Milestones
Rugby League players in general, and Fev players in particular make a
huge contribution to the quality of our lives.
It is, therefore, only right that we should celebrate their
achievements. That is why fevnut keeps up to date with the career and Fev stats
for our players and tries to inform our fans when milestones are approaching so
that we can properly congratulate the players.
At Batley on Sunday two significant milestones could be achieved.
If James Lockwood plays then it will be his 200th game for
Fev. That’s a huge achievement bearing in mind the turnover of players at each
club in recent years. James has stayed loyal to Rovers and has made a huge
contribution to our club.
When Craig Hall scores his next try (and let’s hope it is on Sunday) it
will be the 200th of his career. Whenever a player with years of
Super League experience joins a part-time club in the later stages of his
career, it is only natural to have some doubts on how strong his commitment will
be.
Any such doubts relating to Craig were soon shown to be completely wrong
and we look forward to Craig scoring his 200th try and to
celebrating it with him.
There is also a Batley player who could reach the milestone of his 250th
career appearance on Sunday. It is local lad, Dale Morton (born in Pontefract)
who has spent his whole career in West Yorkshire. He started at Wakefield, moved
on to Dewsbury and joined Batley in 2020.
Toulouse
When you passionately support a team it is only natural that you see
them through rose-tinted glasses. But there seem to be a lot of our fans who look
through navy blue tinted glasses and it is very difficult to see anything at
all through them!
We were amazed last week when people started putting up predictions for
the score against Toulouse. They were wildly optimistic and no doubt led by the
fact that both teams were going into the game with a 100% record in the league.
All the indicators pointed it to it being very tough to beat them. If
you look through the 2021 stats you will find that Toulouse average more tries
and more points per game than Fev and very significantly fewer tries and points
conceded per game.
Of course fevnut came away from the game very disappointed but probably
not as disappointed as the people who were predicting that Fev would win by 30
or more points.
Let’s learn the lessons, get our heads down and fight for the
opportunity to play and beat them in the Grand Final!
World Cup
The Aussies are a disgrace and we are thoroughly disappointed that it
has been decided to postpone the World Cup until 2022. It’s disastrous and
especially when it will be competing against a soccer World Cup.
Aussie teams and sportspeople have been competing all over the world in
2021 so we simply don’t believe it when they say it is because of the pandemic.
If they really don’t want to be involved in international competition
that is a shame, but the International Rugby League board should get on with
their job of organising international matches and competitions without them.
It is completely wrong to allow one or two countries, however strong
they may be, to treat the rest of the rugby league playing world like this.
If we were in charge we would have gone ahead with the 2021 World Cup
and invited the USA and Serbia to participate and we would have barred
Australia and New Zealand from taking part in the next World Cup, too.
Structure
We all know that Rugby League is going through a very difficult time.
The promised land of the SKY money and Super League has come to nowt and indeed
there are many indicators that the sport has gone backwards since 1996.
There have been a host of attempts to tinker with the structure of
professional and semi-professional competitions and each bit of tinkering has been
discarded as it failed.
Now we have the proposal to increase Super League to 14 clubs next year
and then reduce it to 10 the year after with the suggestion that the second
tier become Super League 2. That seems to us to be the craziest bit of
tinkering yet.
What is the point of making Super League bigger next year and then
making it the smallest it has ever been the year after? What do they think that
changing the name of Tier 2 is going to achieve?
We have long thought that tinkering will get us nowhere and that it is
time for some really radical thinking.
We need to face the fact that promotion and relegation between a
full-time league and a part-time league is fraught with dangers and yet closing
the door to all but a small handful of clubs is also unsustainable.
There are other models that could work well for rugby league and we have
thought that something akin to the conference system used by several USA sports
might provide a good way forward for rugby league.
Now, Martyn Sadler (editor of League Express) has come up with an idea
which is based on a conference system. We certainly don’t agree with everything
he says but we do think that it is a good starting point for a thorough
discussion of the way forward.
So, let’s have that 14 team Super League next year but make it the end
of Super League.
