www.guardian.co.uk/sport/david-conn-ins ... pe=article Crowds up, debt growing at some clubs. Glass half full or half empty?

www.guardian.co.uk/sport/david-conn-ins ... pe=article Crowds up, debt growing at some clubs. Glass half full or half empty?

No irony intended in that article, I'm sure, but:

"Rugby League is totally frustrated that the only thing anyone in the press wants to talk about is the Bradford debacle. So now that's what I'm going to talk about as well ..."

Personally, I think this is just the start of Nigel Wood's counter-attack, which, not surprisingly, is too little too late.

Not surprising, but still very, very disappointing stuff from Wood, it completely fails to grasp the scale of the failure of the game's current structures and management.

Superleague and the game could be so much better if it stopped pandering to the small clubs and trying to keep everyone happy.

Changes that need to be made-

Superleague should consist of 12 clubs

The play offs should consist of 6 teams

The Challenge cup Final should be brought forward to mid June with the rounds being around 3-4 weeks apart

We should bring back a GB vs Australia Ashes series ever 4 years

Promotion and relegation brought back? That's the only one I'm unsure of. Maybe the bottom placed club should go down each year but the team that wins the championship grand final would need to meet certain criteria to come up or else the next best ranked club would get in.

Agree with all that bar the last bit.

The different salary caps between SL and Championship mean the teams who get promoted won't be able to sustain a place in SL or have time to build a team worthy of a challenge. I think all of those teams are part-time now and would have to change.

Going full-time and spending more money than they could handle trying to stay in SL would kill most Champ clubs.

Agree with the above and like you say the promoted Championship club would struggle to attract high calibre players unless they offered equivalent salaries to existing SL clubs once promoted. They would then find it hard to gel and be competitive in a single season (like Widnes are in their first season) this would lead to them being relegated after 1 season but unfortunately still have lots of players on their rosta on SL wages. It would kill the club financially. Perhaps the only way of having promotion on merit would be that the championship club that comes up (as long as they meet certain criteria) are exempt from relegation in their first season and maybe also their second. so it would still mean that the lowest placed club in the league apart from the exempt newly promoted Championship club would get relegated.

Agree with these with exception dropping it 10 teams instead.

IMO the teams should be

Catalans
Hudds
Ull FC
Leeds
London (I think a club in London is needed)
Stains
Warrington
Wigan

with two from Bradford (would have put them in if it wasn't for the recent money troubles), Salford (new ground well ran), Widnes (seems to be well run good stadium).

I'd drop Wakey, Cas and HKR.

If the number of SL teams are reduced then the number of teams in the playoffs should also be reduced. I am tired of our playoff systems rewarding mediocrity, even if the overall quality of the league is better by omitting the poorer teams. For a 10-14 team league I think the maximum number of playoff spots should be 5.

Personally I like the idea of having an upper and lower Superleague (SL1 and SL2) whereby franchise licences will be awarded to 22-24 sides who are then allocated in to the appropriate division (say 10-12 in SL1, 12-14 in SL2). You would then have promotion and relegation between the two SLs only.

Agree with that. Given that Leeds proved last year that form during the first part of the season is a meaningless predictor of GF success, it would be great to see the CC being the focus of the first 4 months of the season.

The play-off system really does need to be changed.

I wan't to see all clubs going all out, all season.

There's a sense of holding back during the SL regular rounds, bar when the top sides play each other.

Lets have good people in the right positions at the RFL, I am like most people when they say it is vital to pay the correct salaries to people with the correct skills.

Mcmanus and now the Hull FC Chairman has eluded to the missed marketing opportunities for the game and it is high time this is rectified amongst the many other issues

Yeah that's the issue and is the reason I'm unsure on trying to bring back a promotion/relegation system.

It would add a lot to the game and both leagues but you only need to look at Widnes to see that even with time to plan it's still a very tough ask to get a really competitive side together.