Barley Mow

Don't worry, the one on the left will have black shorts, the one on the right will have white shorts - it'll be fine!

Yes. They are updated after every season. The ones released this week are what clubs would get if the system was being introduced now. Next year's scores will actually be used to decide who is in Super League for 2025.

Merging Councils can work just as well as merging clubs. When IMG first became involved with RFL, three clubs (Barrow, Whitehaven and Workington) would all have got the lowest score for catchment. Changes to their Councils in April this year have actually benefitted the catchment score for all three clubs.

Go into the house building industry and increase the housing stock (and population) in their local area!?!

I was glad to see that they have matches organised for Pretoria as well as Sydney this year.

Who knows. But that seems to be what they've done for now.

I initially thought there must be a problem with the Headingley map that they were going to fix - it was there when I booked my tickets but has been down for well over three weeks now. I'm starting to think they removed it intentionally for some reason. On the subject of IMG selling tickets - if they were going to take over this, why haven't they already? It isn't something that is dependent on their grading system and they must have been on board with the RFL for about 18 months now.

They will have changed - see my post above.

HOLD THE PRESS - I'VE WORKED IT OUT The points initially intended to be awarded and set out on page 17 of the grading document was based on us having 36 clubs (including London Skolars). Skolars withdrawing means the increments between position 1 and last place have changed. There are now larger increments and different scores to those shown in the document.

Yes, that's the only one we can check easily.

Castleford have released theirs as well. They give a figure of 3.09. This also doesn't compute: Method 1 - we take the average of their score over 3 years - 7th (3.33333), 7th (3.33333), 11th (2.88889) = 3.185185 Method 2 - 9th place overall gives 3.1111 or 10th overall gives 3.0000 Something odd going on with the performance scores based on released info.

It is impossible to get a score of 2.17 for performance. If you are the 17th graded team over the three years you get 2.2222 points, if you are ranked 18th you get 2.1111. There must be a mistake in the figure being quoted.

Largely confirmation of what some Newcastle fans have posted here, but good news nonetheless. Hopefully they can make the progress they need to in the next month.

That looks great. A proper Huddersfield shirt.

They aren't grounds I know, but possibly - if they're up to standard.

Thanks It seems odd to me that with Williams, Young, Knowles and Makinson all missing, nobody else has been brought into the squad.

I saw an announcement earlier in the week that Knowles is injured after last week, but has anyone heard anything about Makinson?

True - It is also often an issue that is ignored where considered expedient!

I share your opinion. But am glad to see Oldham moving back to Boundary Park next year, Midlands moving into the actual Alexander Stadium and hopefully North Wales getting to play a full season at the Eirias Stadium next year. These are all steps in the right direction. As far as Newcastle are concerned, I would let them concentrate on saving the club first. There are lots of non-league football grounds within a short distance of Newcastle that would meet the L1 standards, there should be something suitable available if Coach Lane isn't up to it.

I was going to say that it is interesting that they are only seeking to replicate their existing grade for performance (having just finished 11th in SL). But with their 2021 score (7th place finish) dropping out of consideration next year, they actually have to make a significant improvement on this year to achieve that. Their current performance grading is based on 7th, 7th, 11th.

It is so subjective though. The grounds I've been to this year are York, Odsal, Mount Pleasant & Craven Park (Barrow). Most people would expect York (a new stadium) to come out top amongst those. Although I've enjoyed my visits to York (and have been there more than the others because it's the closest club to where I now live), the all seater, more sterile, less characterful nature of the ground actually made it the worst 'spectator experience' of the lot (in terms of the stadium). Now I prefer to stand on a terrace and York obviously doesn't provide that. Other people prefer to sit - all of the grounds I've been to provide that option. York was the only ground where I didn't have the option of paying for food and drink by card or cash (they are card only) These things impact spectator experience - but differently for different people. York wins top points on the toilets - much nicer than the other three. Spectator experience for me at Odsal was great - I might have thought differently on a wet day, but could have sat in the covered stand if that were the case. The distance between spectators and the field, and the muck on the terraces from the motorsport were the only downsides - but everywhere I went had its downside.

There are photos of the stand on this site (one in the banner at the top, two more down the page): https://www.footballgroundmap.com/ground/coach-lane-sports-ground/team-northumbria

At least one club (Hunslet) published them yesterday.

I don't think there are many forum members who have said that the information used to create the grading should be covered up, or isn't useful. What most of the people who disagree with the system are saying is that they think SL membership shouldn't be decided on that basis - but should continue to be decided based solely on on-field performance (with or without minimum standards). Continuing with on-field P&R wouldn't preclude the value of the information, just mean a different way would be found to use it.

That could be difficult to decipher: They should be up because of promotion, but possibly down due to the grading, however we have no previous SL season at Plough Lane to compare with.