Should it be scrapped?

Obviously keep the Good Friday big games like Saints/Wigan and the Hull derby but what do the Monday fixtures achieve. Most were one sided and poor quality and has had a knock on effect the following weekend and tonight.

Before anyone starts, we (Leeds) may well have still lost tonight in one of the toughest fixtures on the calendar but it would've been a much better game played at a different date in the calendar.

I agree. I think the Easter Monday games can be scrapped without any loss really. I’m struggling to remember a really good Easter Monday game yet I can think of plenty of Good Friday ones.

I’d also reduce the number of league games, not the number of teams but certainly the number of games. I think we could reduce it from 30 to 24.

I would scrap it in a heartbeat and have everyone play across thurs and good fri like they do now. Last night was a great advert for reducing the number of games in the season, there needs to be 2 or 3 weeks off for everybody throughout the year. Imagine if everyone had the week before easter off, there would be some belting matches on Good Friday

Yes playing two games over one weekend should be scrapped.

Yep. I think the NRL benefits massively from this. Having bye weeks and just fewer games in total. Combined with smaller squads in SL I’m convinced it’s a big factor in the difference in quality between the comps. There are other factors obviously but I think it’s a way we could close the gap a little at least.

The Monday games were terrible quality

Coaches and players complained about it. So what happened? The RFL introduced a second double weekend!

Scrap it, it flies directly in the face of player welfare and players union should advise the RFL that their members will refuse to play on the Easter Monday.
Whilst getting a win is great if you back up you're basically watching a game that isn't as good as it might be and as seen thereafter the effects further down the line are clear.

Players are already playing through injury and being jabbed up and I believe it leads to more injuries/greater chance of injury when you're playing fatigued and/or carrying a knock.
If we have to extend the season because of it, so be it.

Play the easter Monday matches at the magic weekend. Fixture congestion and lop sided fixture list solved in one fell swoop

Could a poll be added to this thread?

Is there anybody that’s in favour of playing twice over one weekend.

Personally, I have no real problem with the Easter fixtures, providing its just once in a season (unlike 2017 farce of the Wit weekend games).

The clubs know its coming and will plan for is with usage of squad and selective training patterns. If I were to make a change it would be to hold two games on the Thursday evening and then ensure that the 4 clubs who played each other in those fixtures were to facing another Thursday playing club on Easter Monday so they had the same turn around.

Granted, the quality of the Easter Monday games is not high, but its still a level playing field.

I read on the Leeds / Wigan match thread that Easter is being used as an excuse (admittedly by fans) for the poor quality. FFS Easter was TWO weeks ago. How long will this be used as an excuse for rank bad basics.

What will be interesting to see is, due to the postponements through snow, Castleford performances in the future as two games behind everyone else, so inevitably they will be playing some mid week games at some point, creating another period 8/9 days with three games. It is probably the reason their game v Wire went ahead even though the pitch was a swimming pool.

Good suggestion, you could still manipulate the fixtures so that the Magic Weekend gets a crowd-pulling set of fixtures, the Easter Monday games already are often picked to favour teams that are close together (i.e FC vs Wakefield) anyway

you could stagger the games across the Easter Weekend and make it a weekend of big events. Something like the Hull Derby and Wigan-Saints as a double header on Good Friday, Catalan at home on Saturday, Cas-Wakefield & Leeds - Hudds on Sunday, Widnes-Warrington on Monday.