Barley Mow

Barrow 4-0 up in 3 minutes. EDIT - 8-0 on 8 mins. - 14-0, 12 mins.

Army v RAF livestream:

For those who might prefer Barrow v Salford to the Army v RAF Challenge Cup match - livestream on Barrow's youtube channel:

How many of those are outside North Wales?

We're not all clear on the postponement/cancellation front yet - Bradford (reserves) v Newcastle on Sunday is cancelled due to a frozen pitch at Odsal. https://www.totalrl.com/bradford-bulls-forced-to-cancel-pre-season-friendly-due-to-frozen-pitch/

So you're saying Cas have an outside chance of beating them?

I see on social media that Cas have brought some temporary buildings onto the site and are showing what looks like new/renovated changing rooms (possibly within the temporary structures?) More small changes, little improvements that are seemingly affordable while they await hoped for funding to replace the main stand, etc. I see that as a positive - it gets away from accusations of just producing another set of plans, even if redevelopment does occur in the short/medium term and some of these minor improvements are ripped out again.

Deleted - Apologies, wrong thread

I wasn't a fan of seeding the draw, but on reflection I think they have seeded the wrong round. If they had done round 2 instead (Championship clubs ranked 1-12 as the SL clubs were in yesterday's draw) then we would get amateur clubs with a decent day at/hosting Championship teams (including some big names - Bradford, Widnes, Halifax, etc) but most if not all amateur clubs filtered out before round 3 (when SL teams enter). Round 3 would then be unseeded giving the semi-pro teams their potential 'big day' against SL opposition - but with an open draw allowing none SL teams to be drawn against one another meaning some (the stronger) would progress to later rounds to give interesting variation from SL v SL teams later in the competition.

That would be them playing each other twice within a fortnight - they have a pre-season game against each other in Amsterdam at the end of this month.

I was thinking the same - I agree with SL clubs entering at the round of 32, but they should have played another round to reduce the amateur clubs before SL clubs enter.

3rd round draw live in a couple of minutes - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/live/cx2vz91xnvzt

Do you know if Fev will be doing audio commentary like they have in the past?

As I understand it (and this is just hearsay, it could be wrong) previous seasons (the Council have bought the stadium themselves ahead of this season) the Council were guarantors for the club and were responsible for any rent that was not paid by the club to their landlord. Would this mean that underpayments of rent (as the club were widely reported to regularly make) wouldn't show in the accounts because the Council would be liable for the debt?

Under the current system (unless another club has financial issues) resetting and getting back into SL is going to be much more difficult. The incumbency advantages of being in SL for grading will make it extremely difficult, and you have said yourself that this could be a stepping stone and medium term SL could become a closed shop. I can't see clubs getting the benefits you see in KR's year in the Championship, or the year Wakefield just had and then getting a chance to come back - dropping down is currently much more likely to mean no SL rugby for a long time.

You said if "Salford go to the champ sky could cut the next tv deal". I'm a big fan of Championship rugby and certainly don't think the places represented by its clubs are "lost to the sport", nor would Salford be if they were playing there.

I heard of a few Super League clubs sending players on short term loan/dual-reg to Championship clubs last year because they considered it a better standard of rugby than the reserves. They were then bringing players in from Champ/L1 clubs on loan/dual-reg to use for their reserves.

They certainly competed with Barrow a lot better than Whitehaven did earlier in the week.

Barrow 24-12 Workington FT

Barrow 12-12 Workington HT

Aberavon 16 - 32 Blackbrook FT

Streaming now on a different link

That must be a recent change then. The last I heard clubs could dual-reg with more than one other, but no more than one in any division. So Newcastle for example would be able to dual-reg with one Super League and one Championship club, but not two from the Championship.

Barrow v Workington is still due to go ahead this afternoon (3pm KO) - also being streamed on Barrow's youtube channel: