Super League Fixtures Revealed - Partially...

Like many rugby league fans I have been building up for weeks to the announcement of the Super League fixtures for the remainder of the 2020 season. We have known since June 26 that the season would resume on August 2 with a triple header of fixtures scheduled to help those teams with games in hand due to postponements to catch up with the rest. Saints are one of those clubs and so the one thing we have known since then is that Kristian Woolf’s side will start against Catalans Dragons, while on the same date Leeds Rhinos will take on Huddersfield Giants and Hull KR Will face Toronto Wolfpack.

Since then there have been delays and postponements to the announcement of any further fixtures. Ongoing spats over wage cuts for players, match venues and the traditional Toronto visa fiasco have all contributed as the publication of the schedule was delayed more often than the 8.42 bone shaker to Lime Street. Some or all of these issues remain with just 17 days to go until that opening triple header. Yet a further delay would surely have thrown huge doubt over whether the restart would happen on time. So today the announcement was made as planned, but with a level of vagueness normally reserved for a government statement on face coverings in Pret A Manger. I can now tell you the order in which Saints play their remaining fixtures but the exact dates and venue details are still about as clear as the average 3-2-1 clue. Ask your dad.

It has now at least been confirmed that the Catalans game will take place at Headingley. This despite the fact that Saints own stadium, the one that doesn’t get a mention on these pages, is also named as a venue at which fixtures will take place following the restart. There will be a Round 9 triple header there on August 16 with Saints taking on Wakefield Trinity, Hull FC meeting Castleford Tigers and another dust-up between what will by then be the old foes of Hull KR and Toronto. Reports that the Wolfpack get to play Rovers every week to give the Canadian side the best chance possible of avoiding the wooden spoon are unconfirmed.

The question that immediately leaps out is why, if Saints can host Wakefield on August 16, do they have to travel to Leeds to play Catalans Dragons in what would have been a home game under normal circumstances? This is a rearranged fixture which should have been played on the weekend that Saints were otherwise engaged with Sydney Roosters in World Club Challenge action.

The line on triple headers at a single venue is that it “ensures greater control over the safety and well being of our players, staff and match officials.” That makes a lot of sense in the crazy Covid world, but under closer inspection basically means that if Saints had been allowed to play the Dragons on home soil then Leeds would not have been able to do the same against Huddersfield on the same day. Someone had to yield and it was never likely to be Gary Hetherington. Should Saints lose that opening game expect sparks to fly from the keyboard of Eamonn McManus in the aftermath.

Saints face the Rhinos on the second weekend of the restart in a more traditional away fixture before that date with Trinity. Beyond that there are no venues confirmed. In theory we could play all of our remaining home games at The Stadium Round The Back Of Tesco but presumably this will be deemed an unfair advantage if others are asked to play at neutral venues while games are still played behind closed doors. We saw a glimpse of what the response to that might look like last week when there was a largely hostile reception to the Dragons’ attempts to play their home games at Stade Gilbert Brutus. The French government have given the go ahead for the Dragons to open up to a maximum of 5,000 fans but as things stand the venues for the scheduled Dragons home games are one of many unconfirmed details of the 2020 season. There are still hopes that fans will be able to attend games in the UK as the season progresses but if that isn’t possible it doesn’t seem likely that the Dragons will drop their interest in hosting in France.

The other standout detail that is not set in stone following today’s announcement concerns the precise dates of matches. Saints’ have confirmed fixtures on August 2, 9, 16 and 30 but when September appears on the schedule released today it does so along with some fairly liberal use of a forward slash indicating that there are two possible dates. After the August 30 meeting with Hull KR Saints will face what should be an away game with Huddersfield Giants on either September 3 or 4. The following week Woolf’s side face Rovers again on either September 10 or 11 and then Toronto Wolfpack on September 24 or 25 and.....well....you get the picture. Interestingly, there is a gap in the schedule on the weekend of September 17 and 18 which given that there are midweek Super League games crammed in to the back end of the programme causing all manner of disputes about player welfare can only be a window deliberately created for the Challenge Cup. This has not been confirmed as yet but it has been the party line all along that the Challenge Cup will be completed despite serious doubts about whether rugby league will resume at professional levels below Super League.

