8's Restructure : Sun Sep 18, 2016 11:12 am  

Posted this on the Salford board so thought i would bring it onto here too. What do we all think of the current system? i think it needs a restructure. Here is what i suggested to a fellow poster :-

Yes. It needs a complete restructure. Fair play for them for introducing the 8s system but it is in its infancy and requires tweaking. Here is what i suggest :-

Bottom of Super League is automatic relegation and top of the Championship automatic Promotion then the remaining 3 bottom sides in Sl and top 3 sides in the championship then battle for a 6's rather than 8's.

The Super 8's i believe should have a point cull at the end of the regular season and would suggest this

1st - 10 points
2nd - 8 points
3rd - 6 points
4th - 4 points
then 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th all start on zero

The promotion/relegation issue is the biggest though. Leigh have been deprived of getting a better salary cap and signing better players for 3 years due to the unfair system. They have been expected to gain promotion with championship players. It is only this year where they have pushed the financial boundaries to sign SL standard players that they have achieved this. Say a team like Halifax finished top next year. We all know they won't make it through the 8s but if they were automatically promoted it would give them more revenue, more tv money, better salary cap restrictions and if they went down the following season they would have a better squad to challenge again and would be better for the experience. It is the only way forward.

Re: 8's Restructure : Sun Sep 18, 2016 1:04 pm  

Cherry_Warrior wrote:

Posted this on the Salford board so thought i would bring it onto here too. What do we all think of the current system? i think it needs a restructure. Here is what i suggested to a fellow poster :-

Yes. It needs a complete restructure. Fair play for them for introducing the 8s system but it is in its infancy and requires tweaking. Here is what i suggest :-

Bottom of Super League is automatic relegation and top of the Championship automatic Promotion then the remaining 3 bottom sides in Sl and top 3 sides in the championship then battle for a 6's rather than 8's.

The Super 8's i believe should have a point cull at the end of the regular season and would suggest this

1st - 10 points
2nd - 8 points
3rd - 6 points
4th - 4 points
then 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th all start on zero

The promotion/relegation issue is the biggest though. Leigh have been deprived of getting a better salary cap and signing better players for 3 years due to the unfair system. They have been expected to gain promotion with championship players. It is only this year where they have pushed the financial boundaries to sign SL standard players that they have achieved this. Say a team like Halifax finished top next year. We all know they won't make it through the 8s but if they were automatically promoted it would give them more revenue, more tv money, better salary cap restrictions and if they went down the following season they would have a better squad to challenge again and would be better for the experience. It is the only way forward.

Some good points there, but the salary cap is now the same for all divisions, it's income that is the restricting factor.

Re: 8's Restructure : Sun Sep 18, 2016 2:10 pm  

I've lost count of how many times the structure has changed in the 20 years of SL. We need to stick with something rather than keep changing, 2 years is not long enough to properly assess whether it works or not. For those reason ps I'd stick with what we've got. Whatever system we have some will agree, others won't, it's not possible to please everyone.

The biggest issue with what CW suggested is the bottom team in SL and the top team in the Championship would play 5 games less than everyone else meaning less revenue and their seasons finish in mid August.

As a sport I think we should be concentrating on raising the revenue streams to make the championship a fully professional division. I think this would rejuvenate the sport, the Championship clubs would be better equipped to compete in the middle 8's, more players would likely be noticed and picked up by SL clubs and probably most importantly players of any club relegated are not at risk of losing their jobs.

Re: 8's Restructure : Sun Sep 18, 2016 4:26 pm  

It is too early to tinker again. The new system is starting to work. Leigh getting promoted will shake things up in itself. It will increase belief in the Championship and League 1 that promotion to SL is possible. It will also increase competition in SL next year because teams will desperately want to avoid the Qualifiers knowing that there is a real possibility of relegation. That in itself will close the gap between top and bottom of SL. The top of SL has been the most competitive over the last two seasons as it has been for years and so that is starting to work. Last year's finish went to the wire and this year's finish might go the Wire.

Re: 8's Restructure : Sun Sep 18, 2016 4:51 pm  

nohalfbacks wrote:

It is too early to tinker again. The new system is starting to work. Leigh getting promoted will shake things up in itself. It will increase belief in the Championship and League 1 that promotion to SL is possible. It will also increase competition in SL next year because teams will desperately want to avoid the Qualifiers knowing that there is a real possibility of relegation. That in itself will close the gap between top and bottom of SL. The top of SL has been the most competitive over the last two seasons as it has been for years and so that is starting to work. Last year's finish went to the wire and this year's finish might go the Wire.

Don't know if you meant it but well done

Re: 8's Restructure : Sun Sep 18, 2016 5:00 pm  

Geoff wrote:

Some good points there, but the salary cap is now the same for all divisions, it's income that is the restricting factor.

In a nutshell....

Re: 8's Restructure : Sun Sep 18, 2016 6:48 pm  

For me, the Super 8s are too much hassle and nobody really knows where every team is up to.

In fact it reminds me of the 'League of Gentlemen' card game 'Go Johnny, go, go, go, go'.

It's no wonder crowds are down and people are losing interest.

Need to go back to 1 team promotion and
relegation, top 5 play offs and Challenge Cup back to May.

Another things I have a theory on is the following : due to football RL moved games from a Saturday 3pm kick off to Sunday 3pm kick off, with the arrival of SL we went to Friday's and Saturday nights and did well, however with Friday night football this season and football games not being on TV at the Sarurday 3pm slot why don't we move the majority of games back to Sat 3pm and televise them?

Re: 8's Restructure : Sun Sep 18, 2016 7:04 pm  

Cherry_Warrior wrote:

Don't know if you meant it but well done

Yes, pun intended. Well spotted!

Re: 8's Restructure : Sun Sep 18, 2016 7:43 pm  

We need to stay away from rewarding mediocrity, we've done it too much over the years! If a team is good enough to win sufficient league points walk away with 1st place after the weekly rounds then why should they be brought back to a 2 point advantage over their closest rivals? Why should a team who finish 8th be given a leg up into the Super 8's? They shouldn't!!
The simple truth is we are a rare breed sport that doesn't call the team who finishes first the champions. We won't move away from that unfortunately but it's what we're stuck with.
I may be old fashioned but I would go back to 1st is champs, last is relegated. The team coming up would be given 3 season exempt from relegation to give them time to establish themselves.

Re: 8's Restructure : Mon Sep 19, 2016 3:19 pm  

This is only the second year of the 8's for gawd's sake! leave it alone for a while to see how it works in the medium term.

One thing I would consider though, is changing the name "Minor Premiers" (or whatever they're called) to "Champions" because, imo, if you've finished top of the league after 27 rounds then that is what you are, regardless of how dire the games have been over the season.