Entry 32, 3rd December 2010
I believe that clubs building for Super League or wishing to challenge for honours should be in the Championship, yet I do support promotion and relegation.
There needs to be a way of getting away from the thought of this and the Northern Rail Cup achieving a tick in a box. They are competitions that should be prestigious enough to win in their own right.
The Championship One Division is the one that urgently needs looking at as these clubs need more money pumping into them.
This competition needs to not become a graveyard for clubs and offer fans hope for the future while also looking at new clubs starting or those like Bramley and Hemel who may be able to step up.
I think from 2012 that any promotion/relegation should include Toulouse.
Some people may suggest that franchasing or licensing is the way forward for the competition but I dod not believe it is so.
I think the Championships are also about giving chances to players who have been overlooked at Super League level for whatever reason and these clubs play a very important part in the future of both the game and players careers.
One thing I would like to see are more local derbies in the system which could maybe be achieved by operating some sort of conferencing with the top two in each conference heading into semi-finals for perhaps another cup/cups - perhaps resurrecting the Lancashire and Yorkshire Cups. I just think it wouldthen give chance of another big day out for fans of clubs to enjoy.
I believe in its current format there aren't enough fixtures to sustain a viable competition. Conferencing to a certain extent may help to provide these extra fixtures.
If this would not work, perhaps look at a system like was tried in Scotland where a cut-off point at a certain date is reached and clubs in the top half and the bottom half of the table then separate and play each other again for extra fixtures.
Perhaps a structure similar to the Rugby Union Championship could be adopted where after 20+ games the clubs are separated into groups to contest who makes the finals etc or even look at an Anglo-French Cup. I also always liked the Divisional Premiership Competition that seemed to work with a degree of success before the Northern Ford Leagues were amalgamated/grand finals were contested beyond 1998.
The short lived Challenge Cup Plate also produced some interesting games during its one season in place.
I would also like to see perhaps something like a Champions Challenge tournament to kick the season off.
As you can tell I'm an ideas man... What do others reckon to some of these thoughts?
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