Sportsman shudds. Tapped Moto 3.6% Mmm!

Licencing's inevitable. Having all these foreign teams makes no sense when they're playing part time players. Somebody - probably Dewsbury - are going to be traipsing off to Toulouse at a week's notice at the end of September.



Eagles are flying out 5 am on Bank Holiday Monday, afternoon catching up on a bit of sleep, play 8 pm, no flight back on Monday night, so a four hour bus ride to Milles to fly back Tuesday.



Why the RFL didn't take control and block-book some flights is beyond me. Toronto knew their first three games would be away and they're next three or four at home. The home away pattern for at least six of the seven rounds could have been set for these foreign games and some seats booked on planes. "Something we're considering for next year" apparently.



Or "we didn't think it through" is another way of putting it.

Typical RFL no foresight/planning thinking ahead make it up as we go along

Correct

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

It did not work last time and it won't work ever this is not American football and the USA with mega cities.

The system lends itself to decisions being made on personal preferences by a few behind closed doors and this can be corrupt.

Yeah but having a system where there are massive funding differences doesn't work either.



Top team in Div 2 gets £800k, bottom team gets ten bob. How does that fund a good, strong, even competition?



And, looking at the Eights, why is the focus on always on the middle eight ? Because there's not really all that much at stake in the other two eights. Cas and Toulouse already confirmed as leaders, most of the other places are pretty much settled. Just that fourth place in the $uperleague top four and the second relegation place from Div 2 are providing any interest at all for the next month.



Add to that the games are organised at ten minutes notice, folk are on holiday in August - crowds are poor. Twelves and Eights working? Not really.



It'll be even worse if the wrong teams get relegated. There'll be a huge pressure on the part-timers if we have Toronto, Toulouse and Catalan in Div 2 next year.

Agree with you Griff, where is our great game going to.How many more teams, who have virtually no away following due to the distance they have to travel going to be fast tracked at the expense of the heartland clubs. It's farcical.

That wasn't quite my point.



I don't mind having these teams in our competition. But I don't think it's practical to have them play part-timers. The York match last year, when they turned up with 12 players should've rung massive alarm bells.



Away support shouldn't be the issue. How many supporters travel from Hartlepool to Torquay ? Or Stranraer to Elgin ? Or Townsville to Melbourne ? Clubs need to develop their own home support. Away support should be a bonus.

At the risk of repeating myself, what's up with top goes up, bottom goes down? Sportsman, shudds. Mallinsons Centennial 3.9% Mmm!

The wrong teams going up or down.

Not an exhaustive review of the subject, the traditional reasonings / arguments were that any team promoted from the Championship would have little time to prepare for SL and would very likely be relegated the following season, hence the yo yo club term.



Also that there would be likely 2 or 3 teams both in SL and the Championship that could overspend in an attempt to either avoid the drop or to gain promotion, hence the boom or bust term.

Accepted, but it's got to be better/fairer than the present system. It just goes to show the massive gap that's been allowed to emerge since the SL era started.