Please Remove Automatic Relegation

[Derwent Parker]

18 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

By the looks of things the gap between Super League and the Championship is huge also...

The Gap mirrors the issue of unfair Central Funding - Give all teams the same and the gap will close

[Jughead]

1 minute ago, ShropshireBull said:

So why do you think people didnt move to London if not then due to the lack of money? As I said you arent throwing Élite 1 sides in because if they get promoted they would get the same money as everyone else. They obviously wouldnt be coming up with a part time squad. 

I think it is money not location that makes getting people difficult  (in non covid seasons). You disagree,  lets park it there. 

There’s been a fair few cases of northern born players being “homesick” in London, it’s even happened this off season and happened when they were full-time too. There’s been London Weighting for some time and they’ve always struggled for English players.

You’re romanticising, in my opinion. You’re suggesting we promote ill prepared part-time clubs from Elite 1, even if they get eight months to overhaul a completely part-time and inadequate (by Super League standard) squad, a huge step down from Super League, based upon little other than their locations sounding more exotic than Dewsbury or Hunslet, whilst there are far better prepared, both on and off the pitch, existing in the Championship but these clubs are castigated by many for being from Yorkshire or Lancashire or being located close to clubs who have been in Super League long-term. It doesn’t show any signs of working or really much thought behind it than “well, we might get a TV contract”. The best thing to come out of a French World Cup in 2025 will be investment in the grassroots and domestic game there with a mid-to-long term aim of a third French team potentially joining Super League. 

[Derwent Parker]

15 minutes ago, Scubby said:

No it wasn't, in the late 1980s and early 1990s alone we had 14 and 21, followed by 14-8-14

it was 16 and 16 in 1994/5 season

[Scubby]

16 minutes ago, Derwent Parker said:

it was 16 and 16 in 1994/5 season

So 1 full season before super greed arrived out of the previous 8 seasons - dating back to the mid-1980s.

 

33 minutes ago, Derwent Parker said:

Before Super Greed it was always 2 leagues of 16 {ish div 2 +/- ] with 4 up and 4 down

 

[Tommygilf]

29 minutes ago, Derwent Parker said:

The Gap mirrors the issue of unfair Central Funding - Give all teams the same and the gap will close

I wouldn't mind that, mine and 3 other teams would win everything every year...

[Scubby]

8 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

I wouldn't mind that, mine and 3 other teams would win everything every year...

Yep just evening out the ever decreasing central cash pool will get us 38 amazing clubs with full time staff, commercial departments, development pathways - someone should write a thesis on it? I'd read it.

 

[Dallas Mead]

7 hours ago, Omott91 said:

After watching the Toulouse game earlier this morning full of excitement and hope, only for it to end with a feeling that I've seen this before too many times. The promoted team has next to no chance of staying up and avoiding relegation which is why automatic relegation needs to end.

How many years does it have to take before people realise that it just doesn't work? The last couple of years, Toronto, Leigh. Toulouse haven't lost a game in a long time and are a country mile ahead of the rest of the Championship and have great potential to grow the game but it all rests on chance and an outdated system that is designed to kneecap the promoted team from the beginning. P and R doesn't work when most of us know who will be relegated each year, while there is possibility that a current part time club will be promoted at the end of this year. Are they going to fair any better than the full time Toulouse?      

My solution is either allow the two French clubs exemption from relegation or have P and R every two years to allow the promoted team an opportunity to compete on a level playing field by allowing time to build a squad. You only have to look at the difficulties the Dolphin's are having in the Nrl with 18monhs to prepare. I understand that P and R is a decisive topic in the Uk and my view is from an Aussie perspective.

Covid killed the North American dream, let's not let stupidity ruin the French dream.    

Agree 100%.

[Jughead]

3 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

No its based upon population size and commercial opportunitues for growth. Noone would say Lyon is less attractive than Dewsbury with a straight face.  You can argue fairly that option doesnt exist but then the question is how to make it a viable option .

It took you one sentence to build a straw man of my arguement 'you want to promote part time sides' (I dont) and destroy it yourself 'even if they get eight months to overhaul the squad' (so wouldnt be part time then would they) . 

Again London werent spending the cap, ok homesickness happens  (Williams from Can bk to UK) but if London are spending the cap they would have a competitive squad. 

Like I said,  realistic option is 14 team SL. I would settle for that. 

So romanticising then? Lyon aren’t anywhere near ready for elite rugby league. They’re potentially even less prepared as a club than Dewsbury at present given Lyon are an Elite 2 side. It’s fanciful nonsense to claim we should be promoting teams from France every year. 

Ah, the default setting of this board. Shout “straw man” and run away.

