Round 2 - Wigan at home, Friday 21st February

Easy 4 points to start the season

I guess it's a Friday to give Wigan an extra day or two to prepare for the Vegas game the following weekend.

Very tough start on paper but I’d argue that’s two games you’d want early in the season

Good Friday derby at home confirmed too

We will be going for a fourth successive home win over them, I believe? Certainly an odd statistic when you consider the disparity between the two sides these recent years.

Yes that was the first hat trick of home wins over Wigan since 1985. That was a run of six wins going back to 1977.

Shows how bad the attitude has been when we could get up for big games and then not bother for the 'easier' home games.

Ultimately we have to play everyone at some point and I hope this is where the fans show patience...even 2 defeats to start wouldn't be season over it's the performances that are important.

Christ! That's a really really long time.

Looks like two losses to start the season but no biggie as it'll help the team gel for when the must win games start

Such a long time ago. Especially for those clubs who haven't been good enough to win a major trophy in all that time (since [u1985[/u).
Imagine that, going all of those years watching your club, never lifting anything of note.
I have no idea how depressing that must feel!!!

Perhaps but we need the first W on the board given we've only won three out of our last thirty-four games (and lost n-n-n-n-nineteen games away from home in a row).

[iNone of them received a hero's welcome.[/i

Blimey! The BBC doesn’t like us.

Just clicked on the SL League Table on the RL page and they have us bottom. Normally in the close season they list the league in alphabetical order with all teams on 0 points.

Saints, Hudds and Wakefield are 1, 2, and 3. Even the great Man City/PSG of Rugby League are only sixth.

Warrington, Wigan, Leigh and Catalans 3 times. That feels rough.
It's a hugely back loaded fixture list when it come to home games again with about 2/3 in the final 3 months of the season.

Four home games in first 13, five in first 16, 8 from last 11 games at home hopefully we be in a half decent position.

Will need to improve our away record (and also win record based on last year)

None of them, none of them

Those four loop fixtures are a knock on effect of finishing in the bottom four this year (two top-four sides plus two mid-four sides). We're continuing to pay the price for being so bad in 2024.
It's another obstacle we have to work through next year as we start the road back to respectability.

Good to see the fixtures are spread over the weekend at last a bit of common sense, no three games on a Friday anymore, One Thursday, two Friday, Two Saturday and one Sunday but sometimes one Saturday, two Sunday.

How are the loop fixtures arrived at, I'm assuming there is some sort of logic to it?

I'm not wholly sure. I know the league is split into three groups of four (top, middle, bottom) and you then play two games (one home, one away) from each of the two groups you're not in (hence our group of fixtures).
But I've no idea how those individual fixtures are arrived at. In our case, for example, why Wigan/Wire and not Salford/rovers, or Leigh/Cats and not Saints/Leeds?

Similarly, at magic we are allocated another bottom-four side, but I guess in that instance we were paired with Huddersfield so that Cas-Wakey could be the other one? Whether there is a definitive logic process to all this I don't know, this is rugby league after all!

Regardless, I now know more than I did, so thanks.
Didn't know they split the league into groups.

I believe because we finished 11th, we play 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th 3 times. So if we'd have finished 5th and Leigh 11th for example, we'd still have the same loop fixtures

That does make some sense and is reasonably logic. So I guess, under that criteria, if we had finished tenth last year (or even bottom

) we would have been given a third derby (as rovers were second) instead of playing Wigan for a third time?
The Huddersfield game (9th v 11th) is the one to be played out at magic weekend alongside the likes of Wigan v Wire (1st v 3rd). That does look fairly clear, for once!