Yes I've been to about 20 Cas home games. I can assure you it's a medium sized town with a population of circa 40k and draws support from surrounding towns and villages such as Normanton Garforth, Sherburn, Selby etc.

No they wont, 4 semi-pro clubs will play a 7 game series against 4 fully pro clubs with twice the funding, who had spent the preceeding few months playing in the top flight and being able to attract top flight players. They will then return to their semi-pro league.



As you say, Toulouse as any semi-pro side, wouldn’t be able to build a squad to compete in SL and would get 100 points put on them every week. The same will be true after 2015 only then they would get 100 points put on them for 7 weeks instead of 27, and be competing in some limbo league to be the 9th best team that no-one will care about.





No, there will be full time clubs, clubs who are attracting 10-16k fans per week, maybe more. There will be clubs who are turning over upwards of £12m, who employ full time players, coaches, nutritionists, physio’s, who have multi-million pound training facilities with access to the best strength and conditioning equipment, all-weather pitches, they will have a good marketing manager and a dedicanted corporate manager who can sell corporate hospitality to numerous big companies who will pay £25 for a cup of tea. These will be professional and organised set ups.



There will also be some clubs who will pay a player £40k instead of £20k, and that player will give his job, and he will train in the local fitness first, on his own or with a couple of others. He will go and play in a half-empty dilapidated stadium in front of 3-5k, for a club who have a deal with a local supplier of nutrients, with a full-time head coach and a couple of old boys helping out, on a paddock somewhere. And they will get many points put on them because they can’t afford to compete, they will overspend and get in to debt and this exacerbate the situation. They will then cut back on their investment in marketing the club and see a fall in fans, and they will cut back on investing in youth development just to get 13 guys on the field, and this will exacerbate the situation. These will be semi-pro clubs.

So why would Fev be competitive?

They will have to recruit a Super League calibre squad in weeks so to start pre-season training late November.

All the best SL players have been signed up by then.

We are simply back to the old system of P&R which was a disaster.

Fully pro clubs playing semi pro doesn't work.

What do Fev fans think the scores would be when the visit Saints, Wire or Leeds?

@SmokeyTA: I see; thanks for the clarification. You'd better get on to the RFL and the Super League club chairmen quick and let them know they've got their plans wrong. At the same time get on to the Chairman of Featherstone and the other championships' clubs' chairmen and just let them know that everything is fine as it is.

As do Leeds (Garforth, Sherburn, Selby, Rothwell), Wakefield (Normanton, Pontefract) and Hull (selby). Castleford is no bigger than small towns in what is realistically the Greater Leeds area and smaller than many like Batley, Dewsbury, Rothwell. Roughly as many students live in headingley as people live in Castleford.

The SL club chairmen seem pretty clear that this idea is adequately described as a clusterwhoopsie.



And I didn’t say everything was fine as it is, but the problems the game faces will not be solved by throwing in a club who will at best turn over £3m with a club who will without even stretching, bring in 4 times that.

Its about twice the size of Rothwell and about the same as Dewsbury and Batley. And not a 'tiny village' which was my point.

If Fev, Cas and Wakey are good enough for SL, then they should be in SL - I don't really get this business of clubs being too close together. After all, think of the times Dundee and Dundee Utd have both been in the SPL and their grounds are the width of a large car park apart. Have to admit that things are now looking very grim for us, the RFL don't make statements like that for fun.

It isn’t twice the size of Rothwell, it is a little bigger than Rothwell, a little smaller than Rothwell and its environs. It is a bit smaller than Batley and Dewsbury. I lived in Rothwell for over 10 years, it is a small place. Batley and Dewsbury are small places. None, are by any real measure large. Castleford is small. It is a small non-descript town like a huge amount of others in this country. It isn’t a large town, it is one of the smaller towns in its area and it is pretty much, like Rothwell, Garforth, and lots of other little towns, pretty much a commuter town for Leeds. Im not trying to be mean about it, and im not having a go, but there are huge amounts of people in Castleford who barely even know Castleford is a place. That’s not specific to them, it’s the way of the world these days, small places get swallowed up by bigger places and become smaller.



Regardless of whether you want to argue that Cas is a big town or small village, it doesn’t really matter. It isnt a place with a strong identity where lots of people identify with it. There arent stacks and stacks of Cas fans in Selby, Garforth, Normanton, Pontefract etc, most people in these places don’t identify with Cas as a place or the tigers as a team, most have no reason to go there.



The proof is in the pudding, look at Cas’ attendance. Look at what it has always been.

I could honestly not think of a worse example for us to follow than Scottish Football, take out celtic and the SPL and SL are pretty similar.

Rothwell pop. 21000

Castleford pop 47000



So Cas is more than twice the size of Rothwell. I said Cas was a medium sized town, not a large town. You said it was a tiny village.

The figures I was looking at listed Rothwell at 32k (the rothweel parliamentary wards has 77k) and Cas at 37k. Either way, both are very small places. I don’t really care if you want to call them tiny villages, small towns, medium towns, massive estates, whatever.

No, only a few Championship clubs might be better than London in some areas.

If London do go, their money (the Super League's money) should absolutely go to the Super League clubs to compensate for loss of income.

This is a good one. Ever thought of taking up journalism?

You think im kidding? Half the time even Xscape thinks its in Leeds.

If London go out of S/L I cannot see them letting us in Alot of things are happening at Fev at the moment with a centre of excellence been built a new stand behind the post being built the family stand being extended and a lot of work behind the scenes to get the youth development to S/L standard I would say looking at it now this will all be complete by end of 2014 If the opportunity was there I believe Fev will take it As for the people saying its too close to Cas / Wakey a lot of clubs are close to others but its up to that club to promote itself and make it the best in the area but a business plan together and work hard to achieve its goal

Isn't it in Milton Keynes?

I don’t think anyone would dispute this bit. But that doesn’t mean we pretend the question whether Fev can possibly achieve this doesn’t exist, nor do we ignore the possibility that the game is weaker with three struggling WMDC clubs than it would be with one strong one.

now that is a large town

which is crying out for another pro sports team and once tried to persuade Hemel Stags to move there. But Broncos won't consider it.

Apart from the same people pushing the same agendas as usual regardless of the circumstances.



I am not sure I see the benefit to any side going into SL for 2014.



In all likelihood, the team that goes in will be going out again at the end of the year.



Also if the RFL are reducing the league anyway, why try to keep it at 14?



It's nothing against Featherstone. I think Toulouse would be foolish to go for this idea too, same for Halifax.

In future years it will be 1 up 1 down. In 2014 it's 2 down, none up.



I do like the idea of distributing the cash to the Championship clubs. Every little helps and if it can close the gap in cash between the leagues it will only help those clubs looking to promotion in the 2015 season.

The MK Red Bulls playing out of Stadium MK. Someone should be working on that.

AGREED

What I really am struggling to understand in what we are doing right now, is that the constant justification for the need for a restructure (regardless of which restructure it is) is that there isn’t enough money to sustain the SL clubs. Yet it is also corresponding with a clamour to give what little money we do have, to semi-pro clubs, not to invest in their infrastructure, marketing or youth development, but in paying the same players, more money to become pro. I don’t understand the logic.



So we go through this restructure which is desperately needed because the SL clubs need more money, create a pot of money, then give it to the championship clubs. If we accept we need a restructure of SL because the SL clubs need more money, why are we so desperate to give it to anyone but them?