IMG Grading Unveiled

[Tommygilf]

1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:

Seems like a lot of turkeys voting for Xmas. 

Or clubs voting for the good of the game, might catch on.

[DI Keith Fowler]

4 minutes ago, Jughead said:

They want to scale up to 14 in future once enough teams reach a desired level, which is entirely fair, IMO. IMG also suggested losing loop games. 

Yes there was talk of an expanded Challenge Cup with a group stage to make up for the lost home games. Not seen anything confirmed though on that. 

[Tommygilf]

4 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

Sure, but it's still a choice to use the system in that way. You could also choose to incentivise those clubs to improve by saying 'If you don't want to worry about being relegated, achieve Cat A'. Or we could have no on-the-field criteria in the gradings at all. There's lots of ways we could have sliced it that balanced different goals, this is the one we chose.

(Also, we wouldn't be arbitrarily relegating the aforementioned clubs in that scenario, we'd be relegating them for finishing bottom!)

Of course, but these proposals had to pass a vote, and votes mean things are usually watered down.

[OnStrike]

3 minutes ago, DI Keith Fowler said:

Yes there was talk of an expanded Challenge Cup with a group stage to make up for the lost home games. Not seen anything confirmed though on that. 

Challenge Cup needs to stay a knock out competition surely

[Toby Chopra]

2 minutes ago, DI Keith Fowler said:

Yes there was talk of an expanded Challenge Cup with a group stage to make up for the lost home games. Not seen anything confirmed though on that. 

Hopefully it's been quietly shelved. If there's one thing that could be less inspiring than loop games it's Challenge Cup group games. 

[Tommygilf]

Just now, OnStrike said:

Challenge Cup needs to stay a knock out competition surely

Its a potential solution that I can see why they are exploring it.

[OnStrike]

15 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

Hopefully it's been quietly shelved. If there's one thing that could be less inspiring than loop games it's Challenge Cup group games. 

Exactly 

[Jughead]

24 minutes ago, DI Keith Fowler said:

Yes there was talk of an expanded Challenge Cup with a group stage to make up for the lost home games. Not seen anything confirmed though on that. 

There was at least two suggestions, a group stage and two legged ties. Neither seemed to be particularly enticing to me. 

[ChristianB]

5 minutes ago, Jughead said:

There was at least two suggestions, a group stage and two legged ties. Neither seemed to be particularly enticing to me. 

Not a fan of two-legged tied, but the group game idea I really do like. It will undoubtedly add variety to Championship and League One seasons.

[del capo]

3 hours ago, Jughead said:

Jesus Christ, how hard was it to fill in? Skolars and Salford both filled their decision in wrong. Salford wanted yes and Skolars wanted to abstain. 

The voting  was openly recorded , club by club.

Each of the seven community organisations voted in person or  by proxy in favour.

All but one SL club voted in favour. Salford abstained.

The process then moved through Championship and then League 1.

Whitehaven and West Wales did not attend and did not send in any proxy, The Chair therefore had to mark them both as abstentions.

West Wales seem to have previously declined to surrender their membership. They can therefor only be removed by vote of existing members , which I am led to  believe will take place at the summer Council meeting.

After the vote had been recorded , and therefore not capable of change, Salford asked that the minutes note their approval for the resolution. Likewise Skolars asked that their previous no vote be minuted as an abstention.

Maybe their initial confusion was caused by a very late amendment which rather than be taken before the main resolution the Chair ruled because of its nature should only be taken in the event that the main resolution failed. No objections were made to that course of action.

In effect at the end of the day only 6 clubs cast their votes against........

[Monkeymagic22]

4 minutes ago, ChristianB said:

Not a fan of two-legged tied, but the group game idea I really do like. It will undoubtedly add variety to Championship and League One seasons.

No thanks, crowds at cup matches are bad enough without introducing this fresh hell.

[Harry Stottle]

39 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

(Also, we wouldn't be arbitrarily relegating the aforementioned clubs in that scenario, we'd be relegating them for finishing bottom!)

Only if they had less 'B' points than the Championship clubs.

[Harry Stottle]

41 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Or clubs voting for the good of the game, might catch on.

Even if they put their own existence at risk in doing so?

If so isn't that like Turkeys voting for Xmas?

[Tommygilf]

1 minute ago, Harry Stottle said:

Even if they put their own existence at risk in doing so?

If so isn't that like Turkeys voting for Xmas?

Their own existence isn't at risk in these plans, so nope.

Their existence is more at risk if the sport does nothing and the only paying TV contract does not bring in enough to flow down.

[Harry Stottle]

12 minutes ago, ChristianB said:

Not a fan of two-legged tied, but the group game idea I really do like. It will undoubtedly add variety to Championship and League One seasons.

Put all the clubs in the hat from the last 32 after the prelims.

[Harry Stottle]

3 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Their own existence isn't at risk in these plans, so nope.

I am not as confident as you are Tommy, let's wait and see.

[DI Keith Fowler]

35 minutes ago, Jughead said:

There was at least two suggestions, a group stage and two legged ties. Neither seemed to be particularly enticing to me. 

