Up just before the Summer bash weekend ....

Good point, hadn't thought of that to be honest.

Maybe have all the games on sane day. First game starts at 7.30 AM, im sure some folk would be just on their way home

And there would be plenty of pubs already open in Blackpool...

Or base it on last year's league table. Champ Shield rematch. Losing semi finalists against each other. Two promoted teams play each other. 9 v 10 play each other. Then 7 v 8 from Middle 8s and 6 v losing MPG team.

Easy and fair. But the RFL don't like it because they prefer the games they think will attract biggest crowd to actual fairness.

I'm sure they actually did it that way, maybe for just one year, back when we were still in SL. We played Wakefield iirc.
No idea why they switched back to 'derby' games. Maybe the crowds weren't as good?

They did for Magic yeah. They also did a thing where the top 4 were in a group, the next 4 were in a group, then the next 4 again, or something like that. You drew someone from your "group".

No doubt it's because the crowds aren't as big for those games as they don't look as attractive as effective derbies or "big games" which Bradford/KR would have been had the Bulls not fallen so far in the last couple of years.

But the point remains that it shows it's all about crowds and money, rather than fairness.