http://www.rugbyleaguechampionships.co.uk/rlnewera has full details of how Clubs are to be ranked according to finishing position, plus a grid showing who plays who. Can play for hours making up different final positions. The top 2 teams in Championship will be ranked 3 and 4 and will have 4 games at home and 3 away; how much of an advantage do people think it would be to finish 1st rather than 2nd in Championship. If this has been on before, my apologies.

http://www.rugbyleaguechampionships.co.uk/rlnewera has full details of how Clubs are to be ranked according to finishing position, plus a grid showing who plays who. Can play for hours making up different final positions. The top 2 teams in Championship will be ranked 3 and 4 and will have 4 games at home and 3 away; how much of an advantage do people think it would be to finish 1st rather than 2nd in Championship. If this has been on before, my apologies.

If we finish 2nd we still get 4 home games but crucially one of those will be against 8th Placed SL team.

If we finish 1st, all home games are ever so slightly easier. But on the flipside we have to then travel away to the 8th placed superleague team.

In other words, god knows which is best.

Not sure what advantage there is in finishing first, other than 'putting you marker down', which is no advantage really. In truth the early qualifying league fixtures don't do anything, other than get you a place in the 'business end' games. If you lose the odd game by resting people to keep them fresh for the more important stuff to come at the back end, then so be it, after all, the fully pro sides really should, all things being equal, win more than enough to qualify.

Playing against the SL sides, as they have twice the cap and will be hardened by playing tougher fixtures through the season, will be the killer though. I have no illusions.

Momentum and confidence are important, though, as even Leeds discovered when a Leigh side brimming with it all but knocked them out of the Cup. Also a team (if there is one or two) which has been getting paggered every week will not be in a good place. Last season for examplehad we had to face a playoff to stay in SL I'm damn sure if given a choice of London or Leigh I'd have chosen London.

8th placed?
Do you mean 12th placed?

Neither, I meant 9th.

I know where you're coming from but being full time gives a pretty solid advantage and RL, unlike soccer where 'giant killings' are fairly common, is a very unforgiving game. With the full width of the pitch to defend you can't hang on, packing your defence and hoping for a breakaway like in soccer. In RL the stronger, fitter, more skilful and better prepared team virtually always wins, and full timers losing to semi pros is as rare as hens teeth.

Truth is, we don't have a super league side now, just a team with a fair bit of SL experience and I fully expect we'll get a battering next year from teams with something to prove. I also expect we'll lose some games, but by expecting to win the majority, as indeed, I expect the other fully pro sides to do, I don't feel I'm being arrogant, merely realistic. Incidentally, if you remember, the Leeds side in that cup game had a number of omissions as McDermott rested a few but it still turned out to be mission impossible for Leigh!

There's a big difference in prize money between finishing first and second.

Which would be important the following year if we failed to get promotion through the super 8s. Whereas if you win promotion you get full superleague funding following year. Coming second means you get home advantage against 3 of the 4 SL teams after the split. Finishing 1st means you only get 1 SL team at home. I don't think its a sensible to target 2nd but think promotion from 2nd place is maybe slightly easier than from 1st.

Mat, which do you think would yield more points: three home games against championship teams (that the team must already have beaten at least once to be first in the championship), or three home games against superleague teams?