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Expressions Of Interest Sought For New 'Southern Premier League'.


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Just seen this on rugby-league.com

http://www.rugby-league.com/article/53627/expressions-of-interest-sought-for-a-southern-premier-league

"The Rugby Football League are seeking expressions of interest from Southern-based community Rugby League clubs who would be interested in joining a Tier Four 'Southern Premier League' for 2019."

 

Jam Eater  1.(noun. jam eeter) A Resident of Whitehaven or Workington. Offensive.  It is now a term of abuse that both towns of West Cumbria use for each other especially at Workington/Whitehaven rugby league derby matches.

St Albans Centurions Website 

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Also saw this in the Sun … 

"Spain is not the only new market rugby league is pushing as a new conference for clubs outside the sport’s heartlands will be launched in 2019. Dubbed ‘League One South’, the competition will feature as many as 12 sides from Wales and the south-east, south-west, west, south and Midlands of England."

And from Gloucester All Gold site - 'Preparations have begun for an exciting 2019 which will see the All Golds competing in a new Southern Division against quality clubs from across the region including Wales.'

Interesting times indeed.

Jam Eater  1.(noun. jam eeter) A Resident of Whitehaven or Workington. Offensive.  It is now a term of abuse that both towns of West Cumbria use for each other especially at Workington/Whitehaven rugby league derby matches.

St Albans Centurions Website 

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1 hour ago, Exiled Townie said:

Also saw this in the Sun … 

"Spain is not the only new market rugby league is pushing as a new conference for clubs outside the sport’s heartlands will be launched in 2019. Dubbed ‘League One South’, the competition will feature as many as 12 sides from Wales and the south-east, south-west, west, south and Midlands of England."

And from Gloucester All Gold site - 'Preparations have begun for an exciting 2019 which will see the All Golds competing in a new Southern Division against quality clubs from across the region including Wales.'

Interesting times indeed.

I think there is a slight difference in what Lionel Hurst is saying and the email from the rfl says. 

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OK, I think there are essentially two different ideas here.

  1. Lionel Hurst's "League One South" (with whatever associations he has in Super League/higher level RFL)
  2. The RFL Club & Competitions Department's "Southern Conference League"

If you want to read about League One South - 12 teams, two teams from Wales and two each from the five "regions" of the South of England, partial funding from the RFL/Super League - go to that thread.  This is not the same thing.

Clubs and Competitions looks to be revisiting a proposal they made last year, which I think was originally pitched by Nottingham Outlaws.  A few teams -  the usual suspects, former Conference League South teams or those who aspired to CLS - said they'd like to see a league that would be a step towards restoring a level akin to National League 3/Conference League South (or Lionel's L1S proposal). 

The plan was/is to create a West and East Premier of between 8 and 10 teams each, playing a March to September season.  Then the existing tier five leagues (of around 6 to 8 teams) would feed into those premiers - Wales, South West and West into the West Premier, Midlands, L&SE and East into the East Premier - with the hope that this would grow those leagues into full March to October seasons, though I was told the latter rather than it being written down.  I'm getting serious deja vu writing this, I can only assume there's another post about this in my posting history.  Last year, they had about 14 expressions of interests but, when they nailed down standards, that number dwindled considerably to around 4 iirc.

There are other plans afoot too, this time from the London League committee but can't see any of them coming off.

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17 hours ago, Impartial Observer said:

I think you will find they are exactly the same thing, one will Lionel's spin and the other the reality 

I don't think they're coordinating plans.  They tried to do this last year and, when it didn't work out, they said they'd revisit it.

 

4 hours ago, OriginalMrC said:

I hope I'm wrong but I just can't see this succeeding. Many clubs are not in a position to commit to a league which includes longer travel distances and additional criteria for entry applied. We'll see what happens just don't think the interest will be there. 

Don't hope you're wrong, this isn't a good plan.  If you take 2-4 teams out of each region, the regions themselves are no longer viable.  If each region had 15-20 teams, you could take those teams out and it wouldn't make much of a difference.  This is why I've said repeatedly that they need to stop this cross-regional nonsense and focus solely on expanding within the footprint of the respective leagues.

