keighley

No, the success would have been due mostly to the money but also due to success on the field generated by that money. The progression to their winning the hubcap would have been facilitated by the p and r system in place as it was for the Giants and HKR. How could that be deemed to make p and r unsuccessful which was your initial foray. Under licencing there would be no guarantee that Keighley would be elevated to SL, three million a year or not. They would have ahd to contend with the Toulouse's, Crusaders, Widnes's of the game and might have lost those battles. P and r guarantees your SL place, IF you win it on the field and back it up with the money. Liencing does no such thing. For me p and r was a success. The only serious failure was Leigh and the mega successes were Huddersfield with moderate success at Hull KR, Wakefield and Castleford. The p and r in place during the SL era was a success. It was a mechanism for getting clubs in SL. That money was commensurate with that is irrelevant. Money was equally important when applying for a licence under that failed format.

Huddersfield's elevation to SL was due to their being PROMOTED. Davy;s money contributed to that promotion. Huddersfield may have been granted a licence also due to Davy's money if there was no p and r but they would have had to wait three years and had a better application than other clubs. Under p and r they were guaranteed their SL place once they won the Championship as were Hull KR, Castleford and Wakefield. Featherstone may win promotion this time and investor money might be the catalyst for that promotion but under licencing, there would be no such certainty if the won the Championship for 5 years straight. I'm not missing the point. The money either is or isn't there but the SL place is won on the field and not subject to other subjective or arbitrary decisions whether of KPMG, old cronies clubs or plain jealousy or self interest from incumbent SL clubs. The allegation of point missing is levelled because it's not YOUR point that is accepted or argued.

Broughton Rangers closed down as Belle Vue Rangers in the 1950's. Huddersfield were promoted since 1998 and now top the league. Hull KR were promoted after Huddersfield and made the eight. No, I don't get it and I have no idea what Broughton Rangers have to do with p and r from the Championship to SL since 1998, which wasn't a failure IMVHO as some say.

No. it's proof that p and r works. The last two given licences before Widnes were Salford and Crusaders !!!

No they didn't. They lost to Salford in the Championship grand final and both went in on a licence. I think it was when they expanded SL to 14 maybe.

As I recall, Mr Hudgell entered the Hull KR picture when they were in CC1 on sub 2,000 crowds. Craven park was dire, the pitch was a bog, the ends were empty and administration was only just exited. Today they are in SL, have replaced the pitch, built a brand new end stand and draw north of 7,000 and have a junior set up. This last season they made the eight. Yes, Mr Hudgell has reservations about his continuing investment but standing still does not seem to be where Hull KR are at given their CC1 start. Compared to the quagmire they were drowning in, I think the ground now is nicely solidifying beneath them. If they continue their progress they might just kick Hull FC out of the eight next season.

You do remember that one of the promoted clubs from the failed p and r system topped the SL last season and another made the top eight.

Plus 1 and it's not true p and r because here is no guarantee any team will be promoted and , in my opinion, more often than not no team will be promoted.

I imagine executing a murder suicide pact is never very easy and always a desperate solution, not easily arrived at.

In theory, you are right. In theory the challenge cup final could be Wigan St Patricks v Keighley Albion but it will never happen. I think he first season the attendnaces at the Cc v SL playoffs will be very good but as time goes by and very very few CC teams makes it to SL, interest will drop off dramatically. I sincerely hope I am wrong but it looks like a no win situation for the CC clubs to me. Under straight p and r a CC team would have been promoted and a SL team relegated. Under this system I don't think any promotion or relegation will actually occur or, if it does, only once every five years or so.

I hope you are right. I think not though since the deck is totally stacked against the championship clubs and the elite will have their self contained top tier. 1 or 2 up p and r would have given the championship teams a better chance.

I challenge you to prove that Keighlians go to watch the Bulls. You love your stats. Go, prove it. It just aint so.

If there is to be no French TV deal, then there is no point in having Toulouse in SL. Currently they are no bigger deal than say Halifax. French teams do little to improve SL unless they bring major financing with them and major financing comes from TV.

Well, if you read my post you will see that I didn't say Nil professional clubs. I said those that can afford to be fully professional should continue and those that can't should go semi pro. They can go fully pro any time they can afford it. The stars will gravitate to the fully pro clubs who can afford them. This is no different to now. The stars are at the top teams who can afford them. All the recent England team were from top level clubs either here or in Australia except Rangi Chase and he soon moved to a wannabee top level club at Salford. So that being the case Sky are likely to be unmoved as, from their point of view, very little will have changed. We can agree to disagree. That's fine with me. I would still like to know where the revenue to maintain a fully pro league is coming from. Most of the teams cannot afford it.

The evidence that every year a club seems to get into serious financial difficulties. This season it was three clubs. Other clubs, Hull KR, Widnes, Castleford give out cautionary information that they cannot sustain current investment levels for much longer. Did you not remember all these troubles,?

Oh well, that's great then. Why are we even discussing the problems of the game then ? We will just wait for the return of the golden age and Bradford will buy back the Burgess brothers and the SL will average 15,000 and bank millions in profits.

1.It is a danger but if the action on the screen remained entertaining and gripping, I fail to see why it would spur cancellations 2. This is not a preferred option BUT if the alternative is mass, i.e. 75%, bankruptcies and closures, then some reduction of expenses is an absolute imperative. For those two or three who can afford it then, by all means let them stay full time but for the rest, downsizing is unavoidable if they want to survive. The last time we had this scenario, even the most successful RL team ever and the full time professionals that were Wigan eventually went belly up.

