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  1. #1
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    Default 2021 Super League discussion thread

    Super League discussion
    PUT EM TO THE SWORD! SHOW SOME STEEL!

    Moejoe: "REMEMBER!!!! SLIP - SLOP - SLAP in the sun. Skin Cancer is a growing problem. It could happen to anyone!!"
    TITANS, DIEHARDS, WARRINGTON WOLVES, MAROONS, KANGAROOS, HONG KONG THUNDER

  2. #2
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    A tale of big cities: the battle for promotion to Super League begins
    https://www.theguardian.com/

    The rugby league Championship kicks off this weekend, with Toulouse expected to win a division packed with big-city clubs

    By Gavin Willacy for No Helmets Required

    So, a quarter of a century after they launched Super League, Rupert Murdoch and Maurice Lindsay finally have the big city league they dreamed of. The league they first proposed included teams from London, Manchester, Bradford, Toulouse and Sheffield, as well as Cumbria and Halifax. Well, all of them kick off their 2021 league campaign over the Easter weekend. Sadly for the game’s expansionists, these teams are not competing alongside Leeds, Wigan, Hull, St Helens and Warrington in Super League as planned, but in the Championship.

    It is perhaps typical of rugby league that the competition with the most clubs from England’s biggest cities is the second division. The Championship contains teams from nine of the 14 originally proposed Super League franchises, compared with just seven in Super League 2021. Even when the dust settled on a wild west scrap that would have been the envy of Sergio Leone, the final line-up for 1996’s launch included as many clubs now in the Championship as there are in the top tier. Lindsay also planned for a Newcastle club (and one from Cardiff) to enter Super League in 1997.

    That never happened, nor did the league welcome scores of clubs from major European cities. But we may see a very different Super League over the next 25 years. It is entirely feasible that the next five clubs promoted to Super League could be Toulouse, London, York, Bradford and Newcastle. In the highly unlikely event of them all staying up, Super League would finally look like Murdoch envisaged.

    However, not every city club in the Championship has the infrastructure required for the top flight. This weekend’s fixtures might suggest the second tier is packed with potential Super League clubs, but some of the seemingly obvious contenders are either tiny set-ups or clubs in a fragile state – or both. Of the clubs in markets with serious potential, only ambitious Toulouse and York plus aspirational Championship newcomers Newcastle are in suitable stadiums. None of London Broncos, Bradford Bulls, Sheffield Eagles, Swinton Lions or Oldham Roughyeds – all based in metropolises – has a “permanent” home. The latter four are not even playing in their own towns.

    Yet despite its bizarre self-flagellation and obsession that it is a small-town sport, English rugby league does have professional clubs in the right places. Yes, it has clubs at the heart of tight-knit communities but also from six of England’s 10 biggest population centres, and from 11 of the top 20. That is exactly the same as rugby union, and similar to the NRL, which currently has clubs in nine of Australia’s 15 largest cities.

    York is one of just three English cities with a population of more than 200,000 that has no Premier League or EFL club (Warrington and Stockport are the others). With a brand new stadium, a highly regarded young coach in James Ford, and Super League stalwarts Adam Cuthbertson, Ryan Atkins, Ben Jones-Bishop and Danny Kirmond joining an already exciting side, York City Knights are a club on the up. The only thing missing is proof of top-flight sustainability, but they will get a taste of what the future might hold when they host Wigan in the Challenge Cup next weekend.

    Is there room at the Super League inn?
    Former Harlequins and Melbourne Storm CEO Mark Evans thinks rugby league should target the likes of York and Oldham, and often warns of being “the third football code in town”. The only Championship clubs in that position are Toulouse Olympique (from France’s fourth largest city), Newcastle Thunder and London Broncos. All are well backed financially.

    Super League is basically occupied by 14 clubs: 11 permanent residents, with the other place time-shared. Since Catalans joined 15 years ago, ever-presents Wigan, Leeds, St Helens and Warrington have spent every season playing Wakefield, Hull FC, Huddersfield and the Dragons. Castleford and Salford both went down once and came straight back up, something Hull KR have done twice. Anyone else merely takes turns to use the guest room: Leigh Centurions have been given the key for this year.