The problems the game faces currently are not solved by the simply crazy idea to promote an Elite 1 side every year, if anything they’re exacerbated by the bonkers idea. They’d need to find 25 players to go professional and be prepared to live in France. It’s less of an issue for the French (but how many capable French players would take up a one year contract at Albi, for example and why would they be in that position that neither of the other two want them?) and Antipodeans but English players are not good travellers, as is the case with London now and for pretty much all of the summer era. The same players as now, the players from the relegated teams and anyone with question marks over them are just going to be part of the vicious cycle that we have now. The grounds in Elite 1 from what I can see when I’ve watched on YouTube are, largely, not the standard of Super League either but I suppose you just suggest something else unsustainable and daft to them to move or sort their ground out in eight months but woe betide Featherstone come up. 

 

[Jughead]

2 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

You said I wanted part time teams in SL . So if you use a strawman I am going to call it one  

You want clubs who are part-time to be moved up to a full-time league in less than eight months. It’s fanciful to even consider that as an idea and not recognise that is, largely, what we do now though the difference is you’re shoving pins in a map of France.

[Scubby]

1 minute ago, ShropshireBull said:

Yeah I think Champ clubs got way too much money in old system and RFL got little infrastructure out of it.

 

The game just has to decide how many strong clubs (and what geographical footprint it wants) and create a plan for that.

If it is 14, then kneecapping its existing new member for short term survivalist aims is probably not the way to go. Nor is it wise to have clubs 13 and 14 throwing money it doesn't sustainably have on short term signings trying to replace club 12.

[Fevrover]

1 hour ago, Scubby said:

No it wasn't, in the late 1980s and early 1990s alone we had 14 and 21, followed by 14-8-14

That 8 game season was dreadful playing same team FOUR times.

[Jughead]

3 minutes ago, Scubby said:

The game just has to decide how many strong clubs (and what geographical footprint it wants) and create a plan for that.

If it is 14, then kneecapping its existing new member for short term survivalist aims is probably not the way to go. Nor is it wise to have clubs 13 and 14 throwing money it doesn't sustainably have on short term signings trying to replace club 12.

This is exactly it for me. 

[Ant]

Just now, Fevrover said:

That 8 game season was dreadful playing same team FOUR times.

I remember it. More if you had cup ties

 

Anyway, has anyone mentioned that scrapping Automatic P&R doesn't mean removing all pathways in and out of the top flight? 

Hell, scrapping P&R totally doesn't make it a closed shop 

[Scubby]

Just now, Fevrover said:

That 8 game season was dreadful playing same team FOUR times.

It also didn't help having 2x Carlisle and 2x London away trips in there. Gimmick formats rarely work.

[Ant]

Just now, Scubby said:

It also didn't help having 2x Carlisle and 2x London away trips in there. Gimmick formats rarely work.

I know it's been 50 years, but can we give up the gimmick of promotion and relegation

Before we had it, we could beat the Aussies...

[Jughead]

2 minutes ago, Ant said:

I remember it. More if you had cup ties

 

Anyway, has anyone mentioned that scrapping Automatic P&R doesn't mean removing all pathways in and out of the top flight? 

Hell, scrapping P&R totally doesn't make it a closed shop 

Exactly. Having no promotion and relegation in NRL, NFL, NHL, NBA and MLS hasn’t stopped those competitions adding clubs. It’s just when we tried it, it was poorly executed and made so that those already at the table weren’t at risk of being judged in the same way prospective clubs were and that just set the tone for it being a farce. 

[Scubby]

5 minutes ago, Ant said:

I know it's been 50 years, but can we give up the gimmick of promotion and relegation

Before we had it, we could beat the Aussies...

I really don't understand what the problem is with the game. It continually fails to be able to think ahead and sustainably. Honestly, at the moment we are debating/voting about structures for the following season at the end of the previous season (and often into the closed season). WTF logic is that?

It may well happen again in August/September when relegation and promotion is being worked out this season.

[Sidi Fidi Gold]

4 hours ago, Mattrhino said:

We have spent decades trying to emulate soccer but it doesn't work for us.

Soccer wouldn't have P&R if the clubs below the PL were Ossett Town and Dover Athletic 

The top teams in Super League are hardly Man City, Liverpool , Man United and Chelsea , More like Barnsley , Luton and Millwall . Anyway , if Dover or Ossett , by some miracle , did reach the Premier League , it would be seen by the media as a genuine good news story , not just in the UK but around the world .

[Snowys Backside]

Eye up, didn’t take long for this type of thread. Has it finally sunk in that Toulouse are skint and sold everyone a dead rubber ?

Lets keep them in Super league because they speak a different language, lovely place to visit, has numerous train stations etc etc ….

