Nine thing we want to see in 2020 from Championship and League 1

[GUBRATS]

1 minute ago, Robthegasman said:

I think you are correct.The RFL certainly in their current guise are not fit for purpose.

My own personal opinion is that it might be better if the game split,just like darts did no matter how much blood has got to be spilt on the carpet.

The connection between the 2 is P and R , if that is broken , then as I posted earlier , I'd hope the lower tiers do take a step away 

[Oliver Clothesoff]

11 minutes ago, Robthegasman said:

I think you are correct.The RFL certainly in their current guise are not fit for purpose.

My own personal opinion is that it might be better if the game split,just like darts did no matter how much blood has got to be spilt on the carpet.

I think all depends on what goes on in the coming years. 

I am, however, surprised that the chairmen of the more ambitious clubs in the lower leagues haven’t been more vociferous in sorting out their own fate and some were so critical of Super League moving away from The RFL. 

[Robthegasman]

35 minutes ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

I think all depends on what goes on in the coming years. 

I am, however, surprised that the chairmen of the more ambitious clubs in the lower leagues haven’t been more vociferous in sorting out their own fate and some were so critical of Super League moving away from The RFL. 

I am inclined to agree.A lot of chairmen of Lower league clubs do appear to have been silent regarding their own fate,and it has been deafening.That said possibly in anticipation of what is to come one chairman did put his head above the parapet,the former Swinton Lions chairman and the then board wanted to rebrand the club on the field as Manchester Lions albeit with EST Swinton 1866 on the badge.... and many fans did not want it and were critical of it,and as such he and the board walked away.

 

 

 

[Harry Stottle]

23 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

The connection between the 2 is P and R , if that is broken , then as I posted earlier , I'd hope the lower tiers do take a step away 

No P&R means no competition as such, the prize for winning is futile it amounts to nothing we as a League have expierienced it before, I have been a season ticket holder for years even through the 'licenced' years, will I purchase one again if P&R is abolished, emphatically No, do I think I will be on my own again No, do I think will it just affect my club again No.

Do these crackpots who believe that we should or hope that we rationalize the number of clubs in the pretence that supporter's of Championship and Championship One clubs will perculate to a neighbouring SL club, I would guess less than 1 in a 1000 would make that transition I wouldn't or even say couldn't and would I continue to subscribe to SKY, again No, even the weekly editorials would suffer my absence, all the above would be a personal consequence for me of the reintroduction of a closed shop, it matters not to me that my club are in the position to challenge for promotion but as long as it is available there is something to aim and play for, even the possibility of relegation has it's plus factors, tell me one UK RL devotee who was not enthralled, elated, fearsome, exhilerated, scared and exited with the 'Battle to avoid the Drop' last season, it was different to different people but it certainly got the senses tingling, and what would that be replaced with should P&R be abolished maybe 4 or more teams going through the motions with over a 1/3 of the season remaining, no thanks as I said bye, bye Sky.

I have said it before, I will severe ties with the professional game something that I have been passionate about for over 50 years, and as long as the community game is in existence continue to get my RL fix in that way. 

You say Gubby that you hope the lower tiers take a step away should P&R be introduced, I think that is a no brainer, but with no central funding available how many of those clubs do you think would or could survive I would say the axe would fall on some immediately and yearly to there would be more fatalities, in a few years maybe conservatively there would be less than eight remaining playing each other 3 times a year in front of less than 1000, and for what? 

 

 

[Robthegasman]

53 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

The connection between the 2 is P and R , if that is broken , then as I posted earlier , I'd hope the lower tiers do take a step away 

My feeling is that there will be 2 divisions of Professional/Semi Pro clubs.

A Super League”Elite”Division and a Super League”Championship”Division with maybe 8 or 10 clubs in each.They I think will be the clubs who will get central funding from the RFL.And I think there will be Promotion and Relegation between the 2 divisions.

And as for the remaining 20 plus clubs that do not make the cut,I think the fans of those clubs,if they are religious  will probably need to say a few Hail Mary’s and a few prayers in the churches of whatever faith they belong to.And I do not know if even the Lord himself will step in and save them somehow.And for the record I am not a religious man.

[EssexRL]

1 minute ago, Robthegasman said:

My feeling is that there will be 2 divisions of Professional/Semi Pro clubs.

A Super League”Elite”Division and a Super League”Championship”Division with maybe 8 or 10 clubs in each.They I think will be the clubs who will get central funding from the RFL.And I think there will be Promotion and Relegation between the 2 divisions.

And as for the remaining 20 plus clubs that do not make the cut,I think the fans of those clubs,if they are religious  will probably need to say a few Hail Mary’s and a few prayers in the churches of whatever faith they belong to.And I do not know if even the Lord himself will step in and save them somehow.And for the record I am not a religious man.

