It seems that no matter how good a side a championship club put together it can't overcome the massive funding and conditioning disadvantages.



Anyone for proposals to change this? Leigh have been smashing teams all season with 20 minute performances. How does that condition our players for the mental and physical conditioning required for SL?



Of course, it's out of the hands of any championship club to rectify these issues. Even if we had Koukash ******* away £5m a year on Leigh we still wouldn't have the physical conditioning.

I'm not going to throw the towel in just yet, but if Leigh can't beat Wakefield - or at least run them close - next week, then it's not looking like this league setup is going to provide much in the way of opportunity for the championship sides.

It has provided opportunity - Bradford and Leigh just haven't capitalised.



Wakefield beat Bradford with a fairly structured game plan that they just couldn't cope with; I have a feeling that Leigh will be a different prospect. Big game for both teams next week - and hard to call.

Chase went to run at the Salford fans in celebration and tripped over one of his team mates then fell into the touch judge. Nearly every player went to the TJ to make sure he was okay, and he was laughing about it all.



No ulterior motive in your suggestion at all is there?

Standard RL fan responses - an idea doesn't work instantly so let's do away with it. Judge the format in three years not three weeks.

He wasn't even looking at where the in-goal official was, just kept going with his head down after grounding the ball.



Entirely accidental contact, no damage done, move on.

God love him

The lack of depth of talent in the player pool in the UK means there's always going to be a substantial drop-off once you take the top 250-300 players out of the equation. So the standard and intensity of the Championship is never going to be as high as it is in SL, in the same way as any other sport has a fall in standard between its top division and the next one down.



The likelihood is though, that Leigh will get one more chance in the 4th/5th place play-off at the end of the Qualifiers. Then you're into the realms of a refereeing decision, bounce of a ball or player error being the difference between being promoted and not.

Absolutely. For the format to have credibility the Championship teams have to win occasionally, but it will only be occasionally. But it's not like you have to top the 8 to be in SL next year. As you say, judge when there's more data.

Out of the championship v SL sides so far, Halifax had a great 77 minutes v Widnes and a decent 75 minutes at Hull KR. Leigh have had a great 40 minutes v Hull KR.....that's about it.

You say that like it's a bad thing...

So far in the clashes between SL and Championship



Super League

played 6

Won 6



Super League 226 Vs 86 Championship