2026 Championship of 21 clubs

[Whippet13]

A 21 team league won't last 2 years and the standard will be far too varied.

I'd just bring in another team (there sees to be interest) and have 12 Championship and 10 League 1 sides, with playoffs to be champions in each league and a GF double header at Headingley.

Promotion / relegation to be 1 up / down between the 3 leagues (team going to SL must be cat B min).

Provides a clean looking 14-12-10 league format with consistent structures.

[Griff]

47 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

How do we plan for a 21-team second tier when it might well have 23 teams?

As I said, you can come up with a fixture plan for any number of clubs playing any even number of games.  See my earlier posts.

[Griff]

29 minutes ago, marklaspalmas said:

Yes, that works.

I had a feeling you might be the chap to come up with a 21 club solution.

Coming up with a plan is easy.  Deciding which fixtures to omit, whilst maintaining a fair competition, is where the skill comes in.

[marklaspalmas]

7 minutes ago, Griff said:

Coming up with a plan is easy.  Deciding which fixtures to omit, whilst maintaining a fair competition, is where the skill comes in.

I guess it's a question of combining the ranking, based on the previous year's league position, plus some geographical consideration.

There's currently a long stretch from top of Championship to bottom of L1.

Arguably top Championship clubs could lose decent players (especially imports) to a bloated SL in 2026, but still.

[Griff]

12 minutes ago, marklaspalmas said:

I guess it's a question of combining the ranking, based on the previous year's league position, plus some geographical consideration.

There's currently a long stretch from top of Championship to bottom of L1.

Arguably top Championship clubs could lose decent players (especially imports) to a bloated SL in 2026, but still.

Yep.  Exactly that.

[Wakefield Ram]

8 hours ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

That works logistically. 

However, a 7 team group that runs for 26 fixtures would have huge points gaps between positions, meaning positions for most would likely be settled months before the playoffs, rendering most of the season as a slog.

Bit like SL

[Griff]

35 minutes ago, Whippet13 said:

A 21 team league won't last 2 years and the standard will be far too varied.

I'd just bring in another team (there sees to be interest) and have 12 Championship and 10 League 1 sides, with playoffs to be champions in each league and a GF double header at Headingley.

Promotion / relegation to be 1 up / down between the 3 leagues (team going to SL must be cat B min).

Provides a clean looking 14-12-10 league format with consistent structures.

Not enough games, is there?  The whole debate started because League 1 teams only had 10 home games.  You're offering them 9.  They'll never vote for it.

But you've touched on the problem.  We only have  enough clubs for 1½ divisions.

[sentoffagain2]

9 hours ago, Griff said:

Assuming it's 21, three pools of 7, play each team in your own pool home and away, everybody else just the once.

26 games

I wouldn't necessarily tie myself down to a geographical split but I'd strive to minimise long journeys.

  I agree with 21 teams 3 groups of 7 is the only way to make it work.Don't think it will be competitive with the difference in playing strength and some teams with a much bigger playing budget than others.End of season 8 team play off top 2 from each group plus another two highest points but not from the same group.Two tens works better with 28 games but that would mean Toulouse dropping out if not wanted in SL.And i like the French teams.

[Jemmo]

Proper demoralised and gutted that the Championship is going to be destroyed for the same of a minor change to Super League. The top table will get questionable benefits at the cost of the most entertaining product the sport has, and all those clubs are given a massive kicking whilt also being judged on why they're not improving.

The RFL need to just shows some balls and disband the lower leagues rather than suffocating them

[yipyee]

They could put the strongest 10 in one conference and the weaker 10 in another, everybody play each other twice, the bottom of the stronger group goes down to play the weaker teams the year after with the top team moving up to play the stronger teams.

What this would mean in real terms is that after a few years the progressive clubs would end up in the stronger group with the non progressive in the weaker group.

If this alignment didn't suit and a few traditional clubs found themselves in the weaker group they could group them all together in one league for a couple of years, resplit as it doesn't work and go back to the 2 groups of strong/weak with the original alignment. 

[The Phantom Horseman]

This might be oversimplifying it, but it does seem that the central aim of the restructure is to get rid of loop fixtures for SL, and the methodology is going to involve introducing a form of loop fixtures to the lower tier.

[Griff]

1 hour ago, sentoffagain2 said:

  I agree with 21 teams 3 groups of 7 is the only way to make it work.Don't think it will be competitive with the difference in playing strength and some teams with a much bigger playing budget than others.End of season 8 team play off top 2 from each group plus another two highest points but not from the same group.Two tens works better with 28 games but that would mean Toulouse dropping out if not wanted in SL.And i like the French teams.

I wouldn't have three separate tables.

[Griff]

28 minutes ago, yipyee said:

They could put the strongest 10 in one conference and the weaker 10 in another, everybody play each other twice, the bottom of the stronger group goes down to play the weaker teams the year after with the top team moving up to play the stronger teams.

What this would mean in real terms is that after a few years the progressive clubs would end up in the stronger group with the non progressive in the weaker group.

If this alignment didn't suit and a few traditional clubs found themselves in the weaker group they could group them all together in one league for a couple of years, resplit as it doesn't work and go back to the 2 groups of strong/weak with the original alignment. 

What if there isn't 20 teams?

[JonM]

Couple of random observations.

- Can't see Toulouse being in next year's championship. Either they're in SL in 2026, or the door is slammed shut and they might as well give up.

- We're not necessarily limited to 21 clubs, or at that number for ever. If we can add Goole at short notice, there's no reason why Bedford (or Bristol or wherever) couldn't join. Similarly if we can lose Cornwall a few games into the season, it could happen again. So any fixture formulae needs a bit of flexibility built-in for future seasons. If we're doing conferences, we need to be OK with them being uneven numbers or whatever.