You may well be right but the question then is- how do new clubs join that structure? Also, I would imagine a club like Skolars would want to go amateur (assuming we didn’t make the cut) so what’s the future mean for the organisation of amateur clubs? 

[Harry Stottle]

49 minutes ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

I think all depends on what goes on in the coming years. 

I am, however, surprised that the chairmen of the more ambitious clubs in the lower leagues haven’t been more vociferous in sorting out their own fate and some were so critical of Super League moving away from The RFL. 

Me to, but the guy who was instrumental in the lower division clubs voting with SL was Ralph Rimmer, one Championship Chairman told me that in the week leading up to the vote he contacted every Chairman/Cheif Executive to persuade or even tell them that it was in their best interests to make sure the SL proposal carried.

I think it was in the best interests of Ralph Rimmer not the clubs or the RFL that the vote would carry, the Championship needs a strong leader at the head of the RFL to rally the Chairs of the C/CH1 clubs to fight their cause with the independent body that is SL, Rimmer it seems would be happy just to roll over and have his belly tickled. 

[Robthegasman]

1 minute ago, EssexRL said:

You may well be right but the question then is- how do new clubs join that structure? Also, I would imagine a club like Skolars would want to go amateur (assuming we didn’t make the cut) so what’s the future mean for the organisation of amateur clubs? 

I honestly do not know.
This is where I think a split will come within the game so clubs like London Skolars do get a chance to stay semi professional.And for new expansion clubs to come in.

And this is why I say that there should be questions being asked by the chairmen of these clubs outside Super League and the fans asking questions of the chairmen.

Unless the powers that be and the chairmen do know but between them all are keeping the fans in the dark hiding behind”Confidentiality”gagging orders.

[Harry Stottle]

29 minutes ago, Robthegasman said:

I am inclined to agree.A lot of chairmen of Lower league clubs do appear to have been silent regarding their own fate,and it has been deafening.That said possibly in anticipation of what is to come one chairman did put his head above the parapet,the former Swinton Lions chairman and the then board wanted to rebrand the club on the field as Manchester Lions albeit with EST Swinton 1866 on the badge.... and many fans did not want it and were critical of it,and as such he and the board walked away.

 

 

 

Yep Rob, as far as Lions fans are concerned who effectively got rid of your board from last year, it looked to me from afar as 'biting off the hand that feeds them' lets hope for the sake of the club they made the correct decision wouldn't it be a little ironic if in the next couple of seasons Rochdale replaced the Sale Lions in the Championship.

[Robthegasman]

7 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Me to, but the guy who was instrumental in the lower division clubs voting with SL was Ralph Rimmer, one Championship Chairman told me that in the week leading up to the vote he contacted every Chairman/Cheif Executive to persuade or even tell them that it was in their best interests to make sure the SL proposal carried.

I think it was in the best interests of Ralph Rimmer not the clubs or the RFL that the vote would carry, the Championship needs a strong leader at the head of the RFL to rally the Chairs of the C/CH1 clubs to fight their cause with the independent body that is SL, Rimmer it seems would be happy just to roll over and have his belly tickled. 

I totally agree that the Championship and Championship 1 clubs need a very strong leader or better still leaders.

Because the day will come and soon we need them to ensure that something survives at semi professional level for the clubs outside Super League and whatever it may become division(s)wise.

And those chairmen will have to be strong because I think there is a very high chance that some very big calls that will be very unpopular and controversial will end up having to be made.

[Robthegasman]

5 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Yep Rob, as far as Lions fans are concerned who effectively got rid of your board from last year, it looked to me from afar as 'biting off the hand that feeds them' lets hope for the sake of the club they made the correct decision wouldn't it be a little ironic if in the next couple of seasons Rochdale replaced the Sale Lions in the Championship.

I just hope that everyone gets behind the new board and gives them as much support as they and their bank balance and circumstances can allow.

[RugbyLeagueGeek]

38 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

No P&R means no competition as such, the prize for winning is futile it amounts to nothing we as a League have expierienced it before, I have been a season ticket holder for years even through the 'licenced' years, will I purchase one again if P&R is abolished, emphatically No, do I think I will be on my own again No, do I think will it just affect my club again No.

As a fan primarily of the game rather than a particular club, this is something I don't get, but I can totally understand why fans of particular clubs feel this way. But the NCL is still competitive and winning the title means something to the teams and supporters involved, despite the fact that they can never get promoted. As a neutral spectator, I still found the Championship finals as exciting when there wasn't P&R, but I understand why fans of clubs have the dream of progressing to the top division. I just think it's a shame that the sole purpose of the Championship seems to be to get out of it, rather than it being a worthwhile competition to win in its own right.

