Super League Promotion (Merged Threads)

[Tex Evans Thigh]

4 minutes ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

No. That’s the very definition of tactics versus strategy: Competitive squad in 2021 (which Leigh still don’t have anyway really) is the least important factor in a strategic decision - plus it’s not too late to improve the clear best long-term option’s squad anyway.
 

We need to be planning for the mid-term, and even then with the long-term objective in mind. Not how many points the new club might drop in week 2 against St Helens 
 

 

Who is the clear best long-term option then? It wasn't very clear to me as all had pros and cons and would you really want to dump your 'clear best long-term option' into SL with little time to prepare and half the funding just for them to get pumped and set back years? Great long-term thinking that. 

I'm not a Leigh fan but in terms of being able to compete with the squad they have pulled together and the signings Degsy is able to make, they should be competitive. They play out of arguably the best stadium of the 6, have a strong fanbase and have had consistent on-field success in recent times. 

I assume you wanted Toulouse or London. Toulouse are too much of a risk at the moment and dont give the SL teams what they want next year - income, nor do they sell Sky subscriptions or Bet Fred slips. London have a poor squad, play in a park, have 50 fans and currently offer incredibly little other than the name 'London'. 

The next couple of years are much better opportunities for the rest of the championship clubs to plan, get promoted and have the proper funding and time to give SL a proper crack. Put your dummy back in.

[Gooleboy]

21 minutes ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

Rovers got promoted. I dealt with that scenario in the first post.
 

Leigh isn’t low hanging fruit for your sales team mate, it’s that client who your junior sales bloke has always said are interested and about to close any day now, but then never actually deliver you a big deal. Looks good in the pipeline tracker, but ultimately you’re kidding yourself so better accepting reality, scrub it off the whiteboard and focus on creating something new even if it reduces the short-term “inside the funnel” metric you have to report to your boss next Monday. 

A job in the HKR Marketing Department might be right up your street.

[Toby Chopra]

1 hour ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

No. That’s the very definition of tactics versus strategy: Competitive squad in 2021 (which Leigh still don’t have anyway really) is the least important factor in a strategic decision - plus it’s not too late to improve the clear best long-term option’s squad anyway.
 

We need to be planning for the mid-term, and even then with the long-term objective in mind. Not how many points the new club might drop in week 2 against St Helens 
 

 

You can't plan for the mid term and long term unless you're willing to protect the team you promote from relegation. 

Now, that may or may not be the right thing to do, but that's a separate debate. 

Going into this selection process everyone was clear that the promoted team would be exposed to relegation, and be favourites for it. So if you choose York or London or whoever they'd likely go straight back down and more harm than good would be done to them long term. 

For a variety of reasons at this exact moment in time, Leigh has the best chance of putting up a fight, that's why they were chosen. 

And to be frank, if they do go straight back down and hit some trouble, better its Leigh than one of the expansion area teams, who might not recover. 

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

13 minutes ago, Gooleboy said:

A job in the HKR Marketing Department might be right up your street.

They don’t need my help, that small team’s really good at what it does 

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

Just now, Toby Chopra said:

You can't plan for the mid term and long term unless you're willing to protect the team you promote from relegation. 

Now, that may or may not be the right thing to do, but that's a separate debate. 

Going into this section process everyone was clear that the promoted team would be exposed to relegation, and be favourites for it. So if you choose York or London or whoever they'd likely go straight back down and more harm than good would be done to them long term. 

For a variety of reasons at this exact moment in time, Leigh has the best chance of putting up a fight, that's why they were chosen. 

And to be frank, if they do go straight back down and hit some trouble, better its Leigh than one of the expansion area teams, who might not recover. 