If the losses continue to mount and 10 out of 14 SL clubs go to the wall, there will be no need for a SL contract with Sky. I think the game had contracts with John Player, the BBC, ITV and Stones Bitter etc when all clubs but Wigan were part time and huge attendances were still the norm for the big games. I think you overestimate the importance of a full time professional league to Sky. If there is s a good level of competition played before good crowds providing gripping TV, then I don't see why Sky would care whether it was full time or not. If the game cannot sustain full time professionalism and he evidence seems to be mounting that it cannot, there would seem to be only two solutions. 1, Give up the fight and let the game die at the top level OR 2. Reduce expenditures until the game operates at a sustainable level and that means reducing the most massive expenses and that is wages and moving on to the future on that basis. I am not saying my hopoe is for part time RL to return. I am saying that all businesses must make ends meet eventually or they will not survive and RL is no different.

The game is already being run on the backs of rich men who came riding over the hill. Check out which clubs don't have rich backers. Only Bradford and look at the state of them. Five years ago, the line you love to push was still that no money men would ever invest in Championship Clubs and, at that time, it appeared that this might be correct even though stupid dreamers like myself believed it was possible to reverse this trend if an opportunity to get to the top level was opened up. Fast forward to today and Fev, Fax and Leigh have found rich men riding in over the hill. Doncaster have just been boosted by investment from the soccer club. Widnes found a saviour whilst in the championship as did Hull KR. These arguments about being no money for upwardly ambitious Championship clubs appear to be increasingly a false premise. I am not stating that the top level CC clubs are as weak as the bottom level SL clubs. I am saying that they just might be stronger and that this premise should be tested by allowing p and r and seeing what happens. The additional benefits to this approach are that the still frozen waters of a ring fenced , dammed SL, are stirred and re-oxygenated and new energy and life is added to the mix and the waters might spill from the pond and irrigate the wider landscape. I have never said Sheffield have the resources to be a SL club. I have said and continue to say that Sheffield have the potential to be a SL club. The success they have had since their reformation in CC1 is nothing short of amazing and they have a proposed new rugby specific stadium planned and they are located in a big city away from the heartlands. They are one big investor away from being a SL contender. Given the CC1 status of Fev and KR and the total melt down that was Fax before all three pulled themselves off the bottom, how can anyone say that Sheffield cannot join this bracket. They may or may not find financing but they are certainly not to be written off. As I have written elsewhere I think the game is not big enough to support full time professional clubs in any numbers. I think the future will have to be a mixture of full time and part time. This may perpetuate an elite top four but there has always been a top elite group since the dawn of the game. Entry or exit from this group will depend on success or failure on the field on the field probably determined by access to new money as and when it appears.

To me, it's been patently obvious for the last few seasons that the game cannot afford to be a full time professional operation except at two or three clubs. To regain financial health at the majority of clubs, I think it is inevitable that part iome professionalism will have to return. In turn this should help to eliminate the gap between the Championship and many of the lower level SL teams.

In theory Wigan , Leeds, Warrington, Catalans, Hull and Saints could get relegated if we return to p and r. However, the much more likely relegation candidates would be London, Castleford, Widnes, Wakefield, Bradford or Hull KR. All that second group have issues of some sort which makes them not top class candidates to be in SL . To replace any one of them by the likes of Fev, Fax or Leigh would not necessarily weaken SL. All three have good stadia, investors and good junior teams in the area. Other potential SL promotees have their issues with finance and so should be obliged to meet pre arranged standards should they qualify for promotion by winning the Championship grand final. The chances of ANY of the championship teams being promoted on the 3 x 8 deal are very very slim IMVHO. That is now. If p and r returns and is persisted with, in the future I can see a suitably financed Sheffield or Doncaster or Skolars winning promotion and expand the footprint of the league. Further down the road, Oxford, Gloucester, Gateshead, Crusaders, Scorpions, York or even Coventry and perhaps one of the Cumbrian trio or the Rochdale/Oldham duo might be able to crack the big time. None of this might happen and is certainly not a possibility right now BUT if an avenue to SL is open, then clubs might attract money men or sponsors that eventually get them there. Without such a pathway, none of these clubs will ever achieve any of this including the big three of Fax, Fev and Leigh. At the moment the SL is a northern ghetto, plus Catalans, forget the London team that has no apparent future. If we truly want a presence outside the northern heartlands and if we truly want a national if not international presence then opportunities for clubs to get into the top tier must be created. P and r is a must.

He can speak for himself of course but my take on his post is that he is saying licencing has not worked and we need to change access to the top tier so the game can expand and new markets and former markets can expand the scope of SL, change some of the participants and the way to do that is to return to p and r.

I see that Leigh, who are constantly pilloried for their one and only poor season in SL, have attracted a multi million pound company as a sponsor and doubled their season ticket sales according to tw o recent posts on the board whilst several SL clubs are well down on their season ticket sales. Never mind though. This can't all be true because it's a fact that nobody or no company in their right mind would put money into a championship side. So that's Leigh, Featherstone and Halifax who have all found investors or sponsors, all in decent grounds, whilst London are playing in a mini ground with diminished crowds, Wakefield and Bradford are having money troubles. But p and r is not a good idea. Let's not give any opportunity to those improving clubs. Let's make sure all the struggling incumbents are under no pressure to improve and justify their hold on a SL spot. Sky would much rather show London v Catalans on British TV than a repeat of the Featherstone v Wigan or Halifax v Huddersfield derby. Let's keep the same old, same old members of the SL and not introduce and different or fresh names to the mix, nor let the n ew investors have a piece of the action.

Huddersfield, Hull KR, Castleford and Wakefield all managed to bridge the gap after promotion and are all still in SL.

"Failure is meaningless to people" you say but you champion a format where failing teams are retained for years at a time.