absolutely spot on, the RFL don't give a feck about player welfare if they are asking top pros in a full on contact sport to play so many games in such a short timescale. It would be a very good reason to binning off the magic weekend and just play teams home and away nothing more. Other options include start the season earlier with the WCC being played one week earlier so there is no empty weekend, finish the season one week later. That the SC has remained the same for so long has also had an impact on player welfare. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/40077608

absolutely spot on, the RFL don't give a feck about player welfare if they are asking top pros in a full on contact sport to play so many games in such a short timescale. It would be a very good reason to binning off the magic weekend and just play teams home and away nothing more. Other options include start the season earlier with the WCC being played one week earlier so there is no empty weekend, finish the season one week later. That the SC has remained the same for so long has also had an impact on player welfare. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/40077608

Plus some rumours going round that SL could be increased to 14 teams to at least include Toronto and Toulouse.

How on earth can we fit in an extra 4 games? Have 2 matches every bank holiday weekend?

knockersbumpMKII wrote:absolutely spot on, the RFL don't give a feck about player welfare if they are asking top pros in a full on contact sport to play so many games in such a short timescale. It would be a very good reason to binning off the magic weekend and just play teams home and away nothing more. Other options include start the season earlier with the WCC being played one week earlier so there is no empty weekend, finish the season one week later. That the SC has remained the same for so long has also had an impact on player welfare. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/40077608 Then people would complain the season is too long. They've had to put this in this season to reduce the length of it because of the WC at the end. Not ideal, but if the clubs want the income, they need to host events to bring it in. More so the chairmen then the RFL. And how on earth does the salary cap affect player welfare?

knockersbumpMKII wrote:absolutely spot on, the RFL don't give a feck about player welfare if they are asking top pros in a full on contact sport to play so many games in such a short timescale. It would be a very good reason to binning off the magic weekend and just play teams home and away nothing more. Other options include start the season earlier with the WCC being played one week earlier so there is no empty weekend, finish the season one week later. That the SC has remained the same for so long has also had an impact on player welfare. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/40077608 Then people would complain the season is too long. They've had to put this in this season to reduce the length of it because of the WC at the end. Not ideal, but if the clubs want the income, they need to host events to bring it in. More so the chairmen then the RFL. And how on earth does the salary cap affect player welfare?

Who says there'd be four extra games? They'd just change the season format like they did last time we had 14 clubs.

And I very much doubt there's anything to those rumours other than paranoia.

Spreading the games out over a longer season gives fewer games crammed together thus less likelihood of injury, that is obvious.
As for the SC, well you know how pretty much every team goes down to the bare bones at some point or another and players are playing jabbed/strapped up, being brought back too soon after an injury and having to play kids that aren't ready well with a bigger SC clubs could invest in oh i don't know, more players.
if jordan Abdul and Hadley were on our books and not loaned out do you think we'd still be playing Sneyd and whichever forward is injured but still playing?
With a bigger squad you are more likely to be able to have better back up players so that a coach is more likely to not play an injured player or rush one back from injury. it aint rocket science!

You can also argue that increasing the SC won't make the quality of players any better, more money just gets distributed amongst the same pool of players

What was there last night, 16 players across both sides injured? Injuries are of course part of the game, but there was probably a top8 side sat in the stands last night.

How many more would have been playing patched up, making them more susceptible to injury themselves?

I think Mini raises some important points. It's also detrimental to the whole league when we have a load of our top players not playing, it dilutes the standard, lowers the standard of the game as a spectacle. The sport isn't in a strong enough position in the UK to have half of it's stars not playing.

the whole game is a shambles,how come Huddersfield and saints were allowed to postpone their match for no good reason.luckily we don't play either team on Saturday,but it stinks.

We do, and Saints will have been watching yesterday, relishing the 10 days prep.

I imagine they managed it by being able to re-schedule for one of the challenge cup weekends, having both been knocked out last round.