The Blues Ox

Personally I think we should look in to the possibility of reserve teams entering and failing that I would keep the numbers as they are until there are new teams strong enough to enter but that would need a solution regards the fixtures. I get that it could sound like a Championship fan trying to protect his own position but the reality is that its not going to affect my team very much if at all so say we have a decision where we relegate 3 teams come the end of the season and promote 1, how does that improve the quality of the product? Or even worse relegate 4 and promote 2. The Championship is a very strong competition with no obvious weak team this season, at least not to the point where you could say a team is nailed on to be relegated so we have to assume that the bottom 3-5 teams its going to be close come the end of the season between them yet we would relegate more than two of those teams just for the simple reason of making numbers up in a league below.

Weakening 2 teams(potentially more depending how they were to get to 12 teams) just to help out a lower division would be a very Rugby League thing to do. There does need to be a solution for League 1 but reducing the number of teams in a highly competitive league should not be the way to do it.

I guess the short answer is no. No doubt once teams start filing their documents we may see some slight adjustments in the gradings but again that's just me been an old cynic.

Personally think it would be madness to reduce the number of teams in the Championship when it looks like all teams can be competitive and with Oldham coming up next year as well. Could you imagine SL getting to a point where they had 14 grade A teams and then reducing back down to 12 because the Championship lost some teams.

Just seen a video of some crowd trouble claiming to be at the Wakey game, not sure if correct. Must just be a thing about that postcode if so.

Its not a huge surprise, one look at their squad tells you how strong they are and with Fev and Toulouse both looking weaker than last season and the chasers not looking as good as either of those two, its going to be a very one sided season. I wonder what the try scoring records are when it comes to this league as there has to be a very high chance that Walmsley could beat it comfotably.

Its going to be interesting to see how well some of the scores hold up once they are properly investigated which I am sure the RFL will do in a lot more detail and I had been comparing scores on RLFans between Fax, Fev and Bradford just to get more of an idea on the breakdown of each teams scoring and it did leave a lot of questions especially related to the finance side of things so Beaumont coming out and saying what he said makes you wonder how many more will change. I mentioned before that I think Bradford are at the upper limit on their scoring and struggle to see where they could improve to get the points needed to see them make the top 12 and their finances score was one of the reasons I said that. They scored 2.75pts in the finance section and because of the the scoring in section 2. Non-Centralised Turnover % we know they scored the full 0.75 points for this so scored 2 more points from the rest and I have no idea how they managed this. We have to presume they score 0.5 points for Non centralised Turnover between 500k-1.25m which then means they score top marks on the rest of the criteria. I just get the feeling that some teams may have stretched the truth as much as possible to give their fans a better impression where as some teams have been deliberatley coy about the numbers they put through. I think this might still live up to the excitment of promotion and relegation once the final scores come out and the fallout begins. Its a shame it won't be on a pitch but theres certainly going to be some drama.

It will be interesting, if true, to see where a team could gain so many points when a 3 year rolling average is used. We can only presume they must have been very close to the top bracket in multiple sections of the finance grading and this has pushed them through that.

There might not be a ton of parking actually inside the ground but theres plenty of street parking about, Park Lane is maybe a 500 yard walk or so away. Ive been to a ton worse grounds for on street parking like the old York ground used to be a total nightmare. Wakey can expect a very physical game with many of the Siddal lads comfortably able to play Championship standard rugby if they so wished and the majority of them will have been at SL academies at one time or another. Its the sort of game that could set Wakey up for a good season and get them used to the more physical style of rugby that the Championship will offer compared to SL.

Should have just played it at Fev Lions to wind the Wakey fans up even more.

The contempt that some of their fans are treating Siddal with is a bit embarassing to be honest. I don't blame them about been excited for the season and for their future but its hard to forget that they peed money up against the wall for god knows how long playing in a stadium that made Odsal look state of the art and suddenly they are trying to make a mockery of an amateur club that has been infinatly much better managed than they have been for at least a couple of decades.

Build a new stand and suddenly Belle Vue is the Wembley of the North.

Tommy will be along shortly to tell us this is exactly the problem that grading is dealing with.

Im confused, the "pro" game is still been played under the old rules until next season as far as I am aware. Just on Stevie Ward, I wonder if we will get a different response from current players or if we will see the usual suspects coming out and calling him soft? Also can't wait for Mazey's take on this.

No real surprise about Cas, there was no way they were going to put their girls through playing those games. I heard Bradford are struggling as well and have been desparately contacting girls from the community game to make the numbers up. This season is going to be a real struggle for them.

Fax apparently signing Ben Hursey-Hord from Leeds. Don't know much about him other than seeing him in the pre-season game against Bradford. No idea on the deal if its a season long(or game by game as I prefer to call it) or a permanent deal although I presume the former. Also Fax council looking to transfer(see what I did there) ownership of the stadium to someone else. Still hoping the RFL step up and take on the iconic ground.....

Actually quite surpried that Salford and Wakey have spent the same amount of time in SL but Wakefield are above them. I would never have guessed that and always just presumed that Wakey were the basket case club.

This is all very important to viewer satisfaction. IMG really need to look at this, there is a lot to be said for watching a game on a cold rainy day at a windswept open air stadium like Odsal compared to a cushty little new stand not exposed to the elements.

Do none of you like betting? There is almsot a zero chance that Wakefield don't finish top of the league. They are the biggest favorites in many a year with very little hope of any team getting near to them. I think Bradford are about right, they will have 2nd/3rd highest spending in the league and have a large squad that looks set up to do pretty well this season. They will be a mile of Wakey though. I really see nothing with any real value in the Championship betting odds.

I agree with that side of things but I also think a survey of the use of pain killers in the sport would throw up some shocking results.

Rugby League players take heavy amounts of painkillers and recreational drugs - Were you shocked? No not at all. Maybe this case is also one of the reasons behind the RFL banning Tramadol? This is such a tragic story where a young lad having his best day was seemingly let down by his elders who should have been looking out for him.

Very bold. Were you "Shocked"?

Super League clubs are still under 19's this season but a number of community teams have been setting up U18's for the coming season so Im presuming because Hull FC look like they will be in a restructured League 1 set up they have been given permission to run an U18's and play in that competition rather than a 19's and have to compete against SL teams which makes sense given their open age team is off the pace at the moment.

Prepare to be underwhelmed if that happened to be the case. He is a great lad but making him captain coincided with his form having a really bad drop off. I think he certainly leads by his actions but he isn't someone that is going to be an out and out captain. Everyone at Fax knew our real captain was Bob Fairbank.

No disrespect but Brandon had a number of teams interested in him, its very unlikely he has chose Batley just to play as someones back up given the reasons why he left Fax.