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Rugby League: Championship Rugby League

Rugby league football,  usually called simply rugby league,  is a full-contact form of football, played with a prolate spheroid ball by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field.[4]  One of the two codes of rugby football, following rugby league’s split from the strictly amateur Rugby Football Union in 1895 its rules were changed in order to create a more entertaining version of the sport for spectators.

Frequently cited as the toughest and most physically demanding of any team sport in the world,the primary aim in rugby league is to carry or kick the ball towards the opponent’s goal line where points can be scored by grounding the ball; this is called a try. After scoring a try, the team is allowed the chance to try at goal with a conversion – a kick for further points.The opposing team will attempt to stop the attacking side gaining points by preventing their progress up the field by tackling the player carrying the ball.


Rugby league is most prominent in Australia, England, New Zealand, France, