https://www.totalrl.com/super-league...ugust-weekend/
3 proposals currently being discussed. One ends in November, 2nd ends in December, 3rd ends in January.
https://www.totalrl.com/super-league...ugust-weekend/
3 proposals currently being discussed. One ends in November, 2nd ends in December, 3rd ends in January.
Originally Posted by Despondent Dave
Proposal 3 would give us the last two rounds of the regular season on Boxing Day and New Years Day. If we could get fans back by then they could get huge crowds, especially with the play offs cut to 4 teams.
I think I’m leaning towards finishing in December, tbh.
The January proposal isn’t too bad really. Given that we as a sport would have been away for five months, roughly, come August, the last thing we want to do is to have a much shorter season and to be away again come November. My only issue with January is the winter months can be quite poor so how does postponements effect this idea and how does such a late finish effect next season and the World Cup at the end of the year?
St Helens Rugby League Football Club
We managed to play in Winter for 100 years or so. I'm in favour of the January finish as in theory it should raise the most money and then start the season later. I'm not really too fussed about the World cup anyway, plus there's no saying what travel restrictions there will be anyway (hopefully none).
I don’t think we should be too worried about the weather if we’re playing games in Dec and Jan. in theory we’re only talking two semi finals and the GF after New Years Day, and the weather doesn’t get really cold until late Jan and Feb, which of course is when we start seasons now anyway. In my utopian future, we go for a Jan finish and realise that playing the last two rounds on Boxing Day and NYD is fantastic and we then go with April-January seasons from then on, with a break in the season in Nov for internationals if need be.
How many clubs would turn down having games on Good Friday, Boxing Day and NYD? Guaranteed bigger crowds, and for us it would mean Wigan on a bank holiday at home every season. And Sky would love the Grand Final in January on an FA Cup weekend when they’ve got nothing else to show.
Go for the late finish and have, what should have been the Good Friday fixtures, played on Boxing Day.
St Helens Openwater Swimming Society
Looking out from the top of Table Mountain
I don’t get the idea of extending this year into January ‘21 just so teams can have a home game on Boxing Day. You end up playing into the next calendar year and then have to mess about with next year’s schedule, which would likely have to be shortened, just to get some extra rounds in this season.
I’m all for no loop fixtures going forward but I don’t see why we would vote to have loop fixtures this year just to get rid of them for next season. It makes more sense to have the December proposal, IMO.
St Helens Rugby League Football Club
I don't like loop fixtures at all but apparently the clubs need that number of games to keep the money coming in.
There was talk of extra teams in the Super League next year so that maybe reason for no loop games.
On a separate note how would late finish work with out if contract players especially Thommo
Quite like the idea of the Grand Final a few days before my birthday, as long as Saints get there!
If we do go for the January finish though, when the chuff will the next season start?
I'm going Kevin Keegan on this, I would love it if there was a return of Boxing Day RL, love it...
its about nine months of rugby either way and unless we get a bad winter or unusually hot summer the weather doesn't make much difference.
The only real advantages of "summer rugby" are less chance of T V games being postponed for bad weather and a small saving on use of flood lights
I'd assume the contracts end dates will have a calendar date possibly around the start of December. This would be similar to football where the dates are generally the end of June. I doubt the contracts state "until the end of the xxxx season" I'd assume that Luke will leave early winter unless the clubs figure something out??
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The starting dates for new contracts are usually 1st of November, so that would mean an end date of 31st October, however this is no normal season so things may be adjusted and "insurance terms" agreed between clubs.
I believe the players union is heavily involved in those discussions.
Either we do a blanket deal between all clubs for contracts to run until the end of the season, with a cut off date of say 15 Jan, or we simply lose players in Nov and lump it.
I would hope something could be sorted out, because if clubs have done deals to sign NRL players to replace outgoing players they would be required to fly over in Nov and play immediately for a month or two at the business end of our season. I don’t reckon many would be too keen on doing that after a full NRL season which is set to start next week.
I would be in the ear of those players agents and informing them that they’d be required to hit the ground running in England unless some deal was struck to allow all contracts to run until Jan for just this year. Those agents would hopefully then have a word with NRL clubs who would then agree to allow any NRL bound players here to do the same.
The RL season in Australia doesn’t start until the second week of March so (whilst not ideal) you’d still have two months between the latest date of a Grand Final here and Week 1 of the 2021 NRL season which is a decent amount of time.
Much prefer the 22 game Superleague comp and drop the Challenge Cup, for something radical no promotion or relegation and have the Challenge Cup between the Amateurs and Championship clubs that might create a lot of fan interest for the Amateur/Championship.
I would be a bit worried of the 2020 to 2021 off season far too short, so for the benefit of what's coming down the track a Mid December finish and don't start the following season until mid March with another 22 rounds of super league games for players to ease into the 2021 World Cup Tournament.
I'm sure they'll sort something with the contract situation as alot of players will be in the same situation and will want to end the season with their current club.
Phil Caplin tweeted yesterday that some clubs favouring proposal 3 as likely to get big crowds (if allowed too obviously) on Boxing Day / New Year's Day which will help clubs through the winter months. It would also mean a March start for 2021 rather than end of Jan / start of Feb.
Originally Posted by Despondent Dave
Would a Boxing Day home game guarantee anything at the minute? There’s no guarantee fans will even be allowed in without restriction and even if they are, given the financial strain this is going to put on people, will they be rushing out on Boxing Day to watch Rugby League in person?
I can see why Sky may want proposal three. If Amazon has the rights to all Premier League games that day, that leaves them with second tier football to show or the penultimate round of Super League with games likely to be derbies.
St Helens Rugby League Football Club