[urlhttp://www.wigantoday.net/sport/wigan-warriors/lenagan-hits-out-at-rfl-appointment-1-6615116[/url

I don't know where the game goes whilst Wood is in charge. There seems to be no way to get rid of him unless he votes himself out.



Tough times with him in charge at the moment.

Good stuff



This has been posted on the VT also



The conspiracy theories and swipes have begun already.

I'm sure I read somewhere that Lenegan, McManus and Hudgell were due to address the rest of Super League clubs at a meeting in Widnes either last week or this with some proposals to take the game forward.

IL is being kind when he says it was amateurish.



It looks like nepotism pure and simple to me.



Jobs for boys. Not advertised.



Another reason why Nigel Woods is not fit to run the game.



Just like the Sky deal those in charge fail to look beyond the cosy environment they live in and have not considered other potentially superior options.

I kind of hope that next year is a complete failure as then we would have momentum to sack the RFL and start a new league.

The RFL of course would claim it a success no matter what happens......



Things need to change and a growing realisation of this is spreading throughout Super League.

Bring it on IL, I will back you with my vote any day.

I know where you're coming from but I have to disagree. As an RL fan I hope next year will be a success. I also think it will (if not a complete success) be better than we have now. The top 4 will be a priority and those towards the bottom of the top 8 will look nervously over their shoulders. I think it will increase the intensity and importance of the weekly rounds.

Where it will potentially fail is what happens after the split IMO. The bottom 8 is a pointless competition. The middle 8 only has value (though I am not sure that is the right word) by engineering a false position whereby the fourth placed side who could have never lost a game to those below them faces a sudden death "£1m" game to decide their SL future. There is the clear hope from the RFL that regardless of how much better as a team or how well run as a club the 4th placed side is, they will fall victim to a spate of injuries or bad refereeing to ensure there is movement between the divisions. Anything to ensure a relegation occurs to justify the move to 8/8/8.



Both the middle and bottom 8 represent a failure as far as the season goes for the teams that end up in them and the Swiss found when they tried this in soccer sponsors, fans and TV audiences were not interested in watching or sponsoring teams who were in a lower tier.



Trying to engineer the failure of a team in this way via deliberately setting up a one off game is pathetic and a clear indictment that they have failed to get the lower league teams up to standard to compete in any other way. That one game is also the only game of any real interest and compared to what is going on in the top 8 the lower two 8's are a sideshow.



Not putting this job out for applications, not putting the TV rights out to tender and coming up with this 8/8/8 system are all symptomatic of an organisation well past its sell by date in term of those running it IMO.



Nigel Woods has come up with some hair brained ideas in the past including a point for whoever was leading at half time and some sort of reward for scoring more than 12 points in the last 1/4 of the game even if you were losing IIRC (not sure if that was a league point or not). When he came up with these ideas he was in no position to put them into practice. The 8/8/8 and these other failings is what you get when people like him are allowed the keys to the kingdom without the threat of having any pressure of being replaced.

Has anything been said how the second tier is being funded/sponsored yet?

Unless it gets a significant wedge & air-time the whole thing will fall apart in no time.



Given the incumbents' track record in sponsorship & general management I'm not surprised IL's a bit miffed. We need sportsmen with business nous in charge not a bunch of bean-counters who couldn't run a bath (let's not forget, that regardless of how much praise Red Hall heap on themselves for the WC, none of them actually did anything - the person who did has been poached by UK Athletics).

Because of the Sky deal and the fact the salary cap isn't going up for the SL clubs it means some non-SL clubs will get a bigger salary cap (about £900k or so I think the one figure mentioned) which means some other non-SL clubs will still be trying to compete while paying a pittance to semi-pro players.



So that is funding model for better or worse.



As to sponsorship that is one of the issues that killed off this structure in Switzerland for soccer. Sponsors did not want to be associated with the two lower tiers which were seen as providing meaningless games in a second string competition. The big crowds and media interest were with the top 8 only.



The "£1m" game is clearly an attempt to inject some life into a league which could be considered in the same way given the teams in it are no longer competing with the elite teams for the rest of that season. Now for a fan of a team involved in a relegation fight I am sure we can all relate to how interesting that is given what went on in 2006 but I really don't think if the issue was between the likes of London and Batley anyone in the media or outside the geek level of fan we have on here would give a monkey's. Apart from the "£1m" game which is just one game after all the second tier just represents a drawn out qualification competition for another season.







The WC success should have been what secured us competition for TV rights. An opportunity squandered by those in charge.



As to sponsorship for the new structure it's going to take a marketing genius to convince potential sponsors (and the casual sports fan who bump up TV ratings for that matter) to have an interest in the lower two 8's after the split. The RFL will probably say it's really all one competition and will seek a sponsor for the whole thing but sponsors want value for money and I am not sure they will think they ought to or will want to pay anything towards funding the two lower 8 competitions. There just isn't going to be any kudos in the majority of those games that will attract lots of publicity a sponsor expects in return for their cash.

All-in-all, a salutary lesson for all those who wanted an end to the licence model: [ibe careful what you wish for[/i

I don't really get where you're coming from with this £1m game stuff. The middle 8 is effectively a mini league where teams need to make the top 4 to survive so surely most games will matter. If it all ends up coming down to the result of one game putting a Championship club up then it's because the team did well enough to get into that position. Of course it's open to a bad ref call, injuries, bounce of a ball etc but that's only the same as the play offs and many other relegation systems.



If this system is engineering the failure of a team you must hate the football system. 3 teams are guaranteed to be relegated from the Premier League next year, none are guaranteed to be relegated from Super League.



I'm looking forward to next year and think it will be a vast improvement with regular season games being far more important and teams 5-8 being pushed to properly catch up with 1-4 instead of just hoping they can come good in a game or two the play offs. Likewise teams 9-12 will be pushed to make the top 8 to get big games at the back end of the season and avoid the prospect of releflgation. Championship teams also incentivised by the possibility of making the Super League