With no World Cup to worry about, rugby league’s administrators should concentrate
fully on producing a future structure for the sport involving clubs,
broadcasters, players and fans with a view to finalising decisions for 2023 by
next February.
Because we think that Martyn’s proposals make a good starting point we
re-produce it below and urge all rugby league fans to read it from beginning to
end.
MARTYN SADLER'S PROPOSALS
Discussions are ongoing between the RFL
and Super League clubs about a realignment of the elite competition with the
clubs currently in the Championship and League 1.
The object of such talks should surely
be to remove barriers between the clubs and to create a competitive structure
that gives all clubs an incentive to move forward together without placing them
under undue financial risk.
A key aim should be to remove the
divisions in the game between clubs at different levels that appear to have
grown in recent years.
It would be easy for the Super League
clubs to respond to this situation by offering to make cosmetic changes that
would have little impact on those divisions, while failing to halt the downward
spiral of broadcasting income that we’ll see from 2022.
So it may be that far more fundamental
changes are required, which is the position I take in this paper.
In setting out this rationale, it is
useful to look back briefly at the history of Super League and the relative
lack of progress made over a 25-year period since its inauguration.
The Super League competition was
launched in 1996 with twelve clubs.
It expanded to 14 clubs in 1999 with
the admission of Gateshead Thunder and Wakefield Trinity, but it reverted to
twelve clubs in 2000 with the mergers of Huddersfield and Sheffield, and Hull
FC and Gateshead respectively.
It expanded again to 14 clubs at the
beginning of licensing in 2009, but it was reduced again to twelve clubs from
2015, after licensing had ended.
At various times there have been promotion
and relegation to and from Super League and there have been periods, especially
during the six years of licensing, when there was no conventional promotion and
relegation.
From 2015 we had the Super 8s, which
lasted for four seasons, but which was abandoned from the 2019 season after the
Super League clubs broke away from the RFL, with the structure reverting to a
more conventional promotion and relegation format, with one team promoted from
the Championship and one relegated from Super League, although the Covid
pandemic intervened in 2020, with Toronto Wolfpack, the promoted club in 2019,
leaving the competition.
The constant changes in format
contributed to the fact that the broadcasting income generated from Sky Sports,
which had been running at around £40 million per year, will be reduced to
around £25 million per year from the 2022 season.
Although there may also be factors
contributing to this decline that are closely related to the changing nature of
the broadcasting environment, it would be hard not to conclude that Rugby
League has so far failed to find a competitive structure that helps the sport
to thrive and that is attractive to broadcasters in the long term.
Part of the problem is that too few
teams enjoy success, with only four clubs having won the Super League title in
25 years. It would be hard not to conclude that the current competitive
structure mitigates against there being a wider range of successful clubs.
At the other end of the Super League
table, clubs that have been relegated from the competition have often struggled
to survive unless they have been able to return to Super League after spending
just one season in the Championship.
Those that weren’t able to do that have
taken massive financial hits, with several clubs having a history of going into
administration, or even liquidation, after being relegated from the elite
competition.
Putting clubs in financial danger
weakens Rugby League at all levels. It would therefore be sensible to create a
structure that, if possible, doesn’t expose clubs to that risk.
This paper represents my attempt to
achieve that objective, reducing the financial risks to the clubs of rising or
falling within the Rugby League hierarchy, while creating a competitive
structure that is more attuned to spreading success among more clubs.
The Rationale
I have created a structure that allows
for 25 regular season league fixtures that are derived from six Conferences,
which themselves are based on broadly geographical criteria.
The Conferences would be as follows,
with the teams listed in the order of their positions in the current league
tables (as at Wednesday 4th August
2021) for each proposed Conference.
