BY JOHN DAVIDSON
New Oldham RLFC assistant coach Alan Kilshaw believes the merged Championship is “wide open” this season, after the promotion of three clubs to Super League, and that the Roughyeds are out to challenge for silverware.
The Championship will have a very different look in 2026 after being combined with League 1, and now featuring 20 clubs, and with Bradford, York and Toulouse moving up into Super League.
The competition kicks off on Friday with Oldham taking on Salford RLFC away.
Kilshaw, who has left Keighley to join the Roughyeds’ coaching staff on the eve of the new campaign, believes the Championship will be evenly matched and hotly contested.
“I think the competition is wide open,” he told rugbyleaguehub.com Long Reads.
“On any given week, anyone can beat anyone if you’re off by a few percent. That makes it exciting but also unforgiving, so you can’t afford to dip in standards.
“It’s a nine-month competition, so everyone will have peaks and dips along the way — managing that, and managing your squad, will be a huge part of how things look come the play-offs.
“There are no easy games. You look at clubs with strong squads, depth, and experience at this level and you know they’ll be there or thereabouts. But more than any one team, the challenge is the competition itself — it’s physical, demanding, and relentless week to week.
“You’ve got tough trips to London, Batley, and Cumbria. The top sides from last year have all strengthened — Doncaster, Halifax, and Widnes have recruited well, as have Sheffield.
“North Wales were outstanding in League One last year and have had a big recruitment drive. Then you’ve got teams who were in League One or the lower end of the Championship with less pressure on them now the competition is unified — you’ll see young players get opportunities and take them.”
Kilshaw says the main target of Oldham this year is improvement and consistency. In 2024 the club won League 1 and in 2025, it finished fourth and made the playoffs.
“The target is improvement on last season, and we get that through consistency,” he said.
“We want to be competitive every week, keep raising our standards, and put ourselves in the mix come the business end of the season. If we look after the process, the outcomes will take care of themselves.
“Every group wants to win — that’s sport — but our focus isn’t getting carried away with end points.
“It’s about building habits, performing week to week, and becoming a team that earns the right to talk about silverware rather than chasing it.”
One club that won’t be competing in the Championship this year is Featherstone Rovers, after the RFL decided against awarding the license to a consortium.
Kilshaw believes the situation is one the sport can learn from.
“It’s disappointing for the competition and for everyone involved at Featherstone,” he said.T
“hey’re a club with history and good people, and situations like that are never ideal. The timing isn’t ideal either, particularly so close to the season, because it has a knock-on effect for clubs, players, and the competition as a whole.
“I think moving forward, it’s something the game can learn from. Clearer deadlines and decision points would help if clubs ever find themselves in that position again.
“With the current league format and fixture structure, there is flexibility around numbers, and there may be opportunities in the future to plan changes further down the line rather than so late in the process.
“From our point of view, it’s about controlling what we can control and respecting the integrity of the competition as it stands.”