It has provided opportunity - Bradford and Leigh just haven't capitalised.

Wakefield beat Bradford with a fairly structured game plan that they just couldn't cope with; I have a feeling that Leigh will be a different prospect. Big game for both teams next week - and hard to call.

Chase went to run at the Salford fans in celebration and tripped over one of his team mates then fell into the touch judge. Nearly every player went to the TJ to make sure he was okay, and he was laughing about it all.

No ulterior motive in your suggestion at all is there?

Standard RL fan responses - an idea doesn't work instantly so let's do away with it. Judge the format in three years not three weeks.

He wasn't even looking at where the in-goal official was, just kept going with his head down after grounding the ball.

Entirely accidental contact, no damage done, move on.

The lack of depth of talent in the player pool in the UK means there's always going to be a substantial drop-off once you take the top 250-300 players out of the equation. So the standard and intensity of the Championship is never going to be as high as it is in SL, in the same way as any other sport has a fall in standard between its top division and the next one down.

The likelihood is though, that Leigh will get one more chance in the 4th/5th place play-off at the end of the Qualifiers. Then you're into the realms of a refereeing decision, bounce of a ball or player error being the difference between being promoted and not.

Absolutely. For the format to have credibility the Championship teams have to win occasionally, but it will only be occasionally. But it's not like you have to top the 8 to be in SL next year. As you say, judge when there's more data.

Out of the championship v SL sides so far, Halifax had a great 77 minutes v Widnes and a decent 75 minutes at Hull KR. Leigh have had a great 40 minutes v Hull KR.....that's about it.

You say that like it's a bad thing...

So far in the clashes between SL and Championship

Super League
played 6
Won 6

Super League 226 Vs 86 Championship

Leigh 26 36 Hull KR
Bradford 42 10 Sheffield
Halifax 0 14 Widnes
Salford 34 26 Wakefield
Wakefield 48 18 Bradford
Hull K R 34 12 Halifax
Salford 46 18 Leigh
Widnes 48 12 Sheffield

Championship Vs Championship
SL Vs SL

Think this talk wouldn't be happening if we hadn't bottled it against KR last week.

To be honest the SL teams have improved a hell of a lot form and squad wise since the end of the regular season.

I'm not entirely surprised by who's won and who's lost so far, but I expected the margins in both Wakey/Brad and Salford/Leigh to be a lot less. Halifax have been a positive surprise, Sheffield have been on the end of expected scorelines. If you're going to be honest, the series was only realistically about who gets 5th between Leigh and Bradford with perhaps Wakefield being the likeliest 4th placed team.

The acid test for the whole comp is definitely Leigh v Wakefield.

Agreed.

I think we might have scraped a decent 30 seconds against Wakey