Enough

[jammie]

it's about time clubs that are in super league are there on the grounds of being financially sound,and meet financial targets each season to secure SL status.the challenge cup semi between saints & hull kr prove the massive gulf between the two leagues.is anyone telling me hull kr will do a job in SL next season.I DON'T THINK SO.whats the point atracting investment to a club if you cannot spend it.tell chelsea they carn't spend abromovich's money.how about we start a super super league,and pull out all the top clubs,and stick two fingers up to all the old farts at the RFL.

[GeoffN]

jammie posted:
it's about time clubs that are in super league are there on the grounds of being financially sound,and meet financial targets each season to secure SL status.the challenge cup semi between saints & hull kr prove the massive gulf between the two leagues.is anyone telling me hull kr will do a job in SL next season.I DON'T THINK SO.whats the point atracting investment to a club if you cannot spend it.tell chelsea they carn't spend abromovich's money.how about we start a super super league,and pull out all the top clubs,and stick two fingers up to all the old farts at the RFL.

That would be a very small competition; only three SL clubs make a profit, and thus could be described as financially sound. I think people would soon get tired of seeing Wigan, Leeds and saints in a "tri-town" competition.
The whole franchising proposal is intended to do exactly that: by removing the need for panic spending to avoid relegation, clubs can concentrate on improving, knowing that improvement won't be wasted.

[thegimble]

GeoffN posted:

waterside glens posted:
it,s time our game had a level playing field before it becomes a laughing stock

That's the whole point of the cap! The rules have been applied to us exactly as they would have been for any other club.

Problem is we get 14,000 a game at the mo Saints get 8,000 why should we be spending the same as they do.

Surly we generate more so we should be allowed to spend more.

The cap is punishing the prosporus.

[jammie]

PANIC they will be happy when there is a big casualty falling out of SL .BUT THEY HAVE PICKED ON THE WRONG ONES THIS SEASON,we ain't going nowhere,all the plotting will have been for nothing.what happens if we do go down and they then stop promotion & relegation, is there no way back. hows that for a conspiricy thoery.

[GeoffN]

mickw posted:
so we play in a patently unfair league for three years for the sake of what four to five thousand french fans who are watching a merged team and has no roots.they don`t even play on the same ground every week.

Their attendances are on a par with the likes of salford, wakey, Hudds, and that's with virtually no visiting away fans, and in their first season.

im all for expansion if carried out in the right way,but not when the teams in the national leagues are slowly dying, we need to look closer to home before embarking on what has been tried and failed before.

But the likes of Wakefield & Leigh are slowly dying anyway. They've had over a hundred years to get their fan base up, modernise their ground and build a competitive side, and still haven't done it. It's fairer to say promotion & relegation has been tried and failed.

if hull kr come up will they be exempt aswell, then the tenth placed team will go down i think not.

Not yet, but after 2009 they will be exempt, because there won't be any relegation. Clubs will be given the chance to build sensibly without the fear of going straight back down.

We've been a minority Northern sport for a century or more, and that will never change if all we do is swap one small Northern club for another one every year.

[Susi]

I find it very annoying that Catalans are exempt. They have a very good team with a wealth of Aussie and New Zealand Players in. Why make them exempt.
They have other resources in there allowed quotas. We should all be in the dogfight together. I don't want to see us go down, not do I want to see an excuse made by the powers that be for a rescue.
I hope we can get back up by our own strengths, victory will be all the sweeter for it.
Should the worse happen, then I will still support them as we get back into the elite league again.
We can do this and stick two fingers up to those at Red Hall.

[chrisJJ]

Do you think Catalans would be deducted points if they spent too much?

[GeoffN]

chrisJJ posted:
Do you think Catalans would be deducted points if they spent too much?

No reason why not. They could be deducted all their points, it wouldn't make any difference...

[chrisJJ]

then why would they do it? it wouldn't be a punishment

[Fraggle]

mickw posted:
if the likes of leigh are already dying then to plough money in to french rugby which is already dead , is a great idea a few part time teams playing to barla standards is hardly a hot bed of rugby league. when the handouts and favours run out they will disappear in 2009 they`ll be out anyway!

I'm sorry Mick, I think you're very blinkered here and being rather insulting to French rugby league. The sport is very well established in France, it's got more than 70 years of history behind it. It *IS* a hotbed for the sport, far more so than many areas in this country where people insist need to have SL teams (eg. Cumbria). BARLA standard teams do not get through to the latter stages of the Challenge Cup, the top teams (excluding the Dragons) are at least NL1 standard as results have shown when the likes of UTC, Toulouse, Pia and Villeneuve have taken part these last few years. Are you sure you're not confusing matters with Russia, where club rugby is still at a pretty low standard? To suggest that French RL is "dead" is quite frankly ludicrous.

A question - have you been on any of the (so far few) away trips to Perpignan? I was there with Wigan in 2002, and I defy anyone who was there to say that the 8000 crowd who turned out to support their team were not enthusiastic. Yes, 8000 for a game UTC must have known they were going to lose badly, but still pulled in bigger crowds than Salford and almost as many as St Helens did this past weekend.

I'm afraid I have to completely disagree with your views on French rugby league, and will be very happy if Les Catalans can make a better impression on the league next year. Even so, with 7 victories under their belts they've hardly floundered this year, have been more successful than other teams who have been relegated in the past and as far as I'm concerned they more than deserve their place in the league.