Why I’m backing return of promotion and relegation format

The licence system has not worked as well as people thought it would over here and fans do like to see the promotion and relegation side of things.

Lowering the teams to 12 makes everyone fight harder and look at their squads more closely.

I think Super League will be more competitive already next season because if any side takes their foot off the gas they could find themselves down the ladder and in trouble.

The plans are certainly good for the top Super League clubs if not for the bottom end!

However, those Championship clubs with Super League aspirations are going to get their chance to achieve them now.

It will still take a while to get there as when you see the budgets we’re working on in the Championship they are a long way off what you get in the top division; just one high-earning Super League player could blow our entire budget at Dewsbury.

Any side that comes down will have full-time athletes on a full-time budget for at least part of the year while Championship clubs looking to go the other way will still be part-time and on a lot less.

It is going to be difficult sorting out that transition between the two divisions – would a Championship club go into Super League with the players it already has or re-structure completely? – but, as I said before, something had to change.

At Dewsbury, as a club, we’d like to think we could get in that second group of eight come 2015 and be competitive.

We’ve had the development of the ground and surrounding area approved so, hopefully, we’ll have some all-weather pitches in while there’s all sorts of other things coming together which will raise the bar for us. Realistically, with the clubs around us in this area, we’re probably not sustainable as a Super League club but playing some Super League sides would certainly help us improve.

It would, hopefully, bring more fans to our games, too. Supporters want to see top-flight quality players and playing those should raise the profile and intensity of Championship games.

It would get more people involved and, hopefully, get more wanting to come back as crowds as a whole seem to have dropped off this year and clubs are starting to struggle.

Hopefully, these plans, on the back of the World Cup, will turn things around and get the buzz back for rugby league again.

First things first, though, and we’ve some big games ahead at Dewsbury for the rest of 2013.

We’re at Keighley tomorrow, who are in ninth and knowing they will get in the top eight if they beat us.

We are seventh and, with seven games still to go, are looking to finish strongly to go into the play-offs.

Equally so, though, there is only eight points that separate us from bottom, it is that congested.

We’re all wanting points to get into the play-offs but all realise we can still be dragged into the battle for survival, too.

We’ve spoken this week about how tomorrow’s game is like our own Grand Final and we have to find that sort of intensity for every match now.

We beat York last Sunday and were good in the first 15 minutes but then veered away from that and it wasn’t until the last 15 that we started to play footy again.

We need to be playing well for 80 minutes. We’re in a competition with all the teams around us. It’s a vital match for both teams.

Interview by Dave Craven.