I don't mind the group stage idea. It seems mad to me that we can't contrive a way each year for a Leeds-Bradford and Warrington-Widnes match. Even what might be one of three matches between SL teams will probably feel a bit different and less like a loop fixture.

[LeeF]

4 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

Whitehaven didn't attend...

Which is actually worse than colouring the wrong box in like Salford

[LeeF]

3 hours ago, Monkeymagic22 said:

Cas, close to being A?,

It’s only 2 letters from a “C” as in Cas to an “A” 

Edited April 19, 2023 by LeeF

[Jughead]

4 minutes ago, DI Keith Fowler said:

I don't mind the group stage idea. It seems mad to me that we can't contrive a way each year for a Leeds-Bradford and Warrington-Widnes match. Even what might be one of three matches between SL teams will probably feel a bit different and less like a loop fixture.

To me, manufacturing the draw to make sure certain teams play each other is utterly pointless and demeans the competition. 

[DI Keith Fowler]

1 hour ago, Jughead said:

To me, manufacturing the draw to make sure certain teams play each other is utterly pointless and demeans the competition. 

Is it contrived though? We'd be doing a group stage round robin for the teams in Lancashire, the teams in Yorkshire and then probably A.N. Other for the remainder. You could even award the old Lancashire and Yorkshire cup trophies for the winner of each little league to give it a bit of precedent. 

[dboy]

3 hours ago, Taffy Tiger said:

This just released by Grattan at Cas. Clearly states funding in place and just waiting for PP

 

In terms of that progress on the stadium, Grattan had this update to give fans: “All we’re waiting for now is literally a date for the council to put it to planning and then the decision. Once that goes through, we’ve been told funding is there, available and good to go.

“It’s not going to be May because there are local elections, so we’re hoping June or slightly beyond that.”

No, all it "clearly" states is that some funding is "there".

How much and where remains to be seen. Unless money is deposited in an account, it isn't "there"

Wakey fought the developer for years to get their dues, but I'd hope that WMDC have learned from that experience and Axiom will have to stump up BEFORE planning permission is given away on the M62 site.

Fingers crossed for Cas...

[Stanley30]

2 hours ago, OnStrike said:

I honestly can't get my head around the hatred on some of these threads for Cas based on people not liking their ground. It's old and could do with a new stand, I get it, but they own the ground don't they? A full Jungle looks great on TV with loud passionate rugby league fans. Isn't that what we want? Beats a massive football ground that's three quarters empty and you can hear a pin drop

It's the fact that teams like saints, Salford, Hull, Warrington, Widnes all had to give up their traditional grounds. All owned by themselves, great when packed with brilliant atmospheres and loved by their fans. 

They complied and had to move from these ground to their new ones in order to stay in super league. 

Many a tear shed by lots of fans at each club having to leave. But was seen as the correct thing to move the game forward. 

That's where the supposed "hatred"  comes from and why Cas and wakey should be both be removed from the league. 

[DI Keith Fowler]

3 minutes ago, Stanley30 said:

It's the fact that teams like saints, Salford, Hull, Warrington, Widnes all had to give up their traditional grounds. All owned by themselves, great when packed with brilliant atmospheres and loved by their fans. 

They complied and had to move from these ground to their new ones in order to stay in super league. 

Many a tear shed by lots of fans at each club having to leave. But was seen as the correct thing to move the game forward. 

That's where the supposed "hatred"  comes from and why Cas and wakey should be both be removed from the league. 

It probably is this, there's a bit of resentment because a lot of teams played the game and sorted their grounds while others made promises and didn't. 

[Jughead]

14 minutes ago, DI Keith Fowler said:

Is it contrived though? We'd be doing a group stage round robin for the teams in Lancashire, the teams in Yorkshire and then probably A.N. Other for the remainder. You could even award the old Lancashire and Yorkshire cup trophies for the winner of each little league to give it a bit of precedent. 

Very contrived. Once the novelty of Widnes and Swinton away wears off, which I think it would, I think you’d see a drop in attendees from both sets of fans. With a draw, you’re open to get anyone and I think that’s part of the charm of any cup competition. If you know that you’re playing the same three sides every February, it’s pretty boring and mundane after a year or two. 

I also see no point bringing back a competition in which hardly any clubs are actually from Manchester. I think that’s very much the Rugby League mindset of rehashing what we’ve already done before and saying it’s something new and exciting when in reality, it’s really not either of those things or something that many have an appetite for. A bunch of miserable looking Huddersfield players standing around at Tottenham being awarded their runners-up medals and a Yorkshire Cup winning medal is not really interesting. 

I’m not sold on a group stage for the Challenge Cup anyway. I understand that lower league clubs may think a big following from Leeds or Warrington might make for a great payday but conversely, Leeds and Warrington hosting Workington and Dewsbury, is likely not to be as financially lucrative as a second home game against a Salford or Wakefield, let alone a Wigan or Saints, so I think, like most things in RL, self-interest would come into play.