Do you genuinely believe the RFL dont ask clubs when they dont want to play at home on a particular weekend because of this that and the other-Why do you think the fixtures get leaked weeks in advance-Thats because they have been issued in "draft" to the clubs to comment on. What happens once they are issued is out of the RFL's control.

I've no idea how accommodating the RFL is in this respect. I do know the Football Association repeatedly gives groundsharing clubs in different leagues home matches on the same day when compiling the fixtures for the Conference, Northern Premier, Southern and Isthmian Leagues, and sometimes no one notices the clash until a couple of weeks beforehand meaning the lower level club has to switch its game to another date. Therefore I tend not to take it for granted that a governing body would employ such common sense.

For instance, one would assume that our club knows there will always be a double header over the road on the first day of the union season on the first Saturday of September, in which case it seems odd that we didn't request an away game that weekend in the season just gone if we were supposed to be playing our home games on Saturdays. Presumably we didn't check, were happy to move, or the RFL wasn't able to accommodate us on that occasion.

We have a lot of things to consider with our fixture lists-England RU matches, Local Borough regulations, Quins RU and music concerts etc

You cant possibly avoid all of them- more avoid the bigger ones and compliance with law I suspect

Wigan have a similar problem in that Whelan doesn't let them play at home on football weekends-hence why they played a cup game at Widnes etc

Trying an evening game at home. To quote Paul Blanchard “Night time games have a certain atmosphere about them; a great example being the recent Australia v New Zealand game held at the Stoop which was outstanding. Friday nights at the Stoop are new for us and I’m looking forward to giving it a go.”

Cast your mind back to Thursday April 9th 20.00 kick off - flat as a pancake!

Nice of Bradford to have our game on a Friday night at Odslum when it looks like their usual time is 15.00 on Sundays

Is this in retaliation for the Bradford game at the Stoop being on a Friday? I would have preferred our Friday night game experiment to have been against one of the perpetual Friday nighters - say Hull FC.

Looks like one of the greatest derbies is no longer - looks like the RFL are pairing us off with the Welsh

Which begs the question, why not try Saturday nights first?

Have done a couple of evening weekday matches at The Stoop for both League and Union and on each occasion it was a bit of a mare getting home via public transport. I agree Cats at home was very flat last year and that saturday night would be a better option.

It looks as though the club are trying to maximise the away gate by having Leeds,Wigan and Hull on a saturday which is a good thing.

Is it just me or do others think there is no continuity of games - home /away or fri/sat/sun. My first thought was how do you plan round that if you want to build new fans. Hardened fans may find it hard to make games and not appearing to have a structure will make it harder. long breaks between home games, mid season could possibly go from 10th April to 16th May without a home game and the end of the season goes from 31st July to 4th Sept without a home game. What's everyones thoughts on building a good following. Can we build with such a strange fixture plan?

If that was the Les Cats game, it could be that they brought no fans and we were *rap. It was not a bad turn out considering.

I agree with you there. Regular supporters will mostly go on different days, but I think it makes it harder to recruit new followers when games are on almost random days of the week. I notice we have another home game on the first Saturday of September, which presumably will clash with the union double header over the road meaning our game could be put back the the Sunday as it was last season.

Another issue is that the season now starts in January, yet any club failing to qualify for the play-offs of Challenge Cup semi finals will only have three matches after the end of July. So much for summer rugby league!

As for the Friday night experiment, I'd have preferred it to be against Wigan. They have the largest travelling support so we could have inconvenienced the maximum number of people by doing to them exactly what their own club does to us every year. (It seems Bradford are playing most games on Sundays next season except for a coupl of Friday nights that are live on Sky, so it looks like our Friday night fixture at Odsal was scheduled purely as tit-for-tat.)

I noticed those two large breaks between home fixtures though I suppose
we have to consider that the pitch being in use all year round needs to be
maintained so maybe that is one of the reasons here. Quins RU last GP fixture is on 18/4/10 so that would seem to figure.

To be fair to the club perhaps they have looked ahead and have had their hands tied to an extent with clashes with events at Twickenham Stadium.

I agree though it isnt ideal when trying to keep the interest of casual fans
up as I seem to remember that whilst we were based at Brentford it seemed ages between home fixtures whilst they reseeded the pitch.

Its a problem we will just have to deal with as best we can, though far from ideal.

That said a winning culture at home wouldnt go amiss to bring them through the gates.





:

I know we dont have many making away games but only 4 sunday games (ex cats & scots) is a joke unless you can afford a day off for a Friday evening up-north. Having said that if the club or somebody else decides to target away fixtures there is plenty of time to get something organised.

Sound logic

Hull FC in Scotland-one of many underwhelming games for us to sit in the cold and watch!!