- Perfectly possible to do a two (or three) phase season, like Scottish football has done (or indeed as RL did with the middle eights). First 12 rounds are regional conferences, then split into top half and bottom half, with separate play-offs for each? You can award trophies to the winners of the 3 conferences, and separate trophies for top and bottom - call them after famous players rather than "Bottom 14 play-off" or some stupid thing like that.

- We already have multiple championship/L1 clubs with DR/loan arrangements in place. 21 x 2nd tier clubs and 14 SL clubs means there'll need to be some alignment of how the whole DR thing is going to work. 

[marklaspalmas]

6 hours ago, Griff said:

As I said, you can come up with a fixture plan for any number of clubs playing any even number of games.  See my earlier posts.

We both know, "Bige Nige" as apparently he is now known on TRL reads this, so when he offers you the fixture planning job, you can thank me later. 

[Griff]

2 hours ago, marklaspalmas said:

We both know, "Bige Nige" as apparently he is now known on TRL reads this, so when he offers you the fixture planning job, you can thank me later. 

Thank ?   Or blame?

[marklaspalmas]

2 minutes ago, Griff said:

Thank ?   Or blame?

They don't deserve you, but they need all the help they can get.

They'll let you know how many clubs are actually at the start line some time near the end of January for a February start, so crack on.

[Derwent Parker]

10 hours ago, Griff said:

Yes, many people think prime numbers are a problem.

Here's a prime number. 7.

A full set, home and away, is 12 games  each.

Or you could play once. 6 games.

But wait. Here's a subset of fixtures.

AB CD EF GA BC DE FG.

One home, one away for each club. 2 games.

Or maybe they're the games you don't play. That's 10 covered.

Or, you could play everyone once, plus thus subset. 8 games.

Or everyone once, except for this subset. 4 games.

So that's all the even number options covered.

No problem. Just needs thought.

We just need someone to work it out who is NOT the person who currently does fixtures for L1 because he/she is useless

[Derwent Parker]

17 hours ago, Griff said:

It's just one idea. I chose it because 21 divides by 3.  There are literally dozens of other options.

And, of course, there may not always be 21 clubs in the division. In which case, you'd need to come up with some other idea.

conferences dont need to have same amount of teams - the NFL have done this over a few years now.

[Stirlin]

7 hours ago, JonM said:

Couple of random observations.

- Can't see Toulouse being in next year's championship. Either they're in SL in 2026, or the door is slammed shut and they might as well give up.

- We're not necessarily limited to 21 clubs, or at that number for ever. If we can add Goole at short notice, there's no reason why Bedford (or Bristol or wherever) couldn't join. Similarly if we can lose Cornwall a few games into the season, it could happen again. So any fixture formulae needs a bit of flexibility built-in for future seasons. If we're doing conferences, we need to be OK with them being uneven numbers or whatever.

- Perfectly possible to do a two (or three) phase season, like Scottish football has done (or indeed as RL did with the middle eights). First 12 rounds are regional conferences, then split into top half and bottom half, with separate play-offs for each? You can award trophies to the winners of the 3 conferences, and separate trophies for top and bottom - call them after famous players rather than "Bottom 14 play-off" or some stupid thing like that.

- We already have multiple championship/L1 clubs with DR/loan arrangements in place. 21 x 2nd tier clubs and 14 SL clubs means there'll need to be some alignment of how the whole DR thing is going to work. 

As they have previously.

[Griff]

54 minutes ago, Derwent Parker said:

conferences dont need to have same amount of teams - the NFL have done this over a few years now.

The NFL have more than two conferences.

Here's the problem. Say you have two conferences. A 10 and an 11. Your target is 26 games.

Both conferences play each team, home and away, in their own conference. They're looking to make up the deficit with cross-conference games.

The 10 team conference need 8 games each. 10 × 8 = 80 games.

The 11 team conference offer 6 games each. 11 × 6= 66 games.

You can make up the deficit with 7 loop fixtures but is that what folk want? Probably not. 

[Wakefield Ram]

10 hours ago, marklaspalmas said:

I guess it's a question of combining the ranking, based on the previous year's league position, plus some geographical consideration.

There's currently a long stretch from top of Championship to bottom of L1.

Arguably top Championship clubs could lose decent players (especially imports) to a bloated SL in 2026, but still.

Possibly if there aren't enough second rate Aussies coming over.

Regarding the structure, it beggars belief that they announce an increase in SL to 14 with no agreed plans for the other 22 clubs.

Or rather it doesn't beggar belief, it's just the usual depressingly amateur approach. 

Edited August 1 by Wakefield Ram

[Wakefield Ram]

8 hours ago, yipyee said:

They could put the strongest 10 in one conference and the weaker 10 in another, everybody play each other twice, the bottom of the stronger group goes down to play the weaker teams the year after with the top team moving up to play the stronger teams.

What this would mean in real terms is that after a few years the progressive clubs would end up in the stronger group with the non progressive in the weaker group.

If this alignment didn't suit and a few traditional clubs found themselves in the weaker group they could group them all together in one league for a couple of years, resplit as it doesn't work and go back to the 2 groups of strong/weak with the original alignment. 

You could call the stronger conference say "Championship" and the weaker one "League 1" ....?

Edited August 1 by Wakefield Ram

[Griff]

19 hours ago, Derwent Parker said:

We just need someone to work it out who is NOT the person who currently does fixtures for L1 because he/she is useless

What's your complaint?

[Derwent Parker]

16 minutes ago, Griff said:

What's your complaint?

Just little things like only 1 or 2 match's per month

season started on 23/Feb. and ends on 7/Sept prior to play offs - During this we will only have 18 matches [9 home games] - during this period we will have had 11 blank weeks, ELEVEN blank weeks THEREFORE almost 3 months of blank weeks.