Last updated 15:50, Wednesday, 13 February 2008

JUST imagine it, next season’s Grand Final in National League One. Against the odds (maybe) unfancied Whitehaven win, but the losers take the major spoils, Salford City Reds returning to Super League from whence they came after their 2007 relegation.

Irrational? – maybe so. But if the prophets are proved correct, promotion and relegation is scrapped and the RFL adopt a franchise system for Super League, extending the number of teams by two to 14, then the City Reds will be among the favourites to take one of those two extra places.

So for the likes of Salford will go a free ticket to Super League, while Grand Final winners Whitehaven content themselves with a £100,000 consolation prize – or should it be called the Pauper’s prize?

It could well happen. I hope it does then at least Whitehaven will have the chance of playing in a third Grand Final and this time make it third time lucky. But it still won’t make it right. For Whitehaven are among those who won’t have the proverbial cat in hell’s chance of reaching the promised land in the foreseeable future – not once the drawbridge goes up in 2009 signalling the start of what would be a three-year franchise deal.

In the circumstances, how could £100,000 prize money with no Super League place be enough? Useful but hardly a King’s Ransom and not a decent exchange rate for not being given promotion. Would it happen in any other sport?

I don’t think there’s much doubt that 2008 will signal the end of promotion and relegation. The dogs are barking it but inexplicably no one at Red Hall is saying anything official.

It’s a bad thing to take away promotion and relegation, denying clubs and fans their ambition and end-of-season excitement, but if it’s already a fait accompli, the RFL has to up the prizemoney anti to give much more incentive to clubs, supporters and players. £100,000 is a drop in the ocean.

Okay, the new TV deal with Sky will put another £60,000 into the kitty of the National League clubs – that’s on top of the £40,000 handout they already receive from the RFL, but the extra won’t arrive until 2009 and must be spent on other things such as staff wages rather than team strengthening.

Whitehaven are such a well run outfit these days that another £60k a season for three years will certainly come in handy but, with the RFL perennially changing the goal posts, will the new scenario change the face of professional rugby league forever, with the strong becoming stronger and the weak weaker, and perhaps some falling by the wayside?

Haven do remain ambitious – let’s get that new grandstand built! – and on the run up to Christmas couldn’t have a happier coach than Paul Crarey. The new boss is more than pleased with the players he inherited and those he has since signed with a little help from the Board. It will also be good to see the flyer John Lebbon back in the fold. Haven have snapped up two new flyers but here was one just waiting in the wings so to speak!

Paul Crarey’s philosophy, still to be tested at Whitehaven, is something akin to rugby romance, or as he would prefer to call it “a massive support game” played with accuracy and pace, or in the modern parlance “out of the box” football. The ideal is that it also produces essential results.

There’s no doubt that Whitehaven’s players are enjoying the new Recre training regime, so much so that the coach tells me he has had texts saying so. Not only that but it is not unusual for some of them to applaud what they’re being asked to do – like last Saturday in the pouring rain.

“Everybody and everything is buzzing,” he says with the infectious enthusiasm gained from confidence and the rugby style which breathed new life into Barrow and, points out Mr Crarey, boosted gates and brought quite a few old Craven Park players out of their armchairs to see the Raiders’ renaissance.