What this means is the winners of the Grand Final and Challenge Cup will play the winners of the League Leaders Shield in what effectively becomes a stand alone season opener. In effect, the fixtures have thrown up a reprise of the Charity Shield competition, which we see in Association Football every year and was briefly held in Rugby League between 1985 and 1995.
Mark is going to look at that short lived tournament, consider if we could reprise it in any way and share some comments we received from Twitter about this idea. We'll then have a more specific look at the Wigan and Huddersfield match up.
Charity Shield
Modelled on the FA Charity Sheild (now FA Community Shield), this match would pit the Championship and Challenge Cup winners against each other as a curtain raiser to the new season - where the League and Cup winners were the same, the Premiership Final winner would step in.
In all between 1985 and 1995 that game was staged nine times. Unsurprisingly given the era it was played, Wigan won it the most with four victories and Widnes had three wins.
The game was moved around, with Anfield being the closest venue to the rugby league heartlands. The King George V Bowl in Douglas, Isle of Man, hosted the most games, with the event also being played in Swansea, Gateshead and Dublin.
Here are the full results:
A recent tweet from @SalfordFaithful is one of many fan shouts to have a re-imagining of this event that I've seen in recent years. So I wanted to consider the merits of such an event, and if we had it, how and where should it be staged.
An argument for this type of event would be that it would be a real marker that the new season is starting. It would be a chance to showcase the best the sport has to offer in our country. You would anticipate that Sky Sports, in the face of terrestrial coverage of the 6 Nations, would put some of their effort into getting an audience for the game from non-yawnion sports fans.
My main reservation would be the extra game that it would add to the schedule. We already a long enough season, which is going to get slightly longer under the new structure. Our top clubs invariably have the top players, who's season now runs from January with trial games to November with internationals. This fixture would add another high intensity match to their schedule.
An obvious remedy would be to just have the clubs play one less trial game, but that isn't really the same. The trial games are used to get a large number of players involved in match action, with extended bench and extra interchanges being the norm. If you had that in the Charity Shield some of the appeal would be lost.
An obvious remedy would be to just have the clubs play one less trial game, but that isn't really the same. The trial games are used to get a large number of players involved in match action, with extended bench and extra interchanges being the norm. If you had that in the Charity Shield some of the appeal would be lost.
Based on the venues, it would suggest this event was used to get the sport played in front of new audiences. The sport is truly spreading in participation and interest outside the heartlands now, but the relatively disappointing attendance figures above show that using this event to spread the game outside the M62 corridor possibly isn't the best way to draw in charity money. The retreat of the Magic Weekend to the north of England is a marker that in and around the heartlands should be where this event should be hosted, if it were to be resurrected.
Rugby League is a fantastic community sport with a great spirit for charity. It has shown in recent years that it doesn't need a fixture like this to raise money for and the profile of a number of worthy charity causes. As such, I'm not convinced this type of fixture would be needed.
However, I'm not opposed at all the the fixtures being contrived in such a way that this type of fixture is repeated in Round 1 every year. I think it does get the season of to a strong start.
What I would do is have this League Leaders against Grand Final winners fixture on the first Friday of the season. Have no other game that night, so the rest of the opening fixtures would be across the Saturday and Sunday - open the season with a big time clash. Attendances tend to be slightly higher in week 1 than most of the season and I'd take advantage of that to donate a percentage of all gate revenue to a small number of league wide agreed charities each season.
Here's what you thought when we raised the question on Twitter about a Charity Shield reprise:
Salford Faithful (@SalfordFaithful): as long as the proceedings go to @StevePrescott1 charity then yes! All in favour mate! and do different clubs each year!
Yorkshire Red Devil (@Yorkshiredevils): absolute common sense. Play it on a Saturday night at Anfield and create another marquee event for the fans!
Andy Barden (@Electric_gig): what more games for these clubs? Nice idea but way too many games especially with a World Club Challenge for the champions
Alan Cale (@shoddynmungo): like the idea, unsure where it would fit in the schedule, with world club challenge already for one of them
We'll cover off your opinions and more in Episode 3.
Wigan v Huddersfield preview
Form is hard to judge with just a few trial games to go from after the off season. Wigan's first team have only really had one run out against St Helens after the Workington game was called off. A 28-16 victory with some sparkling tries but some criticism over their physical play. Their new players and young wingers seem to have settled well. The attack appears to show a little more variation without Sam Tomkins, but there is limited information to go from.
Huddersfield's pre-season has also been impacted by the weather but a first team line up got a tough game from Hull KR in preparation for the Wigan encounter. 20-18 sounds tighter than the match reports suggest, but bad weather and a Danny Brough sin-binning disrupted the Giants. England star Leroy Cudjoe got his year up and running with a couple of tries and the consistency of the men who helped the Giants to top spot last year will be influencial against Wigan. Few major changes in personnel means we should know what to expect but it won't be easy to beat.
Last year the two teams faced off three times:
In the first game Wigan were without Sam Tomkins and also lacked much of their attacking invention, particularly in the second half where Huddersfield held firm despite a lot of Wigan pressure on their line in the final 20 minutes, but Wigan had no real questions to ask of the impressive and strong Huddersfield defence.
