UK's Qualifying 8's : 2015-17

This is the most exciting part of UK RL. The bottom four from the elite Super League, taking on the top four from the second division Championship. The top two qualifiers from each division get four home games, the others three home games in a seven round competition.

The top three are automatically entering Super league the following year, the bottom three are likewise consigned to the Championship. That leaves 4th and 5th to play what they call the Million Pound game. The 4th placed team has home advantage. The winner into SL, the loser goes to the Championship.

The negative is that SL clubs in general don't like the scope of the jeopardy. The feeling is exposing four top clubs to possible relegation is too much. One team promoted and one relegated is less disruptive. Is the concern valid? So far, the answer is no. Of course, with the Qualifying 8's there is the possibility that four could swap places but even more possible no team will.

The brief history of this system indicates the worry is ill-founded. In the first year (2015), the was no change, with all SL clubs retaining their status. The following two seasons, one team has been promoted. In 2018, already it looks like there will be no wholesale demotion of SL clubs.

The reasons are simply that SL teams have larger budgets and play in a tougher league. That gives them an advantage that few Championship sides can overcome. In 2018, Halifax isn't even a full time club so inevitably is just making up the numbers. So the current system is exciting without being too disruptive.

Below is brief history of the current Qualifying 8's. The blue background is for SL clubs, yellow Championship and the (M) shows the winner of the million pound game. 2018 is still in progress so not included. You will notice for the three completed years, Championship sides took the three lowest places. Also, it has taken a minimum of ten points to qualify for SL without going the Million Pound game route.

	2015				2016				2017
	1	Hull KR	14		1	Leeds	12		1	Warrington	14
	2	Widnes	10		2	Leigh	12		2	Widnes	10
	3	Salford	10		3	Huddersfield	10		3	Hull KR	10
	4	Wakefield (M)	6		4	Hull KR	8		4	Leigh	8
	5	Bradford	6		5	Salford (M)	6		5	Catalans (M)	8
	6	Halifax	4		6	London	6		6	London	3
	7	Sheffield	4		7	Batley	2		7	Featherstone	3
	8	Leigh	2		8	Featherstone	0		8	Halifax	0

Balkans 9's : 2018

In 2014 and 2017, there was the Balkans Championship, a brief overview of the competition can be seen by clicking here. In 2018, a 9's version was held in Belgrade, Serbia. If you are unfamiliar with what 9's RL is simply click here. Five nations took part and I have what transpired outlined below.

There seems to have been two groups, Turkey, Albania and Bosnia & Herzegovina in one and Serbia and Bulgaria in the other. The results were:

Group One:

Turkey 16-0 Bosnia & Herzegovina.
Turkey 28-4 Albania.
Albania 22-10 Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Group Two:

Serbia 24-6 Bulgaria

3rd-4th Place:

Bulgaria 8-4 Albania

Final:

Turkey 14-10 Serbia

Unofficial Games:

An invitation team made up of players from several European nations played Bulgaria and Bosnia to give them more exposure to the game. Both of these were won by the invitation side, but more to the point was an excellent initiative to give those two nations greater experience.

Summary:

Serbia as host and most experienced of the nations would have been expected to take it out but that was not to be. Of course, this format creates upsets due to the reduced time as happens in Cricket's Twenty/20. The hope is Greece and Montenegro will be involved next year.

The final can be seen below:

European U19 Championships : 2018

Serbia hosted this event from August the 5th to 12th. The teams that qualified were: Serbia, Italy, Russia, France, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Russia had to pull out due to finances and the Ukraine  took their place.

The games initially pitted experienced teams with inexperienced ones, so results were initially going to be one sided. That's what happened and here is the first round of results:

August 5th:

England 64-0 Serbia
Scotland 30-18 Ireland
Wales 90-0 Ukraine
France 70-0 Italy

August 8th:

Serbia 54-26 Ukraine
England 44-4 Wales
Ireland 26-10 Italy
France 38-6 Scotland

August 12th:

7th-8th place - Italy 58-6 Ukraine
5th-6th place - Serbia 36-24 Ireland
3rd-4th place - Wales 42-18 Scotland
1st-2nd place - France 26-24 England.

It was a successful event with the next one to be held in 2020 at a location still to be decided. Hopefully more sides can be invited next time and finances sorted so that all who qualify can attend.

Serbia v Ireland

Wales v Scotland

France v England

Picture source: The official site.

NZ National Competition : 2018 (Introduction)

The 2018 season is about to kick off on 11th August 2018 NZT. For a summary of 2017 and links to years earlier, simply click here. For the 2018 season, these are the top four regions (Premiership) playing a three round comp.

 Then below that there are three regions of ten teams that produce a winner from each .

It then seems the best of the Championship plays the lowest of the Premiership to decide whether p/r takes place. It's not a huge competition but important in the context of where RL in New Zealand is. It's not overly expensive to run, yet gives a national structure of RL above regional club competitions.

UK Championship Attendances : 2016-18

The regular season has concluded and an exciting competition was enjoyed. The attendances were up on 2016 but down on 2017. The changing of teams involved each year has an impact on the averages so in reality it's hard to read too much into the total figures.