Toulouse is the obvious option, yes, given its commercial platform and the value it would bring to the current Catalan outpost. It makes little odds whether we have 10, 11 or 12 UK-based teams. London doesn’t have the funding or a competent leadership team. If we’ve not got a 12th new option that adds value, I’d probably even stick at 11 and wait - but then I was always a fan of licensing with a 3 year grace period for new entrants anyway 

[Oldbear]

I have looked at this decision objectively, with no bias either way, and the only issue I have is with Elstones comments about commercial value, which realistically is really difficult to quantify so perhaps should have been left unsaid.

The reality is that SL needed a 12th club for next season, so little preparation time. They also needed a team that would be happy to operate on reduced funding next year, given the incumbents own greed/financial weakness (delete as appropriate). Sky no doubt would like the 12th team to be competitive enough to at least be able to put up a fight and with COVID still a threat they would ideally like to reduce the likelihood of fixture disruption. If you then apply these factors you get

Toulouse - financially probably able to operate on reduced funding, but maybe not if COVID either disrupts their ability to play in front of crowds or forces them to stay in the UK for several weeks. Legislatively they come under control of French laws which may or may not be a problem depending upon what happens with the virus next year. Would probably need to strengthen up quite a bit to avoid getting pumped each week and of course no experience at the SL level. Would their presence persuade French TV to come up with a paying deal, who knows?

Leigh - Mr B has stated he was OK with reduced funding, plus they have recent SL experience, still going to be difficult to survive but with the right additions they may well get to 11th spot. Their set up probably needs less work to get it to SL standard given that they were there not too long ago.

London- Seemed to have lost a lot of the players who did well in SL a couple of years ago, great coach, but he would have a challenge to put together a squad in a short time frame. Never seem to be well organized off the field and needed to consider yet another move as current home is not SL standard

York and Fev - both great little clubs with good coaching and off field set ups, this may be a year too early for York and neither has any SL experience to call upon. Probably best they don’t come up this way as it could do more harm than good.

Bradford- a once great club which has been through enough twists and turns recently. Operating on reduced money, coupled with a return to Odsal, could be seriously damaging. Playing squad unlikely to be competitive.

When you put it like that only Leigh and Toulouse looked like being anywhere near what these particular circumstances require, one is a pretty safe choice, unlikely to be embarrassed at this level, the other offers expansion potential but is located in another country and SL is probably currently thinking that they got lucky with Catalans managing to still be able to compete in a pandemic world, what if they had been not so lucky? Hence the choice of Leigh.

[gittinsfan]

Hearty congratulations to Leigh and their fans,and I really hope they manage to stay up.Most people agree that Degsy will have to dig deep in order to improve the squad.Do the Leigh fans on here feel he will need to upgrade his coaching team with someone who has S.L. experience.

[Gooleboy]

20 minutes ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

They don’t need my help, that small team’s really good at what it does 

That's a glowing endorsement.

[Snowys Backside]

3 hours ago, gittinsfan said:

Hearty congratulations to Leigh and their fans,and I really hope they manage to stay up.Most people agree that Degsy will have to dig deep in order to improve the squad.Do the Leigh fans on here feel he will need to upgrade his coaching team with someone who has S.L. experience.

That, is a very interesting question !!!!

[Spidey]

7 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

No thanks , don't want to be in or out of one 

As a fan you say that. Clubs time and time again have voted for self preservation. A closed shop would enable that. 

[GUBRATS]

1 hour ago, Spidey said:

As a fan you say that. Clubs time and time again have voted for self preservation. A closed shop would enable that. 

Yes , but it could get very boring 

[PECETTO]

9 hours ago, PEANUT HEAD said:

I agree bring back franchising get get rid of the deadwood cas wakey salford hkr get some teams in with a bit of ambition like fev Toulouse york.

1/Leigh,wakefield,castelford,salford,warrington,huddersfield....                                                                2/London,york,newcastle,bradford,toulouse,Sheffield....                                                                             is 1or2 the super league Europe ?

[PECETTO]

8 hours ago, Tex Evans Thigh said:

Who is the clear best long-term option then? It wasn't very clear to me as all had pros and cons and would you really want to dump your 'clear best long-term option' into SL with little time to prepare and half the funding just for them to get pumped and set back years? Great long-term thinking that. 

