Championship double header weekend doesn’t make sense

The Queen’s Jubilee will be noteworthy for a double-header round of Championship fixtures, and some are understandably not happy about it.

While only one round was played over the Easter weekend, there will be two rounds played on Thursday and Sunday in the second tier this week.

Halifax and Dewsbury had the foresight to bring their game forward to Tuesday (Halifax won 66-0), while Featherstone and Bradford will have the extra day’s rest as they’ve been selected to play on TV on Monday night.

But it’s a situation that seems quite avoidable.

Prior to the cup final weekend, where every team except the four playing in the two finals had a weekend off, there have been 17 weekends since the start of the season.

A total of 12 rounds of the Championship have been played in that time, with the other five weekends allocated for cup – first Challenge Cup and then the 1895 Cup.

Only Barrow and Sheffield have had games scheduled in all 17 weekends – their round 4 league fixtures against Bradford and Batley were postponed, with Barrow playing the re-arranged game against Bradford on the weekend of April 10, when Sheffield faced Whitehaven in the 1895 Cup preliminary game.

Dewsbury, London, Newcastle and Widnes have had four completely blank weekends, while Batley, Halifax and York have all had three off. Halifax used a fourth free weekend to play their postponed game against Workington.

That doesn’t include the cup final weekend; nor does it include the upcoming international weekend (June 18/19) where all clubs are off too. There had been no Championship games scheduled for the international break due to expectations that more internationals would take place – meaning more second tier players would be required – but only France v