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I heard a rumour that the prize money from this year will be cut so most teams budgets will be affected next season. That's going to have implications for any team that has contracts already in place. I do agree that a top 5 play off does give us a chance still and with Widnes coming down it should be an exciting battle for the top 5 places with as many as 8 teams in with a shout.

On the other hand, you were fourth this year. How did you view your prospects of going up and has that view changed ?

To be honest, I never saw the Qualifiers as four chances to go up. In fact, I'm surprised that there weren't fewer changes but you can't legislate for folk throwing money around one year and running out of it the next.

The reality is that we finished joint 2nd so we should have had a similar chance to Toulouse and London or at least a chance of winning the odd game but despite all the back slapping and patting we have not even come close to winning a game. That said I can't see us been in a better position under the new structure either.

Well, if the new structure had been in place this season, the fixtures would have panned out thus:

Eliminator: Fax - v Fev. How exciting would that have been? Fax win to play loser of ………..

Qualifier: London - v - Toulouse. London home advantage tells so we have next 2 games ………..

Qualifier: Toronto - v- London
Eliminator: Toulouse -v- Fax

Toronto through to Grand Final to play London who beat Toulouse (who beat Fax)
I'm going for home advantage in each case but you can see we've a far better chance of getting through (the match at Toulouse for example is like a cup match where we'd fight harder than our effort in the qualifiers).

Also, assuming the additional 2 championship teams are Bradford and York, then the 3 additional fixtures under the new structure would I guess have attracted:

Bradford - 3,500
York - 2,000
Fev (eliminator) - 3,000
Total - 8,500


Current structure:

Toronto - 1,800
Salford - 2,500
Leeds (estimated) - 4,000
Total - 8,300


So not much diference attendance wise, but a very possible route to the Grand Final under the new structure but not a cat in hells chance of beating SL teams under the current structure.

The reality is you're only there because of the Summer Bash pairings.

...in which we beat one of our top 6 adversaries, and so deserve the top 4 place ahead of Fev?

Sure - you can look at it in a number of ways but when one point covers five teams, the bounce of the ball or a bad refereeing decision makes a helluva difference.

Agreed, but why focus on that game? I could understand it if we had been chosen to play Rochdale for example, but given Featherstone are probably our closest comparison on and off the field, and we beat them, I think it's a moot point.

The 9 championship & League 1 clubs that voted for the sl proposal were-Leigh-Sheffield-Rochdale-Coventry-Doncaster-London Skolars-Oldham-Whitehaven-Workington

Source todays League Express

Not neccessarily a true,full and trusted source.