Conference 1 (Western Conference)
St Helens
Warrington Wolves
Whitehaven
Widnes Vikings
Barrow Raiders
Workington Town
Conference 2 (Greater Manchester
Conference)
Wigan Warriors
Salford Red Devils
Leigh Centurions
Oldham
Swinton Lions
Rochdale Hornets
Conference 3 (Pennine Conference)
Huddersfield Giants
Halifax Panthers
Batley Bulldogs
Bradford Bulls
Dewsbury Rams
Keighley Cougars
Conference 4 (North East Conference)
Leeds Rhinos
Castleford Tigers
Wakefield Trinity
Featherstone Rovers
Newcastle Thunder
Hunslet
Conference 5 (Eastern Conference)
Hull FC
Hull Kingston Rovers
Sheffield Eagles
York City Knights
Doncaster
Coventry Bears
Conference 6 (Three Nations Conference)
Catalans Dragons
Toulouse Olympique
London Broncos
North Wales Crusaders
London Skolars
West Wales Raiders
League Structure
Under this structure each team will
play 25 league fixtures as follows, before play-offs to determine the Grand
Finalists.
Five matches at home and five away
against each of the other teams in its Conference, giving ten matches in total.
Another 15 matches as follows:
To create fixtures, in each Conference
the teams will be ranked one to six in the order in which they finished the
previous season.
Team 1 in each Conference will play one match against Teams 1, 2 and 3 in each of the other
five Conferences.
Team 2 in each Conference will play one match against Teams 1, 2 and 4 in each of the other
five Conferences.
Team 3 in each Conference will play one match against Teams 1, 3 and 5 in each of the other
five Conferences.
Team 4 in each Conference will play one match against Teams 2, 4 and 6 in each of the other
five Conferences.
Team 5 in each Conference will play one match against Teams 3, 5 and 6 in each of the other
five Conferences.
Team 6 in each Conference will play one match against Teams 4, 5 and 6 in each of the other
five Conferences.
This structure means that when clubs
play opponents from the other Conferences, they are likely more often than not
to be matched reasonably evenly.
Magic Weekend
Given that there will be 25 fixtures in
total, one fixture for each club could be played in a Magic Weekend format.
League Tables
The league tables will be
presented separately for each Conference
throughout the season.
Trophies
The team at the top of the table for
each Conference at the end of the regular season would be deemed the respective
Conference Champions and would be presented with a Championship trophy before
the start of the play-offs.
That means there would be six trophies
presented at that point in the season leading into the play-offs.
Play-offs
The play-offs would last for five weeks
and would be contested by ten teams, selected as follows:
Six teams will comprise the respective
Conference Champions.
Four teams will be selected from across
all the Conferences, and they will be the four teams other
than the Conference Champions with the best playing records for the season,
meaning that any one Conference could supply one or more of those four
additional teams.
Looking at the current league tables,
and assuming that they finished in that order, the Conference winners would be
Catalans Dragons, St Helens, Hull FC, Wigan Warriors, Leeds Rhinos and
Huddersfield Giants.
The four teams not in that list, but
with the best playing records, in order, are Warrington Wolves, Hull Kingston
Rovers, Castleford Tigers and Salford Red Devils.
Those four teams would play a ‘Wild Card’ round in the first week of the
play-offs, with the six Conference Champions having a free weekend.
The Wild Card format would be 1 v 4 and
2 v 3, so that if current league positions applied, it would be Warrington
Wolves v Salford Red Devils and Hull Kingston Rovers v Castleford Tigers.
The second week of the play-offs would
see elimination games between the two Conference Champions that effectively the
fifth and sixth best performing sides fronting the two Wild Card winners. So,
Team 5 would play the winner of the Wild Card game between teams 2 and 3, and
Team 6 would play the winner of the Wild Card game between teams 1 and 4.
So on current standings, those games
would be: Leeds Rhinos v Hull Kingston Rovers or Castleford Tigers, and
Huddersfield Giants v Warrington Wolves or Salford Red Devils.
The top four Conference Champions would
play each other in the form 1 v 4 and 2 v 3, but these matches would not be
elimination games. The winners would have a week off in week 3, while the
losers would face the winners of the two elimination games from the previous
week.
In week 4 we would be down to the last
four clubs, while week 5 would be the Grand Final weekend.