No. If they finish bottom, they finish bottom. If they survive, good on them. PSG, 19000 people round 1, same season still hold the record I believe for the lowest attended SL game ? Could be wrong  

I don’t recall a thread like this for Little Leigh last year,so no. 
 

They were gash last night and to be fair, Huddersfield didn’t crack any pots either. It’s a good job they didn’t !

[Jughead]

Start with twelve, as put together by an independent body; not the existing club chairmen, not some kangaroo court like Elstone and his mates regarding Toronto and not this third governing body who are going to come in, who already stink of self-interest. 

If we have twelve, we need but don’t really want loop games. You can’t drop to 22/23 games, that’s just too low and I can’t see clubs agreeing to that. With that in mind, we should stick to 25 weekly rounds. You’re standard eleven home and away games against everyone (22) and three loop games. Those loop games will be decided on which “bracket” the club falls within the previous years. Loop games should be of a similar standard so if you finish between 1st-4th, that’s who you play in your three loop games, if you finish between 5th-8th, that’s who you play in your loop games and if you finish 9th-12th, that’s who you play in your loop games. It should theoretically make it tougher for the previous year’s winners by pitting them against their immediate rivals and so on for the cluster of clubs aiming for the play-offs and those fighting off the wooden spoon. 

Aim to move up to 14 clubs with 5 years, where you go back to straight home and away games, playing 26 rounds. 

[Scubby]

1 minute ago, Snowys Backside said:

Eye up, didn’t take long for this type of thread. Has it finally sunk in that Toulouse are skint and sold everyone a dead rubber ?

Lets keep them in Super league because they speak a different language, lovely place to visit, has numerous train stations etc etc ….

No. If they finish bottom, they finish bottom. If they survive, good on them. PSG, 19000 people round 1, same season still hold the record I believe for the lowest attended SL game ? Could be wrong  

I don’t recall a thread like this for Little Leigh last year,so no. 
 

They were gash last night and to be fair, Huddersfield didn’t crack any pots either. It’s a good job they didn’t !

Lots of folk were very supportive of Leigh and felt they were sold a dud. I actually posted that Derek would have won his case had he legally challenged relegation based on the hand they were dealt.

[Jughead]

5 minutes ago, Snowys Backside said:

Eye up, didn’t take long for this type of thread. Has it finally sunk in that Toulouse are skint and sold everyone a dead rubber ?

Lets keep them in Super league because they speak a different language, lovely place to visit, has numerous train stations etc etc ….

No. If they finish bottom, they finish bottom. If they survive, good on them. PSG, 19000 people round 1, same season still hold the record I believe for the lowest attended SL game ? Could be wrong  

I don’t recall a thread like this for Little Leigh last year,so no. 
 

They were gash last night and to be fair, Huddersfield didn’t crack any pots either. It’s a good job they didn’t !

The reason you’re so deadset against removing promotion and relegation is because, in your own words, you support “Little Leigh”. 

[Snowys Backside]

14 minutes ago, Jughead said:

The reason you’re so deadset against removing promotion and relegation is because, in your own words, you support “Little Leigh”. 

Not at all. Sport needs P and R. 
 

We have done the expansion malarkey. We just need the 12 best clubs in SL. At this moment in time, Toulouse are in the pack but last season has done them in. 
 

Your Leigh’s, Fevs and Widnes will always bounce back. Toulouse have not got a great history of that. They say goodbye and come back !

Good luck to them though. 

[Davo5]

57 minutes ago, Snowys Backside said:

Eye up, didn’t take long for this type of thread. Has it finally sunk in that Toulouse are skint and sold everyone a dead rubber ?

Lets keep them in Super league because they speak a different language, lovely place to visit, has numerous train stations etc etc ….

No. If they finish bottom, they finish bottom. If they survive, good on them. PSG, 19000 people round 1, same season still hold the record I believe for the lowest attended SL game ? Could be wrong  

I don’t recall a thread like this for Little Leigh last year,so no. 
 

They were gash last night and to be fair, Huddersfield didn’t crack any pots either. It’s a good job they didn’t !

Think you’ll find this topic crops up every year & I think you’ll also find that most posters agreed that Leigh were shafted last season with the only difference being Toulouse earned their shot at Superleague but do keep on making up your own narrative it seems popular with some Leigh fans.

[Ant]

 

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Sport needs P and R. 

No, it doesn't. Plenty of sports confirm this.
 

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We have done the expansion malarkey. We just need the 12 best clubs in SL. At this moment in time, Toulouse are in the pack but last season has done them in.

How many chances have Leigh had, and failed? They've been the best outside SL a few times, and dropped away without much fuss  
 

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Your Leigh’s, Fevs and Widnes will always bounce back. Toulouse have not got a great history of that. They say goodbye and come back !

That's called yo-yoing. It's not a good thing.