Gledders does mention IMG, and their involvement has now been officially announced.

Also mentioned was Sky’s dislike of arbitrary loop fixtures and of the Middle 8s. But it is hard to see how things would work without one or the other.

Two tiers of ten all of which play their nine immediate rivals once home, once away leads to just 18 games for each - too few in a season for financial sustainability.

But what if:

The TOP six in SL1 then have a home & away further round robin (previous points carried over) - making it 28 games,

The same happens with the BOTTOM six in SL2,

The other two sets of four teams play their own separate robins - taking them to 24 games apiece. The bottom two in SL1 and the top two in SL2 then h&a robin again (30 games) - top two are in the following season’s SL1.

AB Sundecks (or not) 1895 Cup reimagined for lower teams or whatever.

Discuss.

You lost me at "but what if".

It’s difficult to know how much truth there is in this with micks occasional use of hyperbole in his journalism , however there is a scenario where one of the more traditional clubs like a Bradford, Halifax and Widnes could get dragged into the non funded 3rd division which is slightly worrying.

The simplest way to handle 2x10s is to play each time three times. 27 games + Magic for a 28 game regular season, which is the same as it is now.

I know it makes the fixtures very slightly unbalanced with the fact that some clubs would have 14 home games and some would have 13. You could level that out over a two-year cycle.

Every other option I've seen is as complicated as Bongsters 'solution' (above) or even more so.

I'm agnostic over the tow 10s idea. All I would plead is that they set some proper minimum standards. If we are going with 20 'elite' clubs then make sure they are at least somewhat elite - stadium standards, requirement to have reserves and academy, minimum squad spend, and so on.

Basically it would be the current SL with the addition of Featherstone, Leigh. Halifax, Newcastle, Widnes, London, Sheffield, Batley, Barrow and ourselves. Something like that anyway- there'll be others who think they should be in, of course.

I assume the rest would be cast adrift...

Evening Paul, hope you are well. It has for years been a bugbear here that there isn't symmetry in the RL system. The most popular sport in this country and many others is Association Football. In the PL everybody plays everybody else once at home and once away and the team finishing top are the undisputed champions - no pi$hing about with Grand Finals and the like.

Yes, "The Bongs Option" borrows something from the SPL because of the sparsity of teams at a roughly competitive level.

Bongser accepts that Magic & Bash are popular for social reasons but they shouldn't be allowed to skew the symmetry. Whilst if League points were not on offer, yes clubs would field second strings, the events should be played for the celebration and for charity.

Maybe it's just a UK thing. The NRL fixtures are anything but symmetrical and their comp is doing just fine...

i'd run it as S1 and S2 for a few years let the gap between the old champ and SL teams lessen then let rip with a 20 team league, with current Grand final / Play off structure at the end of the year, Bottom team relegated top from new League 2 up.

What about the clubs that don't make the 20? Where do they go?

Nobody knows but I reckon they'll be cut adrift. Scandalous really. People talk about a reduction to two divisions of 10 like it's fair enough but it's just downsizing and doesn't solve any of the fundamental issues. At this rate in a decade or so it'll be just Saints, Wigan and Leeds playing each other forever.

I hope this new deal brings some much needed expertise to revitalise the game as a whole.

Our sport likes a spot of self-fulfilling contraction. I still feel angry god knows how many years later about the way the game told Nottingham and someone else to bugger off as they wanted a smaller division. I completely and utterly oppose that idea. What about the likes of Cornwall. Invited into the fold one minute, but surely destined to be kicked out after 2 minutes. Even as an expansionist at heart I think they are a very silly club indeed, but they don't deserve that. None of the people trying their best in the bottom half of L1 deserve to be unceremoniously ended.