For me though, if we're going to have automatic P&R (and I personally don't believe there is enough money in the game for us to have it), then there needs to be P&R throughout the full structure from top to bottom. It seems contradictory and hypocritical to me to have P&R going one way but not the other - e.g. how many teams in Championship or League One would not be there now if there had been genuine P&R? It's often said that many NCL Premier teams would be competitive in League One, so maybe a fair few of the current League One teams would have been replaced.

The structure of the game is a complete mess at the moment, and the RFL need to show leadership to bring it together. Unfortunately I can't see that happening any time soon.

[Oliver Clothesoff]

23 minutes ago, RugbyLeagueGeek said:

For me though, if we're going to have automatic P&R (and I personally don't believe there is enough money in the game for us to have it)

This, for me. 

There just isn’t enough money. 

[Harry Stottle]

7 minutes ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

This, for me. 

There just isn’t enough money. 

Why Ollie? What does Toronto replacing London mean, or say Bradford replaced Huddersfield, or Leigh replaced Salford, I would say Bradford have the potential to get better crowds than Huddesrfield and don't forget in 2017 Leigh averaged 6500 in SL when was the last time Salford got anywhere near that figure, even with the success of last season will Salford beat 3500 this season I suspect not.

So if we are down to individual clubs swopping divisions why is there not enough money, please share your thoughts.

[Oliver Clothesoff]

2 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Why Ollie? What does Toronto replacing London mean, or say Bradford replaced Huddersfield, or Leigh replaced Salford, I would say Bradford have the potential to get better crowds than Huddesrfield and don't forget in 2017 Leigh averaged 6500 in SL when was the last time Salford got anywhere near that figure, even with the success of last season will Salford beat 3500 this season I suspect not.

So if we are down to individual clubs swopping divisions why is there not enough money, please share your thoughts.

Why don’t I think there’s enough money? Because a number of clubs are seemingly heavily reliant on matchday income, which has created the loop fixture phenomenon as clubs must have a certain amount of home games to break even. 

We’ve seen clubs cut Academies, merge Academies, merge Reserve teams, fall into financial ruin multiple times and contracts not honoured by clubs in the past few years. They’re not business decisions made by clubs with masses of money.

There’s a lot more to club’s than attendance bingo, too. 

[Harry Stottle]

42 minutes ago, RugbyLeagueGeek said:

The structure of the game is a complete mess at the moment, and the RFL need to show leadership to bring it together. Unfortunately I can't see that happening any time soon.

Never ever be near enough with Rimmer in charge, the man who is Chaiman of the governing body of our game, the man who had to take public transport from Auckland to Rotorua to watch the England Community Lions a team effectively under his watch, presumably no transport arranged because he didn't know it was taking place, what a complete shambles of an organisation.

[Harry Stottle]

3 minutes ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

Why don’t I think there’s enough money? Because a number of clubs are seemingly heavily reliant on matchday income, which has created the loop fixture phenomenon as clubs must have a certain amount of home games to break even. 

We’ve seen clubs cut Academies, merge Academies, merge Reserve teams, fall into financial ruin multiple times and contracts not honoured by clubs in the past few years. They’re not business decisions made by clubs with masses of money.

There’s a lot more to club’s than attendance bingo, too. 

Thanks for the reply, so we stay status quo and reward those clubs who are reliant on the 2M handout, or do we give others the opportunity to recieve that money and see if they can do better with it? 

[Oliver Clothesoff]

1 minute ago, Harry Stottle said:

Thanks for the reply, so we stay status quo and reward those clubs who are reliant on the 2M handout, or do we give others the opportunity to recieve that money and see if they can do better with it? 

Probably. 

I’m not sure you can relegate a side just “see if another side can do better with the money”. 

[Harry Stottle]

5 hours ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

Probably. 

I’m not sure you can relegate a side just “see if another side can do better with the money”. 

Sorry for the delay in the reply Ollie,

Really, but in my opinion this is a sport we play which essentially should reward those who win not those who do not perform as well as they should, I cannot think of any criteria better than 'on field performance over a season' in their respective divisions to sort out who should have the monetary reward, and certainly not because their face fits as was spouted when Leeds and Catalan could have been in trouble in recent years.

[RugbyLeagueGeek]

36 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Really, but in my opinion this is a sport we play which essentially should reward those who win not those who do not perform as well as they should, I cannot think of any criteria better than 'on field performance over a season' in their respective divisions to sort out who should have the monetary reward, and certainly not because their face fits as was spouted when Leeds and Catalan could have been in trouble in recent years.

I think this is a perfectly fine viewpoint, and if this is the route that the sport wants to go down then for me it should be a pyramid with P&R from top to bottom, as opposed to having a safety net just below League 1.

However, if this is what the sport wants, then we can't moan if we don't get decent sponsorship or broadcasting deals because of the instability of the competition and the knock-on effects of potentially losing some of the better supported clubs to relegation, and the consequences of selling fewer subscriptions and having fewer pairs of eyes on sponsors' branding. This is what I mean when I say that I don't believe there is enough money in the sport for us to have P&R.

