Catalan Dragons boss Steve McNamara says the current schedule is a ‘neglect of player welfare’. This is how to fix it

Missed your Thursday night dose of Super League? Blame the Easter weekend. Looking forward to a Friday night game? Forget it. Blame Easter for that, too. Reeling at your club’s depleted line-up this weekend? Yep, Easter’s fault.

The Super League clubs’ decision to retain the traditional Easter double-headers, in which every team played on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday and then again on Easter Monday, looks more unjustifiable every year. And here’s why.

There are only a handful of fixtures that belong to Easter, most are not special in anyway; players are on their knees after successive short turnarounds and injury lists reach double figures. There are lopsided romps everywhere; most clubs will have been thrashed at least once by this Sunday.

After they had hammered London Broncos last Thursday, I asked Catalans Dragons coach Steve McNamara if clubs need two games at Easter. “No!” said the former England boss emphatically. “There was no need to play that game now. It’s wrong. It’s a neglect of player welfare. People misunderstand how tough rugby league is. Unless you’ve played, you just don’t know. It’s a war of attrition. No one is at their best on Easter Monday. If you want to see the very best rugby league, it won’t be on Easter Monday.”

If you want to see players you’ve never heard of, Easter Monday is for you. There were only two shellackings on Monday, but just wait until this weekend’s meetings of Shattered versus Knackered.

McNamara has bought the line that clubs need 14 home games, despite many of them making little on a matchday. Easter is a big payday for some clubs, but not all. “Clubs need a certain number of games to survive, but we need to change that,” said McNamara. “We can reduce the number of games but we need to get the sport into a position where playing less doesn’t reduce the amount of income.”

Here’s how to fix it. This year Super League only has three traditional true derbies: Wigan v Saints, Cas v Wakey and the Rumble by the Humber. These can alternate annually. Catalans should have been hosting London on Saturday evening, live on TV across Europe, rather than the Broncos having to work hard in the community to get a few hundred hardy souls to Ealing on one of the worst evenings of the year for travel around the capital, with the remaining two games being local affairs. Spread the fixtures across the Easter weekend: one Thursday night on Sky, two on Good Friday, one on Saturday and two on Easter Monday. Leave Easter Sunday for a set of Championship derbies.

Good Friday’s crowds were impressive: 20,000 at Hull; 22,000 at Wigan – including a Super League record away following from Saints; Leeds got nearly 14,000 against Huddersfield; and Warrington’ marketing drew nearly 12,000 to see them crash at home to Salford. It added up to a record Super League round of 79,173 fans. Although, given the official attendance figure at Trailfinders of 2,153 was greeted with raised eyebrows among the sparse press corps, the record of 78,917 set in 2007 is probably still really intact.

Re-organise Easter and that figure could be smashed. There was an underwhelming gate of 9,316 at The Jungle for Rhubarb Fest on Thursday, just 1,200 more than the Cas average. And most attendances on Easter Monday were either average for the home team or a little larger than when the same fixture is played at other times of the year.

By insisting on another round on Easter Monday, Super League also forfeited their regular Thursday and Friday night slots on Sky, as no one could play three times in a week, another unnecessary and stupid concession.

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Make Easter a single round again – but bigger and better. That would require another week in the season but that can be solved easily: put the 12 Super League clubs straight into the last 16 of the Challenge Cup. That frees up the World Club Challenge weekend to play a round of Super League games. Yes, the reigning champions would have to rearrange one Super League fixture later in the season, a small price to pay to solve the Easter farce.

However, rumour has it we may not have a 12-team Super League for much longer. If Toronto and Toulouse are both promoted and no one is relegated, we could have a 27-game programme in 2020 anyway, with next Easter featuring Toronto coming to London, while Toulouse and Catalans face off in Super League’s first all-French derby. Zut alors!

Foreign quota

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Parramatta Eels and Wests Tigers meet at the Bankwest Stadium in Sydney. Photograph: Matt Blyth/Getty Images

Rugby league has a new mecca in western Sydney. Parramatta’s Bankwest Stadium is a wonderful arena that reminds me of a cross between Brisbane’s Suncorp, San Francisco 49ers’ Levi Stadium and Boca Juniors’ legendary Bombonera. Rectangular, with a steep second tier keeping fans close to the action around three sides of the pitch, and the fourth side a wall of glass corporate boxes, all bedecked in the Eels’ blue and yellow underneath a light roof. Glorious.

Bankwest has replaced Parramatta Stadium, which itself was only 30 years old, the same as Sydney Football Stadium, now flattened for a new stadium next to the cricket ground. England and Wales players will get to enjoy Bankwest for themselves in October at the inaugural World 9s there.

Clubcall: St Helens

Two huge wins over Easter have kept Saints top. They took nearly 6,000 fans to Wigan on Good Friday, strolled to an easy victory over a Wigan side that closer resembled the XIII they sent to London Skolars in a pre-season friendly than their Grand Final line-up, then came back from a dodgy start to hammer Hull on Monday. Saints now have a few injuries – Luke Thompson, Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook and Mark Percival were all wiped out over Easter – but they look far stronger than anyone else other than Warrington. They will take some stopping.

Goal-line drop-out

Those of you seeking decent rugby league but living considerably further south than the M62, can now see it for yourselves. The new Southern Conference League kicks off on Saturday with games in Swindon, Cardiff, Bedford, Hemel and London. The following Saturday, 4 May, there are high-level amateur games in Hitchin and Colchester in the east, and Torfaen and Treharris in Wales. Southern and Welsh fans have never had it so good.

Fifth and last

A consolation for London Broncos’ fans has been the emergence of prop Rob Butler. The 20-year-old from Rochester looked totally unfazed in last year’s Million Pound Game victory in Toronto, and his size and speed have helped him to make several eye-catching displays in the top flight. Last week he revelled in squaring up to Catalans’ international stars Greg Bird and Sam Kasiano without a care for their reputation.

“He’s holding his own against very experienced international props but he hasn’t got a clue who they are – which is a massive bonus!” said Broncos coach Danny Ward. “We rate him massively. He’s a quality professional and a quality bloke, big and aggressive. We like him.” Plenty of bigger Super League clubs will, too.

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