How much longer before automatic one-up, one-down promotion and relegation between the leagues is introduced?

The fantastic achievements of both Sheffield and Doncaster should have been rewarded with promotion to Super League and the Championship respectively (with Widnes and York respectively being relegated).

Success in professional sport should be within a structure that rewards it - for supporters, financial backers and players alike.

Every club wants to succeed whilst at least breaking even. But £5m in, £5m out is better than £100k in, £100k out.

By failing to have a system of automatic one-up, one-down promotion and relegation between the leagues, the RFL is failing to reward success, and actually rewarding failure instead - all to the detriment of the development of the game as a whole.

sheffield will do no better than widnes have.....so whats the point?


cut all the deadwood from super league and have 10 teams

Fixed for accuracy

And when there are 10 teams,someone will again become 'deadwood' - no doubt you would then suggest reducing the number of teams to nine?!

Doncaster [iwere[/i promoted prior to the playoffs beginning. They went up along with Barrow, Workington and Whitehaven as the top four in Championship 1 were promoted this year. Its just that no teams were relegated this year. Promotion and relegation will still occur (2 up, 2 down) between Championship and Championship 1 next year too.

Many thanks for this clarification -

but it's exactly this sort of make it up as you go along, chop/change style that the game needs get away from. There needs to be a sensible structure that's left in place - so everybody knows exactly where they stand long term and then let the Club's get on with it.

My recommendation that there be automatic one-up, one-down promotion and relegation between the leagues includes Super League.

Im affraid in sheffields case absolutly not for promotion, it would kill off all the good work they have done, they have a fan base of about 250 people and that is it. How the hell do you expect them to survive let alone compete. They are like the littleist hobo with no home ground and mess fixtures about every single year becuase of the football season. This would make the SL look less silly than it already does which is a hard thing to do.

I dont like licensing but P & R without some caveats is just doomed !!!

nope........its easier to drag 1 deadwood team upto standard than it is dragging 4

london
catalan
wigan
st helens
warrington
huddersfield
bradford
leeds
hull fc
hull kr

that would make for a very competitive league........and yes the championship would become a 16 team comp

Eagles for Super League, I agree

Yep, that will sort out the Super League and create a pathway for Championship clubs to prosper, not.
We have to find a way of making the championship full time and then there could be a return to straight forward promotion/ relegation.
Having said that, would you promote a team that has won a grand final, or a team that has finished top of the comp ?

So long as there is automatic one-up, one-down promotion and relegation between the leagues, that is up for debate.

I wouldn't mind either way - but, if the team finshing top is Champions and gets the promotion place, then there is no need for play-offs in Championship and Championship 1.

Team that finishes top should be promoted in my view.

Firstly because it would build interest and momentum throughout the season and secondly because they have proved themselves to be the strongest and most consistent.

Theoretically, a team could finish top by a large margin then pick up a few injuries in key positions and get knocked out of the playoffs whereas another could finish 6th with no injuries and string a few wins together to win the Grand Final.

I must stress that this is in no way belittling what the Eagles have done. They deserved to win but I'm just saying it does not make them ready for promotion.