Fev - champs last year, not promoted
Fax - champs 2010, not promoted
Barrow - champs 2009, not promoted

Indeed, but the above are completely different scenarios whereby licences are granted to gain access to an elite league. I don't agree with it, promotion and relegation are important and the SL should not be an effectively closed shop.

The revamp of the Championship uses a different system when it comes to relegation/promotion from lower leagues, does it not?

Next season to follow my team i will have three trips to Cumbria,two trips to Wales,London and Gateshead plus our nearest rival will be almost sixty miles away at Rochdale. If we miss the boat and fail to gain promotion we face the possiblity of adding the likes of Northampton, Bristol, Oxford etc to the list, how can this be good for a semi pro team and its supporters to deal with. Who's going to be paying for overnight stops etc?

Word is not. To follow the "super league" analogy, the new clubs will need time to build before being able to be promoted and newly promoted clubs will need that time too - licencing would appear to be the way here too!

Promotion will be on the RFL's whim again?

How do you think the semi-professional teams in RU handle the distance? Supporters travel from Cornwall to Yorkshire at least four times a season. Doesn't that make it more interesting instead of playing your neighbours week in, week out? These are exactly the changes that need to be made if you wish to see RL progress and become much more wildly accepted. If you wish RL to remain a niche sport in Britain with no prospects then I understand the reluctance to change, keep in mind it will probably get worse as other sports gain in popularity.


Doesn't look that way to me, even if it does come to pass that is what all the supporters and clubs need to speak out against (licensing) rather than berate the expansion of the game.

So much for carbon footprints then eh?

Why play someone thirty miles away when you can play someone three hundred miles away?

I can understand where some of the CC1 clubs' fans are coming from when they air their concerns. Putting 4 new clubs in at once will lower the quality of the division in 2013 at least and likely for a few seasons afterwards. Putting aside club names and any historical ties (using them brings emotion into the argument and fogs it) at the end of next year out of the ten clubs the CC1 division will lose the clubs ranked 1st to 4th. Unless Northampton and the other 3 immediately hit the ground running at the same level of strength of those 4 clubs that were elevated to CC then the division will be weaker on the field. Motivation for fans of established clubs to travel long distances to away games will lessen if their team is likely to run up a cricket score as this is fun at first but quickly gets dull. Attendance at some games will likely fall.

However bringing in 4 at once rather than one at a time meams that the new clubs have a greater chance of succeeding rather than going the way of previous attempted expansion clubs and folding. Just like the teams ranked 5th to 10th in CC1 in 2012 that are "left behind", "cut adrift" (or whatever other emotive tool you choose to use)(that fail to take advantage of the two extra promotion spots than normal that are on offer is more accurate and less emotional) Northampton and the other 3 new clubs will need to attract and keep fans in order to survive. Having 4 come in at once means that even if they prove to be the four weakest clubs in the division in 2013 they will each have 6 games against the other new clubs that they can win. Having winnable games means that curious people who come along will be more likely to come back as in their eyes the team could succeed and reach the playoffs/top the division. If 1 at a time comes in and are weker than the rest they will lose almost all games and likely get some hammerings and potential fans will not return. Despite the percieved wisdom of a gradual increase in club numbers it could well leave us with a situation where each new club drops out after a season or two as they can't compete with anyone and can't attract fans and we are back to square one. We may end up with less than the four new clubs still going in five years time anyway but by introducing all 4 at once they at least will have something they can reasonably expect to compete for (even if it is only to be the best of the new boys and finish 7th) and for potential fans to hope and cheer for. They will then have a better chance of succeeding by attracting loyal fans and in time climbing the league ladder.

The weakening of standards argument has a slight parallel in SL where some people are calling for the dropping of two (or more) teams as we don't currently have enough SL quality players. They seem not to understand that without more than 12 teams to play for in SL we never will have enough to fill more teams as the extra players would have nowhere to develop or play at the right level so would be lost or would never fulfil their potential. With that situation as with the expansion of the semi pro leagues we will just have to endure the short term pain to get the long term gain.

If SL was reduced to ten teams then we wouldn't need to promote four from CC1 to the CC and wouldn't need to be messing around playing games in Ulan Bator.

There are plenty of teams in regional leagues at grass roots level if you want to support them.

If you want to compete at a higher level in a national league you may have to play teams other than the parish down the road.

If you aren’t up for it, step down to a regional level

Which is what most "flatcappers" do to the amusement of many on here.

Head smashed against wall