Have your say: Proposals for change unlikely to please everybody

Rugby Football League chief executive Nigel Wood has outlined three different proposals and is consulting with clubs as they seek to restructure the game to deliver the “most compelling and sustainable framework” for the whole sport.

Promotion and relegation between Super League and the Championship was ended in 2007 with the arrival of the oft-maligned three-year licence system.

It could, however, be re-introduced in 2015 as the governing body look to find a sensible way for aspiring clubs to once more reach the elite on an annual basis.

Surprisingly, perhaps, Castleford Tigers chief executive Steve Gill remains a supporter of the ethos, despite his club being a perennial struggler in Super League and twice enduring demotion, as he feels the sport has worryingly grown “stagnant” with so many meaningless fixtures.

On the other side of the argument, ex-Leeds Rhinos and England coach Tony Smith, now in charge of Challenge Cup holders Warrington Wolves, contends the third proposal would cause “mayhem” and see clubs fearing the drop risk bankruptcy to save their status while overlooking youth development again in favour of short-term gains.

Option one sees Super League revert from 14 teams to 12 with one promoted and relegated each year while the second has a two-division Super League with each comprising 10 teams and one-up, one down again.

However, it is the bold third proposal which is currying most favour among many clubs.

That sees a 12-team Tier One and 12-team Tier Two competition that splits into three groups of eight in mid-season.

Clubs in each tier play each other once (11 fixtures – comprising five home matches per club plus a Magic round) before splitting.

The first eight-team division would comprise the top eight from Tier One, the second would be drawn from the bottom four in Tier One and the top four in Tier Two with the third from the bottom eight in Tier Two.

The clubs in each group would play each other home and away (14 fixtures).

Each of the three groups would conclude with a play-offs and climax in a Grand Final/play-off final for silverware though, importantly, the final standings at the end of the regular season actually determine the make-up of Tiers One and Two the following year.

In theory – though highly unlikely – that could see as many as four Championship clubs start 2016 in Super League, offering real hope of a pathway to the likes of current champions Sheffield Eagles, aspiring Halifax and ambitious Featherstone Rovers.

Gill told the Yorkshire Post: “Where we are now, you get to Round 12 and 13 and a lot of games are already dead rubbers.

“There isn’t a lot to play for apart from pride and fans realise that; they’ve had five years of it at Cas.

“Promotion and relegation brings excitement, gives clubs something to play for and, looking at that third option, you have a chance to get back up while allowing some the chance to build and go forward at a slower rate.

“I do believe we have to reinvent ourselves in rugby league as, for me, the game has gone stagnant with the same top four or five clubs every year.

“I probably think to some degree licencing hasn’t worked on the development front and also financially. What was right five years ago was the right thing to do then, but the economic climate changed all that and the game hasn’t developed as maybe it should have.

“At Castleford, we’re held together by what happens with the economy and this downturn has certainly stopped ourselves and probably Wakefield, too, from growing as we’d have liked.”

Gill believes the potential to face some of the high-end Championship clubs would provide more meaningful contests and also draw bigger attendances.

“For us, the London and Catalan games don’t bring many fans and they aren’t really profitable,” he continued.

“If you changed that to a Halifax and a Featherstone they would be big games down here with decent crowds. I’m not for one minute saying we want to be in that second tier, but for us those sorts of games would be more beneficial than playing Catalan or London.

“It’s going to be a worry for some if they don’t make the 12, but we’ve brought (head coach) Daryl (Powell) in to make sure we do.

“We need to freshen things up to keep people interested and I can see how that third option would do that.”

Smith, though, expressed his considerable concerns and also questioned whether the RFL’s chief was up to the task.

“We need some direction at the moment,” he said. “We need to come up with some proper answers rather than go too radically one way or the other.

“If a leader asks me which one of three directions that I want to go in, I am starting to doubt that he can get us out of there.

“It is like going to the doctor and him saying to you, ‘I’m not sure, ask the other patients what is wrong with you’. You just don’t do it. We need somebody to give us some answers to some of the issues we have got. I’m concerned.

“I am over the innovative tag for rugby league. What about being stable, strong, consistent?

“We are in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the great depression and yet now is the time we are choosing to judge our current systems.

“We have been producing some really good young players, so much so that the Australians are coming here to take them, and yet we change the system again.

“To just throw the whole system out the window is a knee-jerk reaction.

“How good a decision is going to be made when you are desperate to stay in the division you are in?

“It is going to be mayhem. Do you know how much money is going to be spent on development?”