HAS there ever been a sport which chops and changes its structure more than Rugby League?
We’re awaiting the onset of the IMG era, which determines Super League membership through club grading rather than performances on the pitch – something we effectively had through licensing between 2009 and 2014 but which was then binned.
Now we’re told super eights, used in Super League and the Championship between 2015 and 2018, but then discarded, presumably because they weren’t working well enough, will return in the Championship and League One from next year.
We already have different play-off formats, with Super League and the Championship using one and League One another, and now we have got rid of promotion and relegation between Super League and the Championship but are keeping it between the bottom two divisions.
So it’s not good enough for the top flight but okay for the other two sections? Where is the thought process and consistency in that?
The use of the super-eights format is part of the process by which the RFL proposes to have three divisions of twelve by 2026 – and it takes a fair bit of mental agility to work out exactly how that will be done!
I’m presuming it will be twelve in Super League, but I’ve not seen it said specifically, and given the flexibility provided by the grading system, perhaps a new club (or clubs) will appear out of the ether and be parachuted straight in at the highest level.
Down in League One, we’re also going to need a new club in order to have 24 split between the bottom two sections, which are currently 14 and nine, down from eleven in 2022 after the collapse of West Wales Raiders and withdrawal from League One of London Skolars.
Before that Gloucestershire All Golds, Oxford and Hemel Stags disappeared from League One before the collapse of Toronto Wolfpack midway through the 2020 Super League ‘Covid’ campaign – and we have to keep in mind the ongoing financial effect of the pandemic on so many areas of life, including sport, which makes creating a new club, or upgrading an existing one, even more financially challenging.
And let’s not forget that Newcastle Thunder, who once had lofty ambitions of making Super League, diced with death after their relegation from the Championship last year, originally pulling out of the professional system before returning after the staging of a rescue act in the style of Bradford Northern and Hunslet all those years ago.
Fair play to those stalwarts up in the North East who have kept the Rugby League flag flying, but there looks to be long road ahead even to get back to the level they were at a few years ago.
And fair play to the people behind Cornwall, but in the current climate, can a club in such an outpost really succeed and do things differently to other ‘expansion’ sides who have come and gone?
I’ve seen various suggestions of where a new League One member might come from – a bit of a ‘stick a pin in a map’ exercise – and it’s also been said that a National Conference League side might want to step up.
That may be the case, but it’s a major project, and also a risky one.
One of my main questions is wherever the club concerned is based, where will the players come from?
I talk to a few, as well as some supporters, at Hunslet ARLFC, based not far from where I live, and the reigning NCL champions and one of the biggest clubs in the competition.
There’s no doubt there are plenty in the NCL capable of playing at semi-professional level, but given most have jobs and personal lives, they might not want or be able to give the extra time and commitment necessary.
Surely any new club coming into the senior ranks must bring something to the party, but how many are actually able to do that?
Should it be quality before quantity?