Five historic Super League changes that were abandoned including controversial ‘Club Call’

Rugby league has never been afraid to try new ideas. A host of innovations have been introduced since the sport broke away from rugby union in 1895 and that trend has continued throughout the Super League era, with video referees, squad numbers, the salary cap and others becoming an established part of the game.

But not every change has proved popular, successful or long-lasting. Here we look at five bright ideas which have been tried – and abandoned – since summer rugby began in 1996.

Five abandoned Super League changes

Kick-offs

In 1996 the law was amended so play was restarted by the scoring team after a try or goal. The idea was to even up possession and thus reduce the number of one-sided matches. In practice, what happened was a team on the end of a heavy beating tended to turn over the ball near their own line, meaning the change had little positive impact and was quickly abandoned.

Contra-deal sponsorship

At the start of 2012, Super League announced haulage giants Stobart would be the competition’s new naming rights sponsors on a three-year deal, which included an opt out option after one season. No money was involved, but a fleet of 100 trucks were decorated with Super League branding which would, it was claimed, raise awareness of the competition nationwide.

The governing body estimated the arrangement, revealed in January, would be worth around £2.5m each year in publicity. In July, the RFL confirmed the contract would expire at the end of the season, as the goal of raised awareness and publicity had been achieved. Presumably through vast numbers of people commenting on what a daft deal it was for a cash-strapped sport.

Club call

From 2009, the highest-ranked team ahead of the final round of Super League play-offs were able to select their semi-final opponents from their three remaining rivals. This, the boffins said, would bring a new level of excitement and uncertainty to the post-season series and the RFL were confident it would quickly be adopted by other sports.

In fact, coaches hated the idea and in five or the six years the system was used, the club call team simply opted to play the lowest-ranked opposition. Usually that tactic worked, but Warrington Wolves and Wigan Warriors were left with egg on their face in 2011 and 2012 respectively, when they were beaten at home by Leeds Rhinos.

Club call had – and still has – its supporters, but sounded like a bad idea – ‘teams pick who they play’ – and fell by the wayside after the 2014 season.

Super-8s

This was an idea rugby league maybe should have stuck with. From 2015, Super League and the Championship clubs played each other home and away – plus Magic Weekend/Summer Bash – to produce a 23-round regular season.

After that, the top-eight in Super League played seven more rounds, in the Super-eights, with the leading four going into play-offs for a place at Old Trafford.

The bottom-four joined the Championship’s leading quartet in the middle-eights, at the end of which the three top sides went into the following year’s Super League with the final spot being decided by a play-off between the teams in fourth and fifth.

It lasted just four seasons before a return to one-up, one-down promotion and relegation, which was a pity because the eights concept produced meaningful and exciting rugby. A system similar to this will determine the movement between Championship and League One in 2025.

Free play

For a few seasons, a team were allowed to chance their arm following an opposition mistake, without losing their advantage. So, if a team got the ball from their rivals’ knock-on, they had one play to create something and if that came to nought, they’d still gain possession from the point of the initial mistake.

The concept produced some chaos and wild plays, but didn’t really add to the spectacle and has since been abandoned.