christopher wrote:
The middle 8s might seem a good idea on the surface as it creates 'excitement' but what it also creates is uncertainty for 4 Superleague clubs which in turn means they can't plan for the following year which hinders sponsorship and season ticket sales, we as a sport simply cannot afford to have all the uncertainty for1/3rd of the top tier clubs half way through the season.
Do you think its good that teams are now throwing cash at over rated Aussies in the hope of keeping up ? and we wonder why we don't produce a load of good youngsters, if clubs know they can plan properly after having a bad season it means they are not forced to throw money they don't have at players they don't need. It's just a race to the bottom, the excitement should be at the top of the league not the bottom.
Lets say Either Leeds or Warrington last year got relegated for finishing 9th because they had a bad year, yes it will give some fans a good 'laugh' but it would be a disaster for the Superleague.
Why would it be a disaster for Super League? Some on here are saying that having Toronto in SL will be a great benefit, and why would swapping places with Leeds (given they could be in the bottom 4 come the end of the season) be so bad for SL? If Leeds, or any other current SL team, get relegated then that will be because they have failed to perform better than a current Championship team in the M8's.
In terms of clubs throwing money at players in desperation, surely that's a relatively simple one to fix? Stop clubs from signing new players at an appropriate point in the season.
Regarding excitement, don't we want this at both the top and bottom of each league? The way it's panned out this year means that there's more interest in the bottom of SL and top of the Championship due to the number of clubs still involved, whereas the top 4 of SL is already pretty much decided. It's not talked about much, but the bottom of the Championship is tight as well, with realistically 4 teams playing for the two survival slots. Next season could be completely different.
Without P&R, the vast majority of teams would now be playing out dead rubbers. With P&R, we have around 15 teams still with very much to play for.
With a closed shop for SL, look at the table now and try and see where there's any excitement through the last few games of the season? Just a period of waiting for the top 4 teams for the playoffs to start, and meaningless games for the rest (other than potentially Hull, but overhauling Cas is pretty unlikely).
HOW MANY TIMES?????
