large stadium with rent going out of the game would have been rubbish.

i agree. He isnt the CEO so he isnt even the right person to go into the detail.I also agree that whilst the RFL have gone with an open and honest approach and trying to keep fans engaged, this is backfiring.

i got that it wasnt a serious suggestion, but i assume it was to make a point. Ultimately it doesnt really work.

a decision has to be made on a neutral venue for the cc semi. It doesnt for a London home SL game.

That doesn't make sense with regards to this debate.

The problem is that if you played it in a non-RL ground, the terms may be too high for what could then be a sub-5k crowd.

I don't disagree with you, but ultimately the London club were not confident enough to make a case for a more neutral venue. I'd expect a crowd of around 6k. Do you realistically think a London or Midlands venue could have attracted that, personally I'm a bit split on it?

It would appear that London are happier to make money than push for a more neutral location.

I'm sure they will be happy with the £££'s that the Wigan fans provide.