Catalans and Toulouse manage with the standard fixture arrangement. In football clubs could play on a Saturday then in Champions League fly to Russia for a match on the Wednesday and play on the following Saturday.

If Toronto can't handle it, they shouldn't be in this league. Simples.

Manchester is a grim city is it?

It's North of Watford ain't it....

not quite as bad as Bradford squire. best thing about Bradford is the road out of it

Melbourne were virtually Perth Reds werent they?
I heard Ian Leningrad say they'd have Perth in the Sooper Leegue.

So, the general gist of all this is that Toronto want to play in the UK's Rugby League structure.

However, do not want to play the format of 1 home and 1 away as the league has done for many years as its not good for players/feasible/fair/travelling etc.


May have issues at the start of the season due to frozen pitch, cold weather, so cant play their games at their stadium.


Did no one think this through before applying, and did no one pick this up from the RFL when they applied, pitfalls seem to have been ignored at the expense of bringing a team in that is on the other side of the world into a foreign domestic league. Not knocking Toronto for doing this, but to do so without weighing everything up from both sides is amateurish at best. It sounds like a morning meeting discussion at the RFL and asking the tea lady to sort it out.

This season Leeds have played 3 consecutive home matches and on 6 occasions played either 2 consecutive home or 2 consecutive away matches. Is alternate home and away the norm?

No as stadium availability comes into things. Wigan usually have a month of away games midsession when the football club wants the pitch relaid at the DW.

So if The Toronto Wolfpack were to say the Lamport Stadium was unavailable throughout May, they would only be doing something similar to Wigan.

They also need to play the first few games of the season away due to the unplayable Canadian weather in February.

As a result they would be bound to have plenty of pairs of home games for the rest of the season.

To allow for some recovery period will Toronto and one other team be using a time machine for the Easter home and away weekend games.

If the RFL had given some thought to Toronto having winter in the Summer Super League then Toronto wouldn’t have been accepted. It still could happen.

Weather would allow games through all of April and May in Toronto and even late March. Toronto FC play outdoors then. Stand down the cavalry.

February is when the League start and runs into early March, the weeks when weather won’t allow games.

Well spotted Sir Kev. Simple solution - kick Wigan out too then!

I have since checked Toronto FC's home games for 2017 and 2018. They have played as early as the last week in Feb/first week in March. Their field is 300m away from Lamport.

Non-Toronto residents can stop uninformed speculation about when Wolfpack can play home games. It's not going to knock the SL schedule out of whack.

That’s fine then, alternate home and away same as everyone else.

How about we move the start of season back just one week, plenty games in the U.K get called off in Feb/March & allow TW their 1st two games be away, then home/away rest of season + 2 home at some point ?

Easy !

It's crazy how the season starts too early. Have it aligned with the start of the NRL season or at best a week before?? Too logical for the RFL and SL though....

But everyone else doesn’t alternate home and away, for example Leeds had 6 occasions when they played either 2 home or 2 away games in a row and even had 3 home games in a row this season. Wigan have a stretch of away games when their rental ground is unavailable.

The 2 games over the Easter weekend should have been scrapped years ago for all players welfare

But SOO is worth it?
Toronto should play away on the Maundy Thursday as do their Monday opponents and they share the same flights and disadvantages......simplz

Agreed!

Why, just to allow TWP to play alternate games ?

I dont have an issue with them playing 2 home then 2 away games etc.
However, some people have already pinned their hope on them "saving RL" in the UK. However, if we lose a British club from SL to allow them to compete in SL, they are actually doing the opposite AND reducing the number of FT British players.
They should be "extra" not instead.
The NRL seems to cope well with 16 sides and yet, SL keeps reducing the numbers "to improve quality", something which just hasn't happened.

So a bad extensive winter in Toronto could see them play around 9 away games up to the magic weekend I think that would mess up the home and away weekly format for the rest of the other teams.
The biggest danger is if Toronto have to postpone say 2 games in mid March they would have to forfeit those home games because teams won’t want a re arranged fixture travelling mid week to Toronto.
I should imagine airline costs will increase in the spring when most clubs start to play across the Atlantic.
As for the Easter weekend all teams should be playing Friday and Monday and not Thursday and Monday which could be the possibility for 4 teams if Toronto is in the mix.