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Thought I'd start a new thread to discuss other Championship teams for the 2024 season as the old one had reached 22 pages. Skybet were first up with the odds for the season and they go as follows (Betfred are also up with fairly similar odds) Wakefield Trinity 2/7 Toulouse Olympique 10/1 Featherstone Rovers 12/1 Bradford Bulls 14/1 Halifax Panthers 16/1 Sheffield Eagles 25/1 Widnes Vikings 25/1 York City Knights 25/1 Batley Bulldogs 33/1 Doncaster RLFC 40/1 Dewsbury Rams 50/1 Barrow Raiders 100/1 Swinton Lions 100/1 Whitehaven RLFC 100/1 Probably looks not too far off to me. I'd have York a fair bit shorter but other than that pretty much as you'd expect. We're second or third favourites behind Wakefield and close in the betting to Toulouse and Bradford, that reflects on the one hand our consistent record in the comp but also the fact that we look much weaker on paper than in the last couple of years, especially in terms of depth. Wakefield are interesting in that their odds probably reflect the overall weakness of the competition as much as their own strength. They have retained 15 (I think) of their SL squad and added some good pick-ups including Iain Thornley, Lachlan Walmsley, Jermaine McGillvary, our own Matthieu Cozza, and several others. They're staying full time, they've got Daryl Powell in to coach them, and it's no surprise to see them priced up so short, but that's partly because there isn't an obvious challenger. I must admit though I was surprised to their new owner say publicly he'd already spent £1.3 million on the squad though. That doesn't half put a target on their back - it will probably be almost 3 times as much as any other team spends - and it's a similar amount to what Leigh were rumoured to have spent in the Championship in 2022. Still, it's good for the game that there's another rich, enthusiastic owner getting involved, and his bullishness might well be proved right because they undoubtedly have a strong squad for this division and 2024 looks to be potentially the weakest Championship for years. We obviously look weaker on paper; Toulouse were beatable last year, have lost arguably their best player in Josh Ralph and haven't made many eyecatching signings yet; Bradford look to be a bit more stable than they were previously and should be a steady top 3 team, but would probably need it to be a really weak comp to win it; York look potential improvers having made some good signings, but the only club that looks like it could be potentially dominant is Wakefield, and even they don't look on paper like they're going to be anything like Leigh were two years ago. Quite looking forward to us reverting to being (hopefully) the plucky underdogs again though.
