JonM

Bit premature to be making predictions when there are still plenty of signings to be made - Fev picked up Wellington Albert yesterday, for example.

Yes, Greece v Netherlands Women's international coming up.

I do see people using chains from time to time - generally farmers or contractors who have to get up and down hilly farm tracks. It's illegal to drive on the public roads with anything that could cause damage to the surface, so if you're going anywhere near a main road, which will generally have been cleared, you need to have taken them off, so it's not generally worthwhile. Emergency services also use them from time to time. The fact that you can buy them in places like Halfords tells me that they're not so rare in some parts of the country.

I live in a place where it can snow in reasonable amounts from time to time, but still it's not going to be more than a few days a few times per year. I just stay at home until the snow has gone, but some people use winter tires. Friends who live up in the cairngorms do the same. Ice is the issue, not snow.

I was thinking Maxime Greseque must have fond memories of the fans at Post Office Road

We were in Marrakech and ending up taking a week to get back to the UK overland, which was quite an adventure with two kids and pretty much all buses and trains fully booked up.

Thank you. I've literally had to enter "somewhere up north vs Widnes (A)" and "Widnes v Christ knows (H)" into my calendar - and I'm someone who follows the game pretty closely and recognise most of the badges even in distorted 5x5 pixel format.

The graphic that a number of the clubs have used (so presumably centrally generated) is pretty much unreadable - a small, blurry image which uses tiny team badges rather than the name of the team. Anybody have a link to the actual fixtures written in a normal text format?

The 1895 Cup was deliberately organised that way - championship teams are always away when playing league 1 opposition. There's a couple of rounds of the Challenge Cup to be played before April 7, so potentially a couple of extra away games to add to the mix if that's how the draw turns out.

Yes, watched chunks of Jamaica v USA and Argentina v Brazil yesterday. i was impressed that Halton Farnworth Hornets Girls managed to play the visiting Wanderers Australia girls team yesterday, given the weather conditions. I bet the visitors haven't see snow too often before.

Sebastian Raguin, the traffic warden, was the one who sticks in my mind from that team, but he was second row. Damon Couturier was one of the centres.

I reckon Wigan fans had a worse time though - they lost 75-0 to Saints the same day.

The next round being the semi-final.

L'independant report reckons that some baboons turned up to watch.

And a full-time score of 78-6.

Kenya 0 France 42 at half-time.

This seems like a useful RFL press release: https://www.rugby-league.com/article/62339/leigh-leopard-josh-charnley-to-conduct-round-1-&-2-betfred-challenge-cup-draws I think the dates are as follows, but haven't seen them all in one place from the RFL. Round 1 - Jan 13/14 Round 2 - Jan 27/28 Round 3 - Feb 10/11 Round 4 - Feb 24/25 Round 5- March 9/10 Round 6 - March 22-24 QF - April 12-14 SF - May 18-19 Final - June 8

Also worth pointing out that the French referee Stephane Vincent, who's officiating the game, will be running a course for 25 local match officials.

We don't have an official definition of a test match in RL. I believe the record keepers club or whatever they're called has come up with some formulation along the lines of recognised senior men's international. As it's off-season for Catalans and Toulouse (and I believe Catalans are the last to start their pre-season), I suggest it's probably the best squad they could put out for players who are available to fly out to East Africa for a few days in December. France have explicitly said that this is not France A, or France B, it's the full France team. Kenya have won the World Rugby (sic) Sevens comp. They have some very fast & elusive runners and some huge forwards - there's plenty of potential there and it's a huge boost to get a country like France visiting. They're not likely to get that in football or rugby union. Amazing what Eddie Rombo, Lucas Onyango and other Kenyans who played RL here in the UK have been able to go back and set up. Do you think anyone in the Pacific cared that BARLA wasn't a full strength GB team when they did the tour that helped the sport get going in Tonga, Fiji, Cook Islands etc. or when the King of Tonga turned up to meet them? France had a 21 hour journey from Toulouse to Nairobi. They're playing at 1795 metres altitude, they arrived on Friday night and are playing Saturday afternoon and another game on Tuesday. We've seen GB teams struggle in PNG under similar conditions, this will be a good test for those players. I genuinely don't get the negativity around this. France beat Gibraltar 14-0 in a football European championship match this week. I don't see football fans calling the Euros a waste of time or whatever.

I got it from the announcements in the last week or two about Leeds partnership with Halifax and Hull KR's with Featherstone. Leeds had dual reg with Bradford this past season, not Fev.

They've announced both their games as being at Colwyn Bay, so it looks like they're expecting to.

Playing in Kingston tomorrow, of course.

Groups are largely as expected. Barrow, Whitehaven, Workington Bradford, Dewsbury, Keighley Newcastle, Wakefield, York Halifax, Oldham, Rochdale Batley, Featherstone, Hunslet N. Wales, Swinton, Widnes Doncaster, Midlands, Sheffield

Some teams have 2 home fixtures, others no home fixtures (Barrow, Widnes, Sheffield, Fev, Halifax, Wakefield, Bradford). Was that expected?

Groups and fixtures announced this afternoon, 2PM.