By STEVE MASCORD
A CELEBRATION of 30 years of Super League, a six-team play-off series, an October 3 grand final and a ‘Summer Of League’ promotion are the features of the full season draw released by Super League this morning.
Following earlier announcements about Magic Weekend, round one and Rivals Round, the full draw for the elite European competition – newly expanded to 14 teams – was unveiled on Thursday morning.
Here’s what Super League managing director Rhodri Jones had to say about the various components.
Foundation games: “Next year is officially Super League’s 30th anniversary at the end of March so we’ve got two foundation fixtures in round five.
“Thirty years of Super League, that is round six from the 26th to the 29th of March with the 29th of March being the actual day.
“The first one is the Thursday night fixture, between Castleford and Bradford, the second being Leeds Rhinos versus Warrington Wolves on Sunday the 29th of March, 5.30pm kick-off on Sky. And that game was played to the day 30 years ago … a nod to our past in round six before we move into round seven which is the rivals round.”
Play-off system: “We go into a … is a six-team play-off system. That’s been consistent over the last couple of years.
“Now that we’ve done this piece of work, a full calendar review will be taken in line with the broadcaster discussions for 2027 onwards.
“There was debate around the eight-team play-off format because that would have used the week that we are using for Magic. It was a one-or-the-other, it couldn’t be both.
“(A seven-team system) was healthily debated most of last week. We consulted with the clubs. There was no clear direction of travel from the clubs. It was discussed here internally, discussed with the RL Com board and it was decided we’d stick with the six team format.”
Grand final: Jones said that contrary to popular belief, the World Cup was the not reason the decider had been moved forward. “The headline is the FIFA calendar and the FIFA calendar has changed, the international window, from 2027 onwards. The result is the grand final is a week earlier. Instead of being on the second Saturday of October, it’s now going to be on the first Saturday and that’s going to be the same now, certainly from 2027 through to 2030.
“The Super League grand final will be the third of October in 2026. It’s the same weekend as the NRL grand final, which I don’t believe has happened previously and it’s been a change we’ve known about for a couple of years.”
Summer Of League: “We’ll also have a Summer Of League campaign which will start at Magic Weekend at the beginning of July and we’ll also run The Final Charge campaign for the last few weeks of the domestic season leading into those play-offs.”
Challenges creating the draw: “Bradford can play, effectively, whenever they want but Toulouse have some considerations, are have York. So it just adds to the number of (grounds) that are unavailable at certain times. We have to consider pitch maintenance, we have to consider concerts, other sporting events. A good example there is Headingley with the cricket. They not only have Test matches, County Championships, one day games. They’ve also got the Hundred to consider in August.
“There is a scenario in the middle of summer whereby six of the 14 venues aren’t available. So clearly, that affects our ability to create a permanent schedule of home and away, home and away, home and away. But we do try as much as possible and one of the rules we try to adhere to is that none of the teams will have more than three consecutive games home or away and in the most part, it’s two.
“And one of the other caveats is we ensure each of the clubs has two home games and two away in the opening four weeks of the season.
“We have a club (Leigh) that has a title partner in Jet2 that want to work closely with that partner to make the trip to Perpignan as successful as possible for the commercial agreement, commercial relationship they have with Jet2 so we always try and help clubs in those surroundings.
“Hull KR v Warrington, that is scheduled for round two but clearly Hull KR are playing in the World Club Challenge. That game will be displaced (to) later in the season.”
Television: BBC has 10 games on their broadcast channel and five on iPlayer. “A lot of our work is done in the first instance with Sky in terms of scheduling the whole season. So in our fixtures you’ll see there are games scheduled in round 22, for example, that are already in slots – Thursday through to Sunday. That’s to provide certainty to clubs and to fans when their games will be. We did it for the first time last year, which we felt was a successful point.
“Sky have picked up to and including round 15, their exclusive two games a weekend. That’s not necessarily consistent between rounds one to 15. For example, in round five they’ve picked one game but in round six – which is our 30th birthday weekend – they’ve picked three. We do provide some flexibility to the broadcaster to ensure that we maximise the number of eyeballs on the game at any given point.”
The seventh game each weekend: “We’re working with Sky on it. It falls under the Sky contract. But it’s an additional game. It’s an ongoing conversation with Sky but in terms of the production of the game it will be under the Sky model … the video referee functionality, all those kinds of bits and pieces. It will look very similar to the other four non-exclusive-pick games.”