Well, the 2nd team have earned the right to play in 'the big league' I suppose it depends if the A team will be happy plying their trade in the lower leagues... its a pickle.

Well, first, I should point out that Tynedale Tans aren't quite there yet: the Morpeth B team could still catch them if they win their 3 remaining matches by large margins.
 
Secondly, it's not just the reference to 'higher' and 'lower' leagues in the NCA rules which would quickly cause problems for the promoted Tynedale Tans in Division 1 when they needed to draft in substitutes from the relegated Tynedale Reivers.  It's also the requirement to play teams in strength order and the fact that, once a player has played on boards 1-3, he/she's tied to that team.
 
There might possibly be a little bit of tautology in section 7 of the NCA league rules, but, if there is, it seems fairly harmless and I'm not sure there's too much to fix.

Quote from Jimbob Jones on Apr 1^st, 2010, 11:02pm:

 
That was exactly my point. The league rules assume that the team playing in the higher division is the higher team, so a Reiver who played once for the Tans would get tied to them. If instead, we said that teams could draft in players based on the order of teams within their club, then the Tans' top boards could play three times on boards 4-5 for the Reivers, as they currently can, despite the Reivers being in a lower division. It's still "play up four times, stay up", but with "up" potentially meaning "in a lower division"
 
I don't expect this to actually be a problem, because I expect Tynedale's players will more or less swap teams. On paper, the current Tans would be on a hiding to nothing in Division 1, and I don't think Steve Larkin enjoys grossly one-sided matches, given that he is a perennial advocate of restructuring the leagues to reduce them.
 
My proposal would have more of an impact on clubs with two teams in the same division, one of which is clearly stronger than the other (so Jesmond Knights/Rookies and Morpeth B/C). Morpeth B, for example, would better represent Morpeth's second-best available team if they were able to call up reserves from the top of the C team rather than the bottom. If Morpeth C were in a lower division than Morpeth B, there wouldn't be a problem with that - the current rules I think unfairly punish Morpeth B for the fact that there's no longer a 3rd Division to accomodate Morpeth C. Similarly, Jesmond Knights are punished for the fact that the Rookies stayed up last season and will do so again this season.