    So long as rugby league is committed to the meritocratic structure of promotion and relegation, Super League must resign itself to having one or two minnows. That need not be a problem. After all, the Premier League rarely has more than 15 of the country’s 20 largest football clubs. Football simply embraces the epic annual dogfight below that has put the Championship into Europe’s six biggest football leagues. There is always room for a Burnley or Bournemouth in the Premier League, just as there will always be some small-town clubs in Super League. Whether the minnows are Leigh, Widnes or Featherstone is neither here nor there in the big picture.

    Just like union, rugby league has a second division which comprises of full-time clubs with serious budgets obsessed with promotion, small part-time operations, and those who run a hybrid training model and are happy with the status quo. The RFU slashing funding to their Championship clubs by 40% to £288,000 next season will leave any ambitious club wishing to remain full-time needing to find £1m a year just to pay the players. Super League is expected to do something similar when it finalises its next TV deal in the coming weeks. Cue a mad scramble to go up this year.

    Expect only the truly rich or desperate – i.e. whoever is relegated from Super League – to remain full-time in the Championship from 2022. When owner David Hughes decides he has had enough of spending £1m on London Broncos every year, they will have to find another sugar daddy or go part-time. Intriguingly, their predominantly southern-based squad suggests they are positioning themselves to do so when necessary. Despite recruiting France prop Romain Navarrete from Wigan, they look weaker than at any time since Brisbane Broncos took them over when the Super League plan hatched in 1994. But coach Danny Ward has consistently got far more from his players than would be reasonable to expect. He may well do so again.

    Despite having fewer than 15,000 residents, Featherstone Rovers drew similar attendances to Toulouse and York in 2019. Fev are the epitome of a small market team who produce enough income to pay full-time wages to part-time players. Locked out of Super League since the start, expect them to be in the promotion race deep into autumn. They are at least a match for half a dozen current Super League members in one field or other, be it stadium, fanbase or honours.

    A couple of million quid a year could convert most Championship clubs into Super League contenders. If Sheikh Mansour decided to broaden Manchester City’s sporting empire, he could move Swinton Lions into the Etihad complex and catapult them into Manchester’s Super League force. For now, Swinton will – along with Batley and Dewsbury – settle for spending the summer in mid-table. Narrow cup victories over Newcastle and Oldham suggest Swinton should be better than relegation battlers this year but anything other than occupying the bottom two places will be success for Oldham and Whitehaven. Sheffield Eagles, exiled again in Doncaster, will be desperate to do the same.

    Bradford Bulls, who are starting the season behind closed doors at Dewsbury again but with a return to Odsal being mooted, and the rebranded Halifax Panthers will hope for a play-off push, as will Widnes Vikings, who have brought in former England internationals Matt Smith and Matt Cook, but will train part-time.

    Elevated Newcastle have a new young team as inexperienced as rookie head coach Eamon O’Carroll but will still be looking to have the sort of impact on the division York had when they came up.

    Toulouse Olympique, who are the favourites for promotion, are desperate to make it up before the bridge becomes precariously fragile – or the Championship is cut adrift. Their star-studded squad is packed with Super League and NRL stalwarts, clearly intending to leave nothing to chance. But with the RFL allowing Toulouse’s part-time opponents to postpone their trips to the pink city indefinitely while Covid quarantine rules are in place, the road to Super League looks far from straight forward.
    PUT EM TO THE SWORD! SHOW SOME STEEL!

    Moejoe: "REMEMBER!!!! SLIP - SLOP - SLAP in the sun. Skin Cancer is a growing problem. It could happen to anyone!!"
    TITANS, DIEHARDS, WARRINGTON WOLVES, MAROONS, KANGAROOS, HONG KONG THUNDER

  3. #3
    Administrator DIEHARD's Avatar
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    Les Catalans Dragons are in the Grand Final!

    PUT EM TO THE SWORD! SHOW SOME STEEL!

    Moejoe: "REMEMBER!!!! SLIP - SLOP - SLAP in the sun. Skin Cancer is a growing problem. It could happen to anyone!!"
    TITANS, DIEHARDS, WARRINGTON WOLVES, MAROONS, KANGAROOS, HONG KONG THUNDER


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