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7 hours ago, bbfaz said:

Don't hope you're wrong, this isn't a good plan.  If you take 2-4 teams out of each region, the regions themselves are no longer viable.  If each region had 15-20 teams, you could take those teams out and it wouldn't make much of a difference.  This is why I've said repeatedly that they need to stop this cross-regional nonsense and focus solely on expanding within the footprint of the respective leagues.

So you are saying if teams are willing and able to play a longer season then a league to suit them shouldn't be set up just because it will weaken the league and your club can only play a short season. Surely there should be something for everyone, long season or short season.  If the better/stronger clubs go to a longer season it may make the regional leagues more of an level playing field as the clubs left will be a similar standard. Maybe there are players who would switch codes if there is a longer season for them to play in.  

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3 hours ago, Impartial Observer said:

So you are saying if teams are willing and able to play a longer season then a league to suit them shouldn't be set up just because it will weaken the league and your club can only play a short season. Surely there should be something for everyone, long season or short season.  If the better/stronger clubs go to a longer season it may make the regional leagues more of an level playing field as the clubs left will be a similar standard. Maybe there are players who would switch codes if there is a longer season for them to play in.  

Reading this I can see both sides of the coin, the need to provide a division to cater for the better teams wanting a longer season and also the short local season.

I can't help feeling that once the RFL got it's hands on the NCL it turned it's back on the South. they did it very cutely by transferring powers by saying you can self govern when in fact they left a rudderless ship (no disrespect to the people who are working hard in the South)

When the RLC was running a short season we always seemed to be getting new sides joining every season, this doesn't seem to be happening now, this is a shame because the gaps between flags on the map could have been filling in nicely by now and with more clubs we would be in a better position to provide the longer season for the clubs wanting it.

I'm not sure how the RFL went about recruiting new clubs outside of the heartlands for the RLC but it looked like it was working and probably could be used as the blueprint to kickstart it once again.

Carlsberg don't do Soldiers, but if they did, they would probably be Brits.

http://www.pitchero....hornemarauders/

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Once established it would be a good idea if any clubs in the Southern Conference could work with the RFL to develop new community clubs in their towns and cities. These would then play in the regional leagues but would also help develop local players for the Conference sides

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9 hours ago, Impartial Observer said:

So you are saying if teams are willing and able to play a longer season then a league to suit them shouldn't be set up just because it will weaken the league and your club can only play a short season. Surely there should be something for everyone, long season or short season.  If the better/stronger clubs go to a longer season it may make the regional leagues more of an level playing field as the clubs left will be a similar standard. Maybe there are players who would switch codes if there is a longer season for them to play in.  

I am saying that, to be fair to you, though I don't say that selfishly, given we're one of the stronger teams in the region in terms of numbers and player strength.  My worry is more for teams who are in a precarious position.  My view has been that we need to stop thinking about what we can do individually and think about the whole sport and the whole ecosystem of RL south of the Pennines.  It's that mentality - fighting over crumbs rather than baking a nice cake - which is undermining the sport as a whole.

We also need to be mindful that every time they've tried these leagues, there have been casualties.  That higher level has always inevitably fell apart because there's no critical mass below feeding and supporting these leagues.  They're also closed league models, which means when you start to lose, there's no incentive to keep playing because you have nothing to play for.  The only thing that's kept any number of teams who've played at a higher level going when they've fallen down the leagues is bloody-mindedness.

As I said in the other thread, if a couple of the London teams went for the SCL or L1S, what would happen is that players from other teams who wanted to play at a higher level and travel across the country every other weekend would gravitate towards those teams.  I don't think it attracts players or strengthens leagues.  As I said before, RL has essentially collapsed in the Home Counties.  We're at a level below a minimum required number of teams.

If Wests, Chargers and Eastern Rhinos gave this league a go, life would go on.  The London Premier would be last year's Championship plus a weakened Hammersmith, because some of their players would fancy this higher level.  That looks like regression, not progression.