Financial Distribution
The distribution of funding to the
club, especially when the central funding is declining, is always going to be a
difficult issue.
But if we assume that the amount
available for distribution next year would be £24 million in total, then that
would become £4 million to the six clubs in each Conference.
The RFL, in consultation with the
clubs, should determine how those funds will be distributed.
I would suggest that the funds in each
Conference should be allocated in accordance with finishing positions in the
previous season, adjusted to reflect key performance indicators, such as the
operation of Reserves, Academy and so on.
If the distribution were to be
allocated in accordance with finishing positions in the previous season, the
following is just one potential example:
Team 1: £1.28 million (32%)
Team 2: £1.04 million (26%)
Team 3: £800,000 (20%)
Team 4: £560,000 (14%)
Team 5: £320,000 (8%)
Team 6: £80,000 (2%).
In this case, each rise of one position
in the table would be worth £240,000 and the distribution would give each club
a major incentive to climb its own Conference table, but doesn’t put pressure
on it to overspend in order to attain an old-fashioned promotion.
But I would emphasise that this
distribution model is potentially just one of many.
And it will also evolve over time,
hopefully with all clubs seeing their distribution rise as income from
sponsorship and broadcasting rose.
Objections
What objections could be mounted to
this proposal?
1.
The change is too radical, to which I
would reply that our record as a sport over the last 25 years shows that
radical change is needed. I believe that the proposal to have just ten teams in
Super League is merely doubling down on a failed strategy.
2.
It dilutes the elite competition. In
fact the cross-Conference games in this structure would still ensure that all
the leading clubs played each other with big matches suitable for broadcasters
able to be scheduled every week.
3.
There could be too many one-sided games
within the Conferences. In Rugby League there will always be one-sided matches,
as we saw recently in Super League when Salford put 70 points on Castleford and
as we have seen in the NRL this season. In the short term, some one-sided
scorelines would happen, but in the longer term I would hope that all the
Conferences would be able to level up to a significant degree. And it’s also
worth pointing out at this stage that the RFL’s proposal incorporates a
Conference style pool structure for the early rounds of the Challenge Cup,
which would be subject to the same potential criticism.
4.
The six Conferences wouldn’t be of an
equal standard. Some Conferences have one, some have two and some have three
current Super League clubs. That may be so in the short term, but in the longer
term the strength of each Conference would rise and fall. In the NFL, for
example, the weakest Conference in 2020/21 was the NFC East, with the former
powerhouses of Washington, Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants and Philadelphia
Eagles all having losing seasons, despite their previous record of success.
5.
There isn’t enough money to go round to
all the clubs via a central distribution to ensure that all clubs are viable.
This is certainly an issue, but it is one that the RFL and Super League have to
come to terms with. The financial distribution of broadcasting and sponsorship
income is a problem under any structure that we might put forward.
6.
The fans and the general public
wouldn’t understand the competition format. But I find this unlikely, given
that Conference formats are common in American sports, which many sports fans,
including Rugby League supporters, are fully aware of, and, for example, in
rugby union’s European Cup competition.
Short-term Advantages
1.
A move to Conferences would take us
away from unsustainable promotion and relegation models.
2.
It would be a model similar to
successful models elsewhere, particularly in the USA, such as the NFL, NBA,
MLB, NHL and MLS. It’s interesting to note that Major League Soccer began in
1996, the same year as Super League, but its original ten teams has since
expanded to 27 teams in 2021 with 30 teams set to compete in 2023.
3.
Ambitious clubs would be able to rise
up their Conference rankings without gambling on whether they could win
promotion in a competition with a conventional format.
4.
An increase in derby matches within
Conferences would help reinforce attendances and generate income, particularly
for the clubs that currently lie in the Championship and League 1.
5.
The Conferences themselves could
potentially have six different naming sponsors, while the competition as a
whole could have a major sponsor, as it has now.
6.
This structure gives the potential for
shock results from time to time, which would generate interest and enthusiasm
from supporters.
Long-term Advantages
1.
