THE Championship clubs apparently favour being organised into conferences for the 2027, with two conferences of ten split into east and west.

Would this be a good idea?

I don’t think it would.

It would lead to more one-sided games, unfortunately, compared to the 2026 season, which was a graded system that was designed to avoid too many one-sided games while being flexible enough to give clubs their most desirable derby matches.

It certainly wasn’t a perfect system, but it broadly achieved its objective.

But in 2027 we had better get ready for North Wales v Oldham, home and away, for example.

It reminds me of the long-ago third division north and south competitions in football, which ended at the end of the 1957-8 season.

It’s a retrograde step.

I would much prefer seeing a club like Doncaster playing Oldham and Widnes at home and away, while North Wales should play teams at the lower end of the scale.

If Featherstone are to come back into the Championship in 2027, as I hope they do, they will face the difficult task of putting a squad together in a short space of time, and the fixture system that was used in 2026 would give them a relatively easier set of opponents than would the conference system.

Apparently the biggest gripe among the clubs last season was the number of weekends when they didn’t have fixtures.

That arose, of course, because there were initially 21 clubs, which was then reduced to 20 after Featherstone’s withdrawal. Each weekend usually therefore had three clubs without a game.

But with Featherstone back in and London promoted, that wouldn’t be an issue in 2027 with 20 clubs.

So it just seems silly to change the structure and devalue the competition in this way.

It demonstrates once again that if decisions are left to clubs, they come up with nonsensical solutions.

The real weakness of last season’s competition was the play-offs, extending over five weeks and with several repeat fixtures.

I’ve recommended an alternative play-off formula that would last only three weeks with no repeat fixtures possible.

I hope it’s not too late to persuade the clubs and the RFL not to go down the conference route.

A few years ago Premier Sports used to televise one game per week from the Championship.

I’m sure they might be interested again, after having covered the World Cup, and I’m sure the Championship would benefit from the coverage.

But they would want some consistent matches between the competition’s strongest teams and I’m not sure they would get them from the system that has been proposed.

One of our Mailbag correspondents in this week’s issue has suggested that too many one-sided matches will keep him away from attending games.

The RFL and the clubs should take some notice.