but where do you get the players to play nines?
Unless you use under 19s but that would have little interest
Not sure either at this stage the womens game creates much interest unless clubs create teams from Womens Secret models

The current set of top flight clubs are deckchairs on the Titanic. We've had 20 odd years since Framing the Future and the only real successes for the sport IMO have been the emergence of Catalans and the move to the summer. We're stuck with the same bunch of self interested chairmen resulting in a desperate chase for ever decreasing revenue as the insistence on the status quo creates a competiton with limited horizons and no appetite to create new interest either geographically or formatwise.

The sport needs to pay less attention to the attitudinal fossils that populate its fanbase today and more to the audiences of the future because pandering to the Fev is Fev, Cas is Cas attitudes has got us precisely nowhere.

No. First team players will be able to play as there will be no Super League for a month or so having a mid summer window. Multiple games at different venues to spread the revenue. Not exhibition stuff and have a bit of kudos for the winners.

Women's game is growing and is great to watch. Play these games alongside men's games.
Probably a rubbish idea but as The Stranglers said "Something better change."

Have we failed or are we failing though? RL going nowhere since 1995 or even 1895 could be called a lack of progress or it could be seen as a thing enduring - often in the face of adversity. Something that has generally managed to stay true to itself in its own wonderful, shambolic way. We could add sugar and fizz for the kids but in 10 or 20 years, when they maybe have kids of their own, will they wish we hadn’t?

I’m open to change - we can all project our hopes for better onto it. But we have to have specific goals in mind and plausible routes to achieving them. I’ve yet to see anybody put any ideas forward that seem remotely game changing to me (except perhaps reintegrating with the RFU, which’d be literally game changing). ‘This is cack’ is the easy bit to say and support - put forward any alternative and you’ll be inundated with reasons why that is cack too, many of them valid. There’s no silver bullet but as long as people want to play and others want to watch them, there’ll be a game.

I'm worried about a merger, I don't think it solves issues but creates new ones.

On a positive side in theory it means a bigger club that could attract more sponsors, fans and have a stronger youth system.

But I suspect a lot of fans won't get on board with the idea, and two new 'successor' clubs would be formed at amateur level.

Given our issues at the MKM the team would play at Craven Park, which even putting aside my black & white tinted glasses isn't an easy place to travel to. Even if fans give it a go travelling from say Anlaby/Swanland/Willerby to East Hull will soon get unattractive on Thursday and Friday night through our 'cycle friendly' city centre! And good luck finding a bus without loads of changes.

It would also erase all the history and songs. No old clips of cup wins for the social media teams to post, no Old Faithful or Red Red Robin. Even 'come on you 'Ull' is seen as our song and wouldn't be sung.

I don't think a merger would ever be on the cards. But perhaps a joint stadium would be more feasible

You're right, it depends on the definition of success. But when Framing the future was written I doubt having a top flight populated with M62 clubs some of which still have gates of 3k and big cuts in Sky funding was a target. The game has contracted since then geographically IMO - no Cumbria or London in the top flight for example and revenues in a downward spiral. The choice is to continue to contract with the comfort blanket that part time/semi amateur preserves sentiment and tradition, or push the boundaries - loads of options here - The Hundred type iseas,.mergers and geographic expansion, ruthless future focus centred on ideas that the under 30s find appealing. Pandering to dinosaurs of my age group who are club centric will sustain the sport at a diminishing level of quality and resource for a period of time and as you imply, we should maybe be satisfied with that. But we're so accustomed to insular thinking, preserving our tiny corridor of familiar and deriving comfort from internal fights and division we are hamstrung in imagining a better future for the sport itself. Bit like the UK tbh.

The only benefit of a merger for me is saving a few hundred quid on a season pass and merchandise.

Aye, no plan survives contact with the next quarter century.

But I take your points. Let’s try to imagine something better. What is worth preserving and what do we want that is different? What, fundamentally, is pro rugby league? A game played by professional athletes in front of paying spectators - yep. But also a part of the communities that sustain it and that it represents, imo.

Being both selfless in terms of setting aside club-centricity and ruthless in terms of thinking about what could actually work, what would you make your top priorities (and by extension what are we willing to sacrifice or at least compromise on) and what would be your major approaches to achieving them?

I shall have a think on mine too.

And a few hundred quit a year for Sky Sports. That would go for me.