A method performed by a relay node , RN, the method comprising: determining if a first transmission has been detected in a first control region , wherein the first transmission is a relay physical downlink control channel, R-PDCCH, and wherein the first control region comprises a region of size N resources of a subframe for a multicarrier modulation system, where N is an integer value, wherein the first transmission comprises an encoded payload that has been adaptively rate matched based on availability or lack of assigned communications system resources, wherein the adaptively rate matching comprises increasing the code rate of the encoded payload to reduce the number of resources needed to transmit the encoded payload or decreasing the code rate of the encoded payload by increasing the number of resources needed to transmit the encoded payload, so that, if there are additional communications system resources available for use, the code rate of the encoded payload has been reduced and the reduced code rate allows for greater protection from errors, and if there is a lack of available communications system resources available for use, the code rate of the encoded payload has been increased to allow for more transmissions to take place without requiring additional communications system resources; and decoding the detected first transmission to determine a location of a second transmission if the first transmission has been detected in the first control region , the second transmission being a relay physical downlink shared channel, R-PDSCH, wherein the first transmission is determined to have not been transmitted if the first transmission has not been detected. determining if a first transmission has been detected in a first control region , wherein the first transmission is a relay physical downlink control channel, R-PDCCH, and wherein the first control region comprises a region of size N resources of a subframe for a multicarrier modulation system, where N is an integer value, wherein the first transmission comprises an encoded payload that has been adaptively rate matched based on availability or lack of assigned communications system resources, wherein the adaptively rate matching comprises increasing the code rate of the encoded payload to reduce the number of resources needed to transmit the encoded payload or decreasing the code rate of the encoded payload by increasing the number of resources needed to transmit the encoded payload, so that, if there are additional communications system resources available for use, the code rate of the encoded payload has been reduced and the reduced code rate allows for greater protection from errors, and if there is a lack of available communications system resources available for use, the code rate of the encoded payload has been increased to allow for more transmissions to take place without requiring additional communications system resources; and decoding the detected first transmission to determine a location of a second transmission if the first transmission has been detected in the first control region , the second transmission being a relay physical downlink shared channel, R-PDSCH, wherein the first transmission is determined to have not been transmitted if the first transmission has not been detected. <EOS>