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5 hours ago, London Drifter said:

But will happily stay in a lower league so you don’t play tougher competition ?

Given you still owe me an apology, I don't think I owe you an explanation...

#fakenews etc.

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On 10/5/2018 at 10:28 AM, bbfaz said:

Don't hope you're wrong, this isn't a good plan.  If you take 2-4 teams out of each region, the regions themselves are no longer viable.  If each region had 15-20 teams, you could take those teams out and it wouldn't make much of a difference.  This is why I've said repeatedly that they need to stop this cross-regional nonsense and focus solely on expanding within the footprint of the respective leagues.

I think it should be a condition on joining the premier league that you have to have the numbers to keep an 'A' team in the local league (and don't run an 'A' team by stealing players from other clubs)

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Again, the instigators of this are Clubs and Competitions with the RFL, asking again if people are interested in an inter-regional league based on a plan first proposed by Nottingham Outlaws last year.  As far as I am aware, Nottingham are exploring their northern options.

If you are talking about the All-Golds, it's my understanding that Lionel is among the interested parties.  Last season, the only serious applicants were Bath RL, Valley Cougars, Torfaen Tigers, London Chargers, Coventry Dragons and Hemel Stags A/Community.

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10 hours ago, bbfaz said:

Again, the instigators of this are Clubs and Competitions with the RFL, asking again if people are interested in an inter-regional league based on a plan first proposed by Nottingham Outlaws last year.  As far as I am aware, Nottingham are exploring their northern options.

If you are talking about the All-Golds, it's my understanding that Lionel is among the interested parties.  Last season, the only serious applicants were Bath RL, Valley Cougars, Torfaen Tigers, London Chargers, Coventry Dragons and Hemel Stags A/Community.

Just to clarify, the East/West regional split proposal wasn't devised by Nottingham Outlaws. The proposal was first devised by myself and Cam Paul of London Chargers as a way of trying to solve the problem of running a premier standard competition in the south without the massive travel distances. Whilst I am on the committee at Outlaws, this proposal wasn't put forward on behalf of the club.

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11 hours ago, Joe Shep said:

Just to clarify, the East/West regional split proposal wasn't devised by Nottingham Outlaws. The proposal was first devised by myself and Cam Paul of London Chargers as a way of trying to solve the problem of running a premier standard competition in the south without the massive travel distances. Whilst I am on the committee at Outlaws, this proposal wasn't put forward on behalf of the club.

Thanks for the clarification.  It was put forward to other people as an idea that had come from the club.  I have taken to calling the two plans they put forward last season the "Wales" and "Nottingham" plans.

Problem is, I'm not sure that even this plan would work.  I've recently been looking back at the stalwarts of the various RLC divisions, the clubs who made it work long-term.  The National Division was a bunch of Northern teams plus Hemel.  The South Premier was three London teams plus Eastern (as it is now, though it's three different London teams).  I'm sure you could make similar cases with other divisions.

EDIT: From what I've heard, teams are actually interested this time around.  My concern is whether it will pan out long-term and, potentially, do more harm than good.

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50 minutes ago, bbfaz said:

Thanks for the clarification.  It was put forward to other people as an idea that had come from the club.  I have taken to calling the two plans they put forward last season the "Wales" and "Nottingham" plans.

Problem is, I'm not sure that even this plan would work.  I've recently been looking back at the stalwarts of the various RLC divisions, the clubs who made it work long-term.  The National Division was a bunch of Northern teams plus Hemel.  The South Premier was three London teams plus Eastern (as it is now, though it's three different London teams).  I'm sure you could make similar cases with other divisions.

EDIT: From what I've heard, teams are actually interested this time around.  My concern is whether it will pan out long-term and, potentially, do more harm than good.

Yes since the original plan, Coventry Dragons, Northampton Demons and Leicester Storm have all unfortunately folded. However, as you say, there does seem to be some interest this time round so fingers crossed maybe something might get off the ground that will compliment the existing comps as opposed to detracting from them.

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On ‎10‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 12:09 AM, bbfaz said:

Deadline is today.

Is it a secret?  When will we know who have expressed an interest?

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