Rugby League: A mess from the men in the bunker: In the opinion of Dave Hadfield, the Rugby League's restructuring plan marks the end of an era of expansion

THERE is a mood of affronted incredulity at the headquarters of the Rugby Football League this week at the almost universally hostile reception for the latest restructuring exercise.

The League's member clubs decided last week to revert to two divisions of 16 clubs and to cut loose the bottom three in this season's Third Division. It is difficult to find anyone, outside the club delegates who voted for it, who thinks that this adds up to a good idea.

Many who voted in favour were presumably aware that their coaches and players were overwhelmingly against the plan, so there should be no great shock there. The word from the bunker is that it is the hostility in the media and on the terraces that has been the surprise.

That just shows how out of touch the game's administrators - at both club and central level - have become. In the arguments that have been raging since last Wednesday's announcement, the main bone of contention has been which aspect or aspects of the whole misconceived mess are the most damaging.

There is indeed some competition for that title. Is it the manifest unfairness of moving the goalposts in mid-season, for instance, when the clubs their peers want to dump are conveniently adrift at the foot of the table?

Or perhaps the cavalier disregard for what everyone who takes a broader perspective than his own club knows - that the future health of the game demands a streamlined First Division playing fewer but more competitive games and that 16 clubs is far too many.

There are short-term, financial arguments in favour of both these measures, but they do not stand up to scrutiny. Nottingham and Blackpool, two of the likely casualties at the foot of the Third Division, will not be widely mourned and may even, in their heart of hearts, welcome oblivion. They may have been doing rugby league little good, but they have not been the problem. What it has cost to keep them going has been a pinprick.

More important by far is the message that has been sent out by voting them - or Barrow, Chorley and Highfield - out of existence. It is inconceivable that anyone will now put money into a new club, knowing that they can be thrown out if they do not make the grade in a few seasons. It is no exaggeration, therefore, to regard the era of expansion and looking outward into the world beyond the three counties of league's heartland as officially over.

In a game where most clubs lose money on most home matches, it is remarkable that clubs destined for next season's First Division should see two extra home games as a route to deliverance, especially when those games will be against the likes of Hull Kingston Rovers and Leigh.

But there is sponsorship, I hear their commercial departments intone. But what are sponsors to make of a game which leaves the backers of the Charity Shield high and dry by the cancellation of the competition for future seasons, or scraps the Lancashire Cup just as a new sponsorship deal had been worked out?

They, like everybody else outside Chapeltown Road last Wednesday, will conclude that the game is losing its way badly. And that leads us to the part played - or not played, as the case may be - in all this by its chief executive.

When Maurice Lindsay was appointed last year, even those with strong reservations about him thought that his undeniable energy and acumen would at least lend the game a sense of direction. That direction is suddenly conspicuous by its absence. Lindsay was attending meetings in London when the decision was made last week and he was unavailable to field the inevitable flak over the weekend.

This week, the five threatened clubs were due at Chapeltown Road to discuss their future and the League's board of directors was to start working out matters like promotion and relegation for forthcoming seasons.

Both have been put off for a week, because Lindsay is at the Cheltenham Festival; a case of being on the rails while the game goes off the rails, you might say.

At least someone going away at this stage of the season is unlikely to miss many games of great significance. Taking promotion and relegation out of the equation has rendered dozens of matches, upon which much would have hung, entirely meaningless. It is good practice for the future, when, for many clubs, the season will once more effectively end at Christmas. But in a game seemingly addicted to short-term thinking, you would have expected the prospect of depressed gates between now and the end of this campaign to make a few people stop and reconsider.