I will have a guess at bulls vs Toulouse our first game as we are full time and rest are part time. Give the part time teams to organise Things.

Delayed issue of Championship fixtures by 24 hours - ongoing issues at Swinton or elsewhere? Further subterfuge from the RFL? Or simply trying to ensure we take nil points form the next 7 games which we don't realistically need any additional help to achieve....

I have read in twitter (not saying its true) but the delay is with players getting time off work to go to Toulouse.

It could be about Toulouse travel - although the same delay didn't happen in League One where four clubs suddenly found out they had to go to Toronto. More likely it is about the availability of grounds at Rochdale and Oldham where there will be football games already booked. And Sheffield have to dovetail in with Wakefield's fixtures.



What else can you expect when fixtures for the start of August are not known until the end of July? Only in Rugby League...

Good think Paul. I'm not a football fan so I didn't know when the season started

Just been having a read on Sheffied Facebook page, as I'm a valued member on there, a good point has been raised.



Was the Shield final at Odsal last year because the Bulls were the highest placed team that made it through



If that's the case it could very well be at Toulose this year. Imagine the crowd for that

Yeah. After the 7 Shield games we were at the top and then had a semi final against Dewsbury. Had we lost that it would have been at Sheffield.



Saying that, the 2015 version was between Featherstone and London and that was played at Widnes? So god knows. Personally not a fan of 'finals' being played at home grounds. Still annoyed they play the World Club Series at 'home' grounds instead of neutral.

You can just imagine the conversation at Red Hall yesterday;



"Ok we've released the fixtures for the Super 8's and the Qualifiers so now lets do the Championship........wait a minute!"



"Whats wrong?"



"Our favourite pets, Bradford have finished bottom!.....and looking at the stats they will be relegated!"



"Wtf !... how did that happen.....we never saw that coming.....shoite......the fans will be well annoyed with us.....what can we do?"



"....Dont worry, I have a cunning plan.................................................."



(to be continued

)

First fixture to be announced on Thursday. Although when on Thursday presumably is left up to guesswork...



They really are a shambles.

Good call Sir, hope you put some money on that!



Nice that relegation will be finalised after the first week of the 8's anyway, will stop us getting any hope up with a few early wins.

Give this man a beer. Seriously as an outsider looking in can the RFL screw your club over any more? New club but we will deduct you 12 points, oh and can you play in Championship as it would stuff our fixtures up and Bash if you start (as you should) in Ch1. Oh, can you also play Hull KR 3 times so our crowds for the bash look good. Finally, we didn't expect Toulouse to be in the shield and the part time clubs need a bit of time to sort time off, so would you be a darling and play them first even though that may relegate you and you'll have no fans for remaining fixtures. Really it's in your best interests as the RFL pets.

Well what can I say!!!!



I am glad that it's happened though as we will know after the first weekend that we are going down and we can hopefully prepare correctly (fingers crossed) for league 1.