In the return game the Giants really pushed home their Super League credentials, especially in an exceptional second half display that powered a sloppy Wigan side away. Scott Grix proved particulary hard to contain and David Faiumu coming off the bench to play prop was very effective in busting tackles and freeing his arms. Wigan couldn't contain the Giants, or their tempers in a fiesty finish.
Wigan turned the tables on Huddersfield at the time in the season where things really counted. This time Huddersfield scored first but Wigan used their forwards to and kicking game to set the platform for the outside backs to eat up the ground - beating Huddersfield at their own game. Farrell, Flower and Taylor in particular led the way and helped Wigan get on the front foot. A classy Blake Green try running through a tired and beaten Huddersfield defensive line sealed a week off for Wigan on the way to their Grand Final triumph.
Taking a look at some of the key number in more detail we can see what helped these games be settled the way they were.
The first game was very close and really only Brett Ferres' 90m interception try at the death was the difference in who won the game. The key thing to take from the numbers is really its efficiency of effort that is crucial to winning the game when these two top sides collide. Sure, errors, tackle busts and clean breaks are factors in the outcome of a match, but the common theme across all three games was the team with the better tackle success in defence and average gain in attack came out on top.
Come Friday, the key will be to tackle well and carry the ball hard. Make the most of the effort you put in and you'll get the right outcome. Listen to the show to hear how we feel it will turn out.
However, I'm not opposed at all the the fixtures being contrived in such a way that this type of fixture is repeated in Round 1 every year. I think it does get the season of to a strong start.
What I would do is have this League Leaders against Grand Final winners fixture on the first Friday of the season. Have no other game that night, so the rest of the opening fixtures would be across the Saturday and Sunday - open the season with a big time clash. Attendances tend to be slightly higher in week 1 than most of the season and I'd take advantage of that to donate a percentage of all gate revenue to a small number of league wide agreed charities each season.
Here's what you thought when we raised the question on Twitter about a Charity Shield reprise:
Salford Faithful (@SalfordFaithful): as long as the proceedings go to @StevePrescott1 charity then yes! All in favour mate! and do different clubs each year!
Yorkshire Red Devil (@Yorkshiredevils): absolute common sense. Play it on a Saturday night at Anfield and create another marquee event for the fans!
Andy Barden (@Electric_gig): what more games for these clubs? Nice idea but way too many games especially with a World Club Challenge for the champions
Alan Cale (@shoddynmungo): like the idea, unsure where it would fit in the schedule, with world club challenge already for one of them
We'll cover off your opinions and more in Episode 3.
Wigan v Huddersfield preview
Form is hard to judge with just a few trial games to go from after the off season. Wigan's first team have only really had one run out against St Helens after the Workington game was called off. A 28-16 victory with some sparkling tries but some criticism over their physical play. Their new players and young wingers seem to have settled well. The attack appears to show a little more variation without Sam Tomkins, but there is limited information to go from.
Huddersfield's pre-season has also been impacted by the weather but a first team line up got a tough game from Hull KR in preparation for the Wigan encounter. 20-18 sounds tighter than the match reports suggest, but bad weather and a Danny Brough sin-binning disrupted the Giants. England star Leroy Cudjoe got his year up and running with a couple of tries and the consistency of the men who helped the Giants to top spot last year will be influencial against Wigan. Few major changes in personnel means we should know what to expect but it won't be easy to beat.
Last year the two teams faced off three times:
In the first game Wigan were without Sam Tomkins and also lacked much of their attacking invention, particularly in the second half where Huddersfield held firm despite a lot of Wigan pressure on their line in the final 20 minutes, but Wigan had no real questions to ask of the impressive and strong Huddersfield defence.
In the return game the Giants really pushed home their Super League credentials, especially in an exceptional second half display that powered a sloppy Wigan side away. Scott Grix proved particulary hard to contain and David Faiumu coming off the bench to play prop was very effective in busting tackles and freeing his arms. Wigan couldn't contain the Giants, or their tempers in a fiesty finish.
Wigan turned the tables on Huddersfield at the time in the season where things really counted. This time Huddersfield scored first but Wigan used their forwards to and kicking game to set the platform for the outside backs to eat up the ground - beating Huddersfield at their own game. Farrell, Flower and Taylor in particular led the way and helped Wigan get on the front foot. A classy Blake Green try running through a tired and beaten Huddersfield defensive line sealed a week off for Wigan on the way to their Grand Final triumph.
Taking a look at some of the key number in more detail we can see what helped these games be settled the way they were.
The first game was very close and really only Brett Ferres' 90m interception try at the death was the difference in who won the game. The key thing to take from the numbers is really its efficiency of effort that is crucial to winning the game when these two top sides collide. Sure, errors, tackle busts and clean breaks are factors in the outcome of a match, but the common theme across all three games was the team with the better tackle success in defence and average gain in attack came out on top.
Come Friday, the key will be to tackle well and carry the ball hard. Make the most of the effort you put in and you'll get the right outcome. Listen to the show to hear how we feel it will turn out.
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