Re: Fewer clubs in SL - what is the rationale? : Fri Feb 24, 2012 7:56 am  

TFC wrote:

I think Super League should grow not shrink. I would love to see a 16 team league, maybe 18 in the future.

The RFL should get some advice from the NRL, their expansion system seems much better than ours, read up on a lot of it the other day, interesting stuff. The RFL need to do away with their approach to unrealistic expansion (Build it and they will come, even if they have no money) and concentrate on growing Super League.

Logical, structured growth and not planting trees in the desert, WOW, this type of sensible talk will get you banned from RL Fans.
Fully agree with you

Re: Fewer clubs in SL - what is the rationale? : Fri Feb 24, 2012 8:17 am  

allstaruk wrote:

Heres my plan, there should be 13 teams with 26 rounds (magic weekend included with teams alternating each season so the same team isn't losing a home fixture every year).

2 things, 13 teams is 24 rounds


And once AGAIN, can you explain how an odd number of teams play an odd number of games?

Re: Fewer clubs in SL - what is the rationale? : Fri Feb 24, 2012 8:38 am  

haha oops i included playing yourself aswell, yeah i guess that messes up the whole magic weekend, if it was kept at 14 teams there would be one week less for the top 4 teams to prep for the world club challenge so the SL grand final will be on the same weekend as the NRL grand final.

Re: Fewer clubs in SL - what is the rationale? : Fri Feb 24, 2012 9:14 am  

allstaruk wrote:

haha oops i included playing yourself aswell, yeah i guess that messes up the whole magic weekend, if it was kept at 14 teams there would be one week less for the top 4 teams to prep for the world club challenge so the SL grand final will be on the same weekend as the NRL grand final.

I'll let you off , at least you haven't argued the case for several pages as some have in the past

Re: Fewer clubs in SL - what is the rationale? : Fri Feb 24, 2012 9:18 am  

The playing each other both home and away should be scraped, you could have 18 sides playing 24 domestic games.

Re: Fewer clubs in SL - what is the rationale? : Fri Feb 24, 2012 9:20 am  

Sheldon wrote:

The playing each other both home and away should be scraped, you could have 18 sides playing 24 domestic games.

Yes , but an odd number of teams requires an even number of games , that is the point being made

Re: Fewer clubs in SL - what is the rationale? : Fri Feb 24, 2012 9:39 am  

Reduce the quota to 2 and introduce a compulsory squad rotation system, thereby forcing all clubs to invest in the development of young, domestic players and crucially, to actually give them some meaningful game time. It would require more strategic thinking by coaches in terms of working out which players to play against which opposition, but I don't see that as a particular problem; it could even be argued that the number of blow-out scorelines would be reduced?

To go forward, we would first have to go back; in the short-medium term, it might result in a perceived drop in quality of some matches but in the longer term, should create more virtuous behaviour from clubs and improve the overall health of the whole sport, from grassroots to elite level.

At the moment, it's not helpful for a few representatives of the more fortunate clubs to be spouting about reducing the number of teams in the league; if we were having this conversation a few years ago, we'd be talking about cutting adrift Warrington and Huddersfield for example, both of whom could be argued to have added value to the sport at elite level - the former, without question.

In my view, the RFL should be working to a ten year plan that makes clear to all stakeholders what their intentions are and crucially, what the desired outcome will be - talk of cutting adrift several clubs without any steer from the governing body has a destabilising effect on the sport that we can ill afford; as someone else has mentioned, they'll be rubbing their hands together down at Twickers.

Re: Fewer clubs in SL - what is the rationale? : Fri Feb 24, 2012 9:49 am  

bren2k wrote:

Reduce the quota to 2 and introduce a compulsory squad rotation system, thereby forcing all clubs to invest in the development of young, domestic players and crucially, to actually give them some meaningful game time. It would require more strategic thinking by coaches in terms of working out which players to play against which opposition, but I don't see that as a particular problem; it could even be argued that the number of blow-out scorelines would be reduced?

To go forward, we would first have to go back; in the short-medium term, it might result in a perceived drop in quality of some matches but in the longer term, should create more virtuous behaviour from clubs and improve the overall health of the whole sport, from grassroots to elite level.

At the moment, it's not helpful for a few representatives of the more fortunate clubs to be spouting about reducing the number of teams in the league; if we were having this conversation a few years ago, we'd be talking about cutting adrift Warrington and Huddersfield for example, both of whom could be argued to have added value to the sport at elite level - the former, without question.

In my view, the RFL should be working to a ten year plan that makes clear to all stakeholders what their intentions are and crucially, what the desired outcome will be - talk of cutting adrift several clubs without any steer from the governing body has a destabilising effect on the sport that we can ill afford; as someone else has mentioned, they'll be rubbing their hands together down at Twickers.

An interesting ' term ' for clubs outside the ' Elite '

Re: Fewer clubs in SL - what is the rationale? : Fri Feb 24, 2012 9:51 am  

Haha we are all a bunch of dreamers when we want to be. I'm not sure we are ready for a conference system, nor are we ready for the idea of watching a merged team. We have a different culture in the UK whereas in the USA and Australia the people don't seem to care as much. I like the idea of a conference but there are too many problems. At the moment crowds are generally on the up, viewing figures are on the up and we are seeing a lot of young English lads breaking through. We don't need radical change at this time, I think Widnes' inclusion to Super League is great for the sport, hopefully Leigh and Halifax can put the hard work in over the next couple of years and get themselves ready for Super League. Dumping Toulouse or another Welsh team in SL is not the way forward.

One of the real problems is the Championship clubs though

[Mild Rover]

Re: Fewer clubs in SL - what is the rationale? : Fri Feb 24, 2012 9:56 am  

JB Down Under wrote:

The cap should match the SL grant, what is the difference at the moment?

Clubs should have 9 home SL games plus Mill magic. Create two conferences to help with away travel and generate more rivalary games. 7 teams in each conference. You play your conference home and away (12 games) and 7 games against the other conference + MM derby game givng a 20 game SL regular season.

That'd be a biggish cut to the cap, iirc. The SL grant is something like £1.1/£1.2m, I think.

9/10 home games just isn't enough. Clubs would be waving goodbye to something like £200-500k. You'd need a League Cup type comp to make up the fixtures.

I think conferences is a good idea, but only if we could get 2 of 8 (22 fixtures). Even then you're losing 2 home games. Conference champs would feel like a proper prize, rather than the hub-cap which is just the poor relation of the SL trophy.

I've not got a plan for raising more cash, but player burn-out could be limited by capping the number of SL rounds any player can be involved in to 20. Stop 'em playing busted, and mitigates the impact of injuries.
Only danger I can see, is weaker teams resting half a team against the strongest in games they don't feel they have much of a chance in.
Players might want fewer games, and that would allow it without fans missing out and revenue being lost.