IT SAYS more about the human psyche than it does the nature of rugby league supporters that so many of them will mourn the passing of automatic promotion and relegation into and out of Super League.

Clubs fighting for their lives at the end of the season has made for compelling, if somewhat morbid viewing down the years and there is little doubt that the absence of relegation will take some of the drama away from Super League.

However, that drama has come at some cost with the sport having suffered lasting damage from the short-term thinking that the competition's weaker clubs have had to adopt in an attempt to ensure they retain their place in the top division.

The recruitment and development of junior talent is a long-term process and a luxury clubs who have no guarantee of being in Super League from one year to the next can ill-afford, as the predominance of journeymen Antipodeans at clubs like Castleford, Wakefield, Salford and Widnes in recent years has proven.

Relegation may work in football, where the logistics of running a club in the bottom half of one division are not too far removed from operating in the top half of the next rung down within the Football League, but the differences between Super League and the part-time environment of the National League clubs are immense and moving from one to the other is akin to dropping out of the Premier League into the Blue Square Premier.

The decision to award three-year licences to the game's 14 strongest clubs will provide them with the stability they need to implement strategies in the medium and long term, both on the field and off it, which will enable them to strengthen year on year.

Licences have arrived at a time when rugby league is also committed to weaning itself off its dependency on overseas talent and the numbers of home-spun players – and by extension the strength of the national team – can only increase in the years to come.

Catalans Dragons have already provided tangible proof of how beneficial a three-year licence can be. The French club finished 2006 in 12th place; last year they were 10th; they are currently third, behind Leeds and St Helens.

Since joining Super League the number of French players within their squad has increased and the standard of the France national team has improved significantly, a situation Celtic Crusaders will hope to replicate in Wales.

The Bridgend-based club fall short in many areas, including their poor quality stadium and fragile infrastructure, but as hard as their admission is on Widnes and Leigh, the potential that exists in the Principality to develop the sport is immense and it would have been criminal to repeat the mistake of 1995 by turning them down.

Celtic, like every club, have three years in which to show the Rugby Football League and the rest of the sport that they deserve their place and the true measure of whether licences have been a success will come in 2011 when the process is repeated.

Although just 24 hours have elapsed since the licences were awarded, the clock is already ticking for the clubs who have won a franchise on the back of promises to build new stadiums because, as costly as relegation has historically been, all of them know that pain will pale compared to the cost should they lose their licence in three years.