A fully pro, 2 x10 division Super League could maybe get away with P&R, but this then cuts adrift everybody below that and the problem just gets moved a bit further down the pyramid. Whatever the sport ends up choosing, we've got to do it properly. As per usual with the RFL, we didn't do licencing properly, and we don't do P&R properly with no relegation below League 1. They need to show some leadership and drag the game into a meaningful, understandable structure.

[Oliver Clothesoff]

8 minutes ago, RugbyLeagueGeek said:

I think this is a perfectly fine viewpoint, and if this is the route that the sport wants to go down then for me it should be a pyramid with P&R from top to bottom, as opposed to having a safety net just below League 1.

However, if this is what the sport wants, then we can't moan if we don't get decent sponsorship or broadcasting deals because of the instability of the competition and the knock-on effects of potentially losing some of the better supported clubs to relegation, and the consequences of selling fewer subscriptions and having fewer pairs of eyes on sponsors' branding. This is what I mean when I say that I don't believe there is enough money in the sport for us to have P&R.

A fully pro, 2 x10 division Super League could maybe get away with P&R, but this then cuts adrift everybody below that and the problem just gets moved a bit further down the pyramid. Whatever the sport ends up choosing, we've got to do it properly. As per usual with the RFL, we didn't do licencing properly, and we don't do P&R properly with no relegation below League 1. They need to show some leadership and drag the game into a meaningful, understandable structure.

I’ve never “got” the two tens idea, I think people only suggest it because it keeps a form of promotion and relegation and seemingly suits most of the current thirty-five clubs we have across the three leagues. 

I know it’s controversial, not conforming to UK sporting tradition and doesn’t include promotion and relegation but if we’re serious about the growth of the game in North America, I think we need to look at conferences. With twenty clubs, this is a long, long way off mind as the quality is not there and would likely not be for a generation or two, I’d rather see four Conferences of five based upon geographic location. 

Your North American Conference could be made up of Toronto, Ottawa, New York and two others, if the long term plan focuses on North America. 

You play the teams in your conference home and away (8 games) and then each team from the other conferences once (15 games so 23 in total). 

[Tommygilf]

I think with Championship and L1 we have to be rational and look to maximise the potential for income and excitement for the competitions.

P/R all the way to SL has to remain imo. We are reaching a stage where a decent chunk of the championship are professional or getting that way and killing that effort would be pointless. For me L1 should be split North and South or at least changed from being just like the Championship in terms of fixtures - perhaps 2 conferences with only 1 set of cross conference games. There must be a route for new teams to join the comp.

The Championship and L1 needs to take itself to another level regarding fixtures and TV. The high number of ourleague games this year should be the basis for a major learning experience and market research. Hopefully they can work alongside SL for a TV schedule so that they don't compete as often as possible.

[Oliver Clothesoff]

1 minute ago, Tommygilf said:

I think with Championship and L1 we have to be rational and look to maximise the potential for income and excitement for the competitions.

P/R all the way to SL has to remain imo. We are reaching a stage where a decent chunk of the championship are professional or getting that way and killing that effort would be pointless. For me L1 should be split North and South or at least changed from being just like the Championship in terms of fixtures - perhaps 2 conferences with only 1 set of cross conference games. There must be a route for new teams to join the comp.

The Championship and L1 needs to take itself to another level regarding fixtures and TV. The high number of ourleague games this year should be the basis for a major learning experience and market research. Hopefully they can work alongside SL for a TV schedule so that they don't compete as often as possible.

A Southern Conference made up of...erm... one, two...three teams? 

Good idea, not. 

[Tommygilf]

2 minutes ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

A Southern Conference made up of...erm... one, two...three teams? 

Good idea, not. 

I'd argue that with a Southern conference we wouldn't have lost Hemel, Gloucester and Oxford, and would give room for West Wales to grow as well as any potential new teams both from the South or even France. 

[RugbyLeagueGeek]

I think if you were starting with a blank sheet of paper and trying to work out the best format for the game moving forward, then I'm not sure that we would have what we currently have now. It may be worth considering conferences. People don't seem to struggle with getting their heads around the NFL system. I think the thing that puts loads of people off over here is the sodding loop fixtures, and conferences would be a way around that problem (although other solutions are available).

I wouldn't be surprised if the Challenge Cup gets a rethink in future years also. Another way of getting rid of loop fixtures in the league would be to play more guaranteed Cup games in a Champions League style format. It's always been the case in RL where teams may find themselves playing each other 4-5 times. But in days gone by, there used to be in several different competitions which helped maintain interest (e.g. Yorks/Lancs Cup, JPS/Regal Trophy, Challenge Cup, League and Premiership). Playing 4-5 times in the same comp is what's leading to the overkill IMO.