Could someone explain whether the championship 4 play the SL 4 and then each other or just play the 4 SL teams?

SL teams 9 & 10 and Championship teams 1& 2 all get 4 home games and 3 away

Featherstone

So our games would be Hull, Wakefield, Featherstone & Widnes at home, Catalan, Leigh and Sheffield away

So the team that comes 2nd has a certain advantage over 1st. As it stands leigh would play 2 SL teams at home and 2 SL teams away while we would play 3 SL teams at home and 1 away. Would playing 1 more SL team at home instead of a champ team count as an advantage?

With that line up of teams I'd prefer 2nd. We'd have to go to Leigh, but id rather play more sl teams at home than away. especially Hull (always a tricky place to go) and Widnes (with that pitch)

To have a realistic chance of promotion I think you'd have to assume beating the 3rd and 4th place champ teams home or away, then have to beat at least 1 possibly 2 of the sl teams and take our chances in a possibly 50/50 match with Leigh home or away. In that scenario I'd rather have 3 sl teams at odsal.

We would get two games that we would expect to win (Featherstone and Sheffield). Leigh would get two games that they would expect to win (Sheffield & Featherstone).

We would play what could be the decisive game at Leigh.

Doesnt that favour them?

Could we win promotion by just beating the championship teams if other results went our way?

If you see Leigh away as the biggest factor in promotion or not then we have no hope against the SL teams!

I could see us finishing above one of the SL teams. I think the chances of us finishing above two of them are quite remote. I think if we are to gain promotion it will be through the play off final, after finishing either 4th or 5th. I could see us beating a SL team in the play off, I'm much less confident that we will finish 3rd. If they were to offer us today a guaranteed play off place and skip the Middle 8s I would take it in a nanosecond.

There may be shock results in the Middle 8s, but obviously its impossible to say today where those shocks are likely to be. As of today, the fixture list that most improves our chances of promotion is one that includes us playing Leigh at Odsal.

No point even thinking who we might be playing and where, as it will probably be no where near the finishing result.

The worst place to find ourselves playing away would be Catalans. All the bother of flying there and back could alone hinder the team! If the SL teams have a few missing players, do wakefield and hull kr have a squad big enough to compensate?

as there are superleague clubs involved there should also be superleague referees involved in the super8s. In which case I am not bothered about playing Leigh anywhere as we will be playing 12 men instead of the 14 last time.

12? You mean the ref will switch sides to us?

At various points in the game Leigh had 12 and 14 on the field. Can't see them being able to use their own ref next time. Don't think they've used him since. I'd much rather we played Leigh away than any of the SL teams away .....even if they can have their own ref. It's completely unpredictable at the moment and 2nd could turn out much the better but it's not something you can calculate.

I'm driving myself insane thinking about it! Best just forget about it at least till we're halfway through the season!

Would people rather play away to a SL team we are more likely to beat (Wakefield IMO) or a harder team we know we should lose against?

I'd rather play the easier SL teams at home to have a better chance of beating them, and play the harder SL teams away. The side that finishes 9th in SL would be fancied to win nearly all the matches in the Super 8s anyway so we may as well play them away.

No FA, I meant that theres a guaranteed red card player in the Leigh squad, especially with a bit of niggle put his way.

They could be in for Bailey yet..

Get over it.

Looking at the table, I'd say coming in 4th offers the best plan of games. They play the SL teams at 9th-11th at home, then they play the 12th and championship teams at home.

Surely we should be confident of beating any championship team if we're looking for promotion and a team at the foot of SL would be our best chance of a SL scalp, so away ties to these wouldn't be so bad.

Leigh have 3 or 4 hot heads, so it should be easy for us to get under their skin and earn a few penalties. Bailey would only make that easier.

It should but don't underestimate the benefits of home advantage when it comes to refereeing decisions.

Then it'll be Lowes' turn to verbally assault the referee down the tunnel at half time

He will not need to. It's going to be a Bradford fan next time.......it's not like he will need to be well versed in the rules. The club are running a draw with the objective of appointing the winner to referee the match against Leigh. It could be you.

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Why don't you try and beat us with skill? or haven't you got any? Blaming the ref isn't the answer.

FWIW Since beating you guys, Leigh have got much better since then........ Have you?

Leigh certainly didn't show to have much skill in the end, it took the referee to suddenly lean in your favour for you to suddenly 'play skilfully'

Have either of us had an opponent to compare yet? London are still poor and all you've done is beat a bunch of part time teams as we have. You should be pleased with your teams results when you don't win promotion and can boast that you beat all the other championship teams!

I think we are saving the getting better bit until it matters. Bulls have a lot of experience of preparing for similar events and several of those involved are still involved with the club. Several of the squad have hardly drawn breath yet. The Bulls showed in the first half at Leigh how the game should be played. Let's just say that the full complement of the 'Leigh Team' did enough to ensure things couldn't continue like that.....It was just a little too obvious.

I don't blame the ref. As a fan I would have done exactly the same.

Cokey didn't like the idea of us exploiting their short falls of having some stupid players in their team. But what is the difference between this and running your biggest player at a smaller player? Or attacking a weaker side once it's known to be weaker or have a weakness? The game is about finding your opponents weaknesses and taking advantage of it, Leigh had so many they had to have a fan as the referee to their advantage