In an historic day for rugby league the preliminary gradings that will form and determine the make-up of Super League, Championship and League One, have now been released however there are already some major flaws and errors.
The gradings have been introduced following IMG’s recommendation as part of their ‘Re-Imagining Rugby League’ plan, part of their 12-year partnership to help boost the sport commercially.
It was a highly controversial topic initially with plenty arguing that it would created a ‘closed shop’ of Super League, and effectively remove the concept of promotion and relegation.
Whilst promotion and relegation doesn’t happen in Australia with the NRL, the world’s foremost and premier rugby league competition (something that IMG have consistently hung their hat on), it’s something that is integral in Britain’s sporting landscape.
Ever since the creation of Association Football and then later Rugby League, promotion and relegation has been the natural transition of clubs up and down the ladder, hence the high criticism of this new grading system.
One of the biggest opponents were Championship side Keighley Cougars who had just earned promotion courtesy of an unbeaten season in League One in 2022. The Cougars were a team on the up and strongly protested against grading, labelling it ‘spreadsheet rugby league’ and claiming it curbed ambition for on -field success.
With today’s preliminary gradings then perhaps Keighley were correct as they ranked just 30th of the 35 professional teams, achieving a Grade C, something that would plant them firmly in League One.
Another irony of the system would be North Wales Crusaders, a side that found themselves one win away from promotion to the Championship in 2023 as they lost the League One playoff final, however they now rank 35th of 35 teams.
The stories of both Keighley and North Wales are frustrating but they’re not technically errors in the system, some might argue that the system shouldn’t work that way, but for them their grades have been formulated on the ‘spreadsheet’ accurately.
The same can’t be said for Castleford Tigers who under the current rankings would not be a Super League side, sitting 13th with a Grade B, however it’s been revealed that IMG miscalculated their points.
Castleford released a statement prior to the 10am grading reveals in which they’ve explained that due to an RFL error they’ve been scored half a point less than they should have.
That half a point is absolutely crucial as well because Leigh Leopards, sitting in 12th which is the final Super League spot, have scored just 0.29 points more than the Tigers.
If these gradings were implemented now then the Tigers would be relegated based on a mathematical error from the RFL, one that Castleford themselves highlighted and contested, but to no avail.
Castleford did release a statement from Managing Director Mark Grattan, which can be read here, however the pertinent details are as such:
“At 7pm yesterday evening, I received a phone call from Tony Sutton, CEO of the RFL to inform me that the RFL had made a mistake on one of the data lines in finance. This meant they were taking half a point off us which moved us down to 13th. At that point, we realised that the finance score was incorrect. Within an hour we spotted a missing data line that we had not submitted.
“I sent all of the supporting evidence to the RFL expecting our error to be amended as the RFL’s error was and we believe other clubs’ scores were amended. We were then informed later yesterday evening that due to the lateness of the information the grades would be published with the RFL’s amendment, but without ours and they would also allow us to appeal and they would be announcing that as part of the grading story.
“We are extremely disappointed with the RFL’s decision as both ourselves and the RFL made an error but the RFL error masked our error on the scores which meant up to 7pm yesterday evening, we believed our score to be correct.”
And there it is! Just one day into the new era of rugby league and it’s already gone wrong.
Not only has it gone wrong but the RFL have, per Mark Grattan, tried to “mask” their error and allow the club to bore the brunt of the issue.
That issue, were these gradings implemented immediately, would cost a club a place in Super League and with it the huge finances that go with being in rugby league’s elite domestic competition.
In turn for a team like Castleford to be plucked from Super League and plunged into the Championship, on the basis of somebody else’s mathematical error, would impact the jobs of hundreds of people within the organisation.
Of course that would be the case in any ‘normal’ or pre-IMG season, relegation will lead to financial hurt, however before now any relegation has been because the team weren’t good enough.
Relegation by spreadsheet, and particularly spreadsheet errors, would be catastrophic and could lead to lawsuits that could even see the collapse of our sport.
To use a horse racing analogy, the grading criteria hasn’t just fallen at the first hurdle, it’s failed to get out of the gate as exemplified by this undefendable error.