I'm not a Leigh fan but in terms of being able to compete with the squad they have pulled together and the signings Degsy is able to make, they should be competitive. They play out of arguably the best stadium of the 6, have a strong fanbase and have had consistent on-field success in recent times. 

I assume you wanted Toulouse or London. Toulouse are too much of a risk at the moment and dont give the SL teams what they want next year - income, nor do they sell Sky subscriptions or Bet Fred slips. London have a poor squad, play in a park, have 50 fans and currently offer incredibly little other than the name 'London'. 

The next couple of years are much better opportunities for the rest of the championship clubs to plan, get promoted and have the proper funding and time to give SL a proper crack. Put your dummy back in.

Best stadium of the 6 is toulouse by far.....

[The Future is League]

10 hours ago, PEANUT HEAD said:

Same can be said for cas wakey  salford huddersfield  do I need to go on.

Show me the link where Elstone said that about the above clubs

[The Future is League]

13 hours ago, LeeF said:

 

Your “theory” immediately disproved though

My we are in the big league with one new person signing up for the Sky Sports package because Leigh have been gifted a Super League place

[The Future is League]

14 hours ago, Hela Wigmen said:

What it takes to build an Academy. There’s little stopping clubs building towards a Tier One or Two Academy at the next round of grading. 

Yep. No category 1 academy = no Super League place for me.

For a heartland club not to have a category 1 academy is totally unacceptable

[LeeF]

7 minutes ago, The Future is League said:

My we are in the big league with one new person signing up for the Sky Sports package because Leigh have been gifted a Super League place

The original poster claimed that nobody would. I was merely proving his very silly comment as wrong

[The Future is League]

1 minute ago, LeeF said:

The original poster claimed that nobody would. I was merely proving his very silly comment as wrong

Wow one person. I expect it to be annouced on Sky Sports today at some time, and probably an interview the person who's brought the package on the back of Leigh being gifted a Super League place

[LeeF]

1 minute ago, The Future is League said:

Wow one person. I expect it to be annouced on Sky Sports today at some time, and probably an interview the person who's brought the package on the back of Leigh being gifted a Super League place

I think you are missing the point I am making. Anyway have a good day

[Wholly Trinity]

10 hours ago, PEANUT HEAD said:

I agree bring back franchising get get rid of the deadwood cas wakey salford hkr get some teams in with a bit of ambition like fev Toulouse york.

How are you measuring this 'ambition'? 

In what way do you discern that the latter 3 have more than the incumbent 4?

Did Leigh/London/Widnes/Halifax have more 'ambition' than those 4? 

How do you measure the level of the 4's lack of 'ambition'?

It's easy to talk the talk of 'ambition', but walking the walk is somewhat more difficult.

Ambition is fine until it meets the brick wall of reality.

What remaining in SL needs is more money, and lots of it. 

[The Future is League]

1 minute ago, LeeF said:

I think you are missing the point I am making. Anyway have a good day

And you.

[Robin Evans]

4 minutes ago, Wholly Trinity said:

How are you measuring this 'ambition'? 

 

I'm not sure he is. Just pointing out a few indicators being applied here cross clubs across SL and the championship.

I might be wrong like...

[Oxford]

9 minutes ago, Wholly Trinity said:

How are you measuring this 'ambition'? 

I think you're looking for a well argued evidential approach to issues and debate. So you haven't been on't intinerweb very long then?

[Robin Evans]

2 minutes ago, Oxford said:

I think you're looking for a well argued evidential approach to issues and debate. So you haven't been on't intinerweb very long then?

I can do evidence based argument and debate with a decent construct..... but in the main I talk sheeite!!....

[Oxford]

1 minute ago, Robin Evans said:

but in the main I talk sheeite!!....

Then you've come to the right place!