Rugby league semis.

Hull ain’t Yorkshire codheards can a Humberside

 

For the vast majority of the last 40 years, Leigh have finished either in the top half of the second tier or at the bottom of the top tier. When Super League was introduced in the mid 90's, bringing full time professionalism to the top flight, and summer rugby to the top 3 tiers. Leigh were on the wrong side of the line at the time, missing out on the Super League money. Keighley were screwed out of a place, having finished in a position to be promoted to the top flight the year before Super League started.

Ever since then, it has been mainly a full time top flight and part time teams below, sometimes with a full time club flat track bullying against part time teams to get promotion (Leigh, Cas, Hull KR, Huddersfield, Salford and Toronto). In the late 2000s, the RFL brought in the concept of giving teams a place in Super League via a licensing system. This meant that there would be no relegation or promotion at all, and the top flight clubs would be reviewed every three years. The idea being to assess clubs based on attendances, youth academies etc... This ran from 2008-2014, and robbed Featherstone rovers of promotion, along with Sheffield and Halifax (who I think also won Championship finals in that time).

Some will disagree, but I thought it was a disastrous spell. It was designed to help grow the game into new areas, but saw the decline of London and Celtic Crusaders (who played somewhere in Wales, I forget where), and rendered the second tier pretty meaningless. They are no looking to do something similar again, with this seaosn being the last of straight promotion and relegation. But the details of how this system will work are still pretty vague imo.

 

Thanks Leyth. The idea of a closed shop or promotion by committee is just dreadful. Sports governing bodies seem to have mismanagement down to a fine art and a sense of the importance of money at the expense of what the actual game is about perfected.

 

East Yorkshire Jud where's tha bin for last 25+ years
Although it does govern itself.

 

££££££££ and team spirit.

 

2025 according to this mate. And provides how it will work.

https://www.brabners.com/blogs/new-rugby-league-grading-criteria-implications-clubs-and-how-prepare

 

Simple !

 

Didn’t Leigh get a new ground recently ?

Always seems to help.

Trinity have had a right saga about the ground over the last few years and we’ve finally finished with development and rebuilding down the East side.
Also, a ground share has been agreed with Wakefield AFC who recently played 2 friendlies which drew a few hundred spectators each time.

New ownership and a fresh approach seems to generate success but at the moment we’re struggling to stay in the Super League

 

My understanding is that the 12 clubs that play in Super League 2025 will be decided by these criteria, rather than whoever finishes bottom in 2024 automatically going down. What is unclear is what will happen if a grade A club finishes bottom. Does the lowest ranked grade B club still go down to be replaced by Championship winners? (Assuming they are grade B?)

2008. Leigh were very lucky to have a ground built. At the time of it being built, the rugby club had something like a 10% stake, with majority owned by Wigan Council.

At times it helps, at other times it's a hindrance. Relations with the stadium management company has been up and down. With the rents being high, no profit for the club from beer sales and excessive stewarding costs, where at times there were almost as many stewards as fans. That seems to have died down a bit, but there are still rumblings of it. Man Utd women's team now use the ground, and the LSV company would probably like them to be primary tennants. There have also been debates between the club and stadium owners over the stage that has been built for pre match entertainment.

 

Plus a coach that has operated at the highest level both as a player and coach. And keeping the owner an arm's lenth away from playing matters.

 

Yeah he's put some good money in but i bet he likes a say lol. Done well and certainly shook SL up.

 

Well, I thought the semi finals were nerve shredding. The final was another level. I'm still exhausted from watching it, 2 days on!

 

Well done to your lot mate. Was at Bristol so missed your game. I'll have a look at the highlights. Didn't realise it was a golden point decider till I just looked. Proper tense I would imagine. Just like our final.

 

Thanks. It was incredibly tense. Leigh were guilty of trying to play out time at too early a stage, and invited too much pressure on themselves, which ultimately cracked with the last play. But fortunately (for me) Leigh handled the pressure of golden point much better than KR, who made 2 (or 3 if you include a knock on that the ref deemed to be a ball strip) bad errors in the space of 3 minutes.