Swinton beat Toulouse in France.

At the moment, I'm not confident which of the top teams will come out on top in each game.
Which is great for the league

I don’t really know enough about most teams either to know if that’s a shock or not but losing at home early in season you can’t imagine Toulouse being happy with that.

Great result for Swinton, Especially since the bookies gave them a 24-point head start. I thought they were kind of weak before, but they really proved me wrong. If I had to split up the league, I'd say there are three groups based on how good they are. There's us at the top, then Fev and Toulouse kinda together, and everyone else is sort of on the same level. And the early results seem to back that up.

Yusuf Aydin playing for Fev against Bradford

Bulls win at Fev

York lose 15-14 against Barrow, Dagger & Keinhorst come off injured Tai on report use of the elbow

Nice scalp for barrow

Dagger got a nasty wound to his armpit

This is ultimately where the full time and bigger budget squad comes in.
I think a lot of teams can compete in Championship but a key injury can end it fir them.
Hopefully we have a squad that can handle that better.

So who exactly is going to challenge us - this weekend has basically left me wondering if Sheffield will be the team that pushes us.

imo it's about been able to challenge ourselves and get up for the games and improve . I thought it was flat both on and on the field yesterday, so for me the big test is our own motivation

There won't be anyone - as I've said a couple of times on this forum, the Championship this season is the weakest for many, many years.

Agreed. I could see us slipping up against one or two of Toulouse (away), Sheffield, Bradford (hope it's the league not the 1895 cup), or even a Cumbrian team away. But it'll be a combination of injuries, complacency, cup final hangover, and the opposition having a blinder.

The difference this year is going to be the route to Super League.
In previous years, when it was close at the tail end of the season, teams started bringing in bigger names for short term stints just to get them to the GF.
This year with the exception of us and Toulouse, it isn't going to happen whether they win it or not, so when injuries kick in, teams will simply do their best with what they have, which will make it easier for teams like us with a bigger squad or teams that are lucky with injuries.

Time will tell how it works out.