All 36 clubs currently playing in Super
League, the Championship and League 1 would be brought together in one major
competition. There would be unity, rather than division.
2.
More clubs would win trophies and the
Conferences would generate keen rivalries within them.
3.
Ambitious clubs and club owners can see
a clear pathway to enjoying major success if they can rise up the Conference
ladders.
4.
For that reason, it would be easier to
attract investment into clubs at all levels of the game.
5.
The RFL’s marketing and commercial team
would be selling the game as a whole, making it much more attractive
commercially, not one part of it, as is currently happening.
6.
Potential new clubs could seek to
replace any failing clubs within this structure, either by buying and
relocating them, or by replacing them. The RFL could even create a system
whereby the bottom club in each Conference had to apply for re-election, with
its merits weighed against any new clubs that were seeking to enter the
competition.
7.
The structure is extremely flexible in
terms of the number of fixtures to be scheduled. For example, if the RFL wanted
to reduce the fixture list in a World Cup year, or in any other year to create space
for international matches, it could reduce the number of regular-season
fixtures to 22 matches by having teams in each Conference play against teams
from only four other Conferences, rather than all five.
8.
There has been a debate for many years
about Cumbria having no presence in Super League. This structure would bring
the Cumbrian clubs, along with all the other clubs, back into the mainstream in
their Conference.
The Challenge Cup and 1895 Cup
We clearly would want to retain the
Challenge Cup within whatever structure we propose. And I would suggest that we
should also retain the 1895 Cup with its final played at Wembley, as we saw
this year when Featherstone defeated York in a game that was a great
advertisement for that competition.
But how would they fit into this
competitive structure?
Inevitably there are various potential
alternatives, but I would suggest the following.
The first five rounds of the season
should consist of intra-Conference matches only and the six clubs at the top of the respective Conferences after
those five rounds should take part in the Challenge Cup quarter-finals
alongside the two other clubs with the best records throughout all six
Conferences.
The Challenge Cup should then be played
from the last eight onwards on a conventional knockout basis.
The 1895 Cup should also begin with
eight clubs, playing on the same weekend as the last eight of the Challenge
Cup.
The clubs taking part in the 1895 Cup
should be the best performing clubs in the opening five weeks of the season who
were classed as teams 4, 5 and 6 in each Conference at the end of the previous
season. That would retain the concept of the 1895 Cup being aimed at clubs that
at this stage of their development were unlikely to get to the Challenge Cup
Final, but which could nonetheless still appear at Wembley to boost their
support.
Conclusion
The RFL appears to be favouring a
system that would see only ten clubs in Super League from 2023 onwards, with
ten more in a second tier and 16 in a third tier.
In my view an elite competition with
only ten clubs in it is a recipe for failure and is unlikely to generate great
enthusiasm, particularly among the clubs that are excluded from the proposed
Super League of ten clubs.
And even the supporters of the clubs
that are included would tend to get bored with playing against the same
opponents all the time.
The structure I’m proposing, on the
other hand, will bring all the game together under one umbrella, while
retaining the idea of elite clubs playing against each other, while other clubs
had fixtures against teams broadly at their level.
It will remove the financial pressures
placed on clubs by a conventional promotion and relegation system.
And it is a format that will make it
easier to encourage new investment into the game.
Finally, I would point out that I have
been around Rugby League for more years than I care to remember. I have seen
numerous competitive structures that have come and gone, most of them
unlamented, and I think I understand the weaknesses I have witnessed over that
time.
I have also studied the competitive
structure of other major sports that enjoy considerable success and I’ve
identified what makes them successful.
Unfortunately too many people in
British Rugby League look no farther than association football, applying its
hierarchical league structure with promotion and relegation, but not
recognising the shortcomings of that system when applied to Rugby League.
At the present moment it’s hard to deny
that Rugby League is facing a time of crisis. And at times of crisis it is
always better to bring everyone together rather than continuing with divisions.
I hope the RFL and the clubs will give
serious consideration to the proposals in this paper before they commit
themselves to going down the wrong path.
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