The point about the exact dates of matches might be considered relatively minor by some given that as we stand fans will not be in attendance. Yet if the games are going to be televised or streamed then there will be fans who have complex work schedules who might appreciate a little more clarity. If you were going to try to arrange your work schedule around attending matches before Covid why wouldn’t you try to arrange it so that you can at least watch those games on TV or via a club stream? You’re going to want something if you have agreed to donate your season ticket money to your poor, cash strapped club. The one that goes shopping in the NRL while pleading that it has the financial plight of the NCL. As it stands Sky have committed to the live broadcast of 21 matches in August alone. There is the promise of a lot more along the way. That they have not been confirmed beyond August is a non-issue. It is fairly routine for broadcasters to make fairly late decisions about which games they will screen.

And so to the thorny issue of midweek games. They seemed an inevitability the longer the lockdown continued and are now a concrete part of the plans. Perhaps most interesting for Saints fans is the Wednesday night meeting with Wigan on September 30. Multi-sport fans might be peeved that they could end up having to choose between the derby and their team’s Champions League Group H trip to Vladikavkaz but the people who have the most justifiable gripe are the players. Rugby league is tough at the best of times and if players are asked to back up on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday from a Thursday or Friday game then injuries, fatigue and a general lowering of standards become increasingly likely.

The moans and groans out of the way let’s talk rugby. Saints had played six games before lockdown, winning against Salford, Hull FC and Toronto but suffering defeat to Warrington, Huddersfield and Castleford. That kind of iffy record makes the month of August crucial if we are to live up to the bookmakers billing of title favourites. The Dragons game takes on much more significance than a regular opener would. To go into the clash with a Rhinos side that was clobbering everyone before lockdown on the back of a defeat would present Woolf with a serious problem in this weirdest of debut seasons for the coach. Ending the month with Wakefield and Hull KR looks more gentle but a fast start is essential.

September starts with that Huddersfield clash on either the 3rd or 4th. The Giants had posed few problems for Saints in recent years until they rolled into town in early March and left with a 12-10 win on the back of Aidan Sezer’s surgical kicking game. They are a threat. A second meeting in the space of a fortnight with Rovers follows before Saints take on the Wolfpack and end the month of September with that midweek derby.

October is usually Grand Final month but the showpiece finale has been rescheduled for November in this new reality. Instead the month of October starts with a clash with Wakefield on October 8 or 9 before Castleford on October 14. A rare moment of decisiveness from the schedulers, there. The Tigers were Saints last opponents before lockdown and it was a game that the champions were never in. They went down 28-14 in what turned out to be Luke Thompson’s last appearance before joining Canterbury Bulldogs.

The Tigers match leads into a hectic end to October in which Saints will face Leeds, Salford and Wigan in the space of eight days. It looks a punishing schedule and there are those who feel midweek games should have been slotted in earlier in the schedule when players will be fresher. Yet there might be a reluctance to get the players to do too much too soon after the restart from the fixture planners. This route also gives players a chance to get used to the fitness sapping “6 again” rule and the abolition of scrums which are changes that we will see introduced when things get back under way. November is similarly over crowded, with Catalans Dragons, Hull FC and Warrington all on the to do list between Bonfire Night and November 13.

The playoffs will be reduced for this year. The five team McIntyre system has been temporarily shelved and instead we will see a straight semi-final and final knockout format contested between the top four teams at the end of the regular season. The dates are blighted by yet more vagueness but it seems likely that the opening round will be on the weekend of November 19 and 20 with the Grand Final on November 26. Old Trafford has hosted every Grand Final since its inception in 1998 but is not yet confirmed as the venue for 2020.

It was that sort of big reveal.