What we can see is the Summer Bash festival wasn't that successful this year, in terms of attendees. Also, because Toronto played its first two games away from its Lamport home ground and forfeited a third home match to compete in the SL Magic Weekend meant its average wasn't as high as it would otherwise had been. Let's look at individual clubs over the past two seasons (2016 vs 2018) to see how their attendance numbers have fared.

Pluses: London (+15.4%) Sheffield (+13.1) Toulouse (+13.1, one season comparison) Featherstone (+11.8) Average (+11.5) Swinton (+1.3).

Minuses: Leigh (-0.2%, middle season in SL) Batley (-1.6) Halifax (-11.8) Dewsbury (-15.2) Summer Bash (-25.8) Rochdale (-37.5, one season comparison).

Toronto and Barrow weren't eligible to be gauged.

CHAMPIONSHIP – Regular season only
	2018		2017		2016
1	Toronto	5,781	Hull KR	7,351	Bradford	4,621
2	Leigh	3,539	Bradford	4,119	Leigh	3,545
3	Toulouse	2,437	Featherstone	2,457	Featherstone	2,071
4	Featherstone	2,316	Toulouse	2,154	Halifax	1,986
5	Halifax	1,752	Halifax	1,695	Dewsbury	1,181
6	Barrow	1,239	Batley	1,150	Batley	1,100
7	Batley	1,082	Dewsbury	1,089	Oldham	877
8	Dewsbury	1,001	Rochdale	878	Swinton	829
9	London	861	Oldham	815	London	746
10	Swinton	840	London	804	Workington	704
11	Sheffield	704	Swinton	791	Whitehaven	702
12	Rochdale	549	Sheffield	626	Sheffield	623
	Summer B	11,805	Summer B	16,444	Summer B	15,912
	Total	249,125	Total	279,664	Total	225,100
	Avg	1,805	Avg	2,012	Avg	1,619

Summary: Hull KR's presence was huge in 2017, not only home games but travelling supporters too. Bradford too was missed in 2018 and those teams not being there took the average down. Toronto doesn't provide travelling fans despite it's strong home support, which is another factor to consider. Teams from offshore will never bring fans along but that is a small price to pay for expanding the game.

With those points taken into consideration, it was a reasonably supported competition. Many of the clubs are in smaller population centres, so will never have huge numbers turning up. Some in larger cities are clearly flying beneath the radar. Could they do more to enrich the game day experience and attract better crowds? Of course and that is something that they should be taking on board.

UK SL Attendances : 2016-18

Attendances have been advancing in the UK over some time but for the last few years, they have slipped slightly. SL wants to reduce the number of teams they claim to increase the standard. However, it's really to provide greater TV revenue to each team competing. The stupidity of that logic would turn the competition into a repetitious yawn fest. No, the numbers need to go up and hopefully from teams outside the northern heartland.

Anyway, to look at the data. Total attendees for the 23 rounds of regular matches has decreased 6.4% over the last two years. A breakdown by clubs comparing 2016 and 2018, best to worst are:

Pluses: Hull FC (+6.7%) Huddersfield (+5.5) St Helens (+3.3) Hull KR (+2.4) Castleford (1.7).

Minuses: Wakefield (-1.5%) Warrington (-9.2) Wigan (-13.1) Widnes (-13.2) Catalan (-14.4) Salford (-18.3) Leeds (-19.4).

	SUPER LEAGUE 2016-18 Excl Super 8's
		2018		2017		2016
	1	Leeds	12,807	Leeds	14,950	Leeds	15,886
	2	Hull FC	12,175	Wigan	13,983	Wigan	13,541
	3	Wigan	11,773	Hull FC	11,661	Hull FC	11,407
	4	St Helens	11,479	St Helens	10,749	St Helens	11,116
	5	Warrington	10,088	Warrington	10,478	Warrington	11,112
	6	Catalans	8,354	Catalans	8,777	Catalans	9,764
	7	Castleford	7,848	Castleford	8,734	Hull KR	7,775
	8	Hull KR	7,965	Leigh	6,522	Castleford	7,719
	9	Huddersfield	5,721	Huddersfield	5,842	Widnes	5,643
	10	Wakefield	5,244	Widnes	5,767	Wakefield	5,322
	11	Widnes	4,898	Wakefield	5,287	Huddersfield	5,422
	12	Salford	2,966	Salford	4,455	Salford	3,630
		Magic W/E	64,319	Magic W/E	65,407	Magic W/E	68,276
		Total	1,178,800	Total	1,244,664	Total	1,259,996
		Avg	8,542	Avg	9,019	Avg	9,130

Leigh was not included in the percentages as they were only there for the 2017 season. Poor weather early in the 2018 season wasn't helpful and Leeds may have been affected with major stadium improvements. Widnes and Salford were already low so sizable drops in numbers was the last thing they needed. The Magic Weekend was down 5.8% for the last two seasons.

Summary: New teams would enliven SL and if Toronto was able to join in 2019, that would be the sort of change that would add new interest. It would also add a new market in Canada to the game, increasing sponsorship opportunities and media opportunities. There is enough talent to increase the number of clubs, but doing so while maintaining (or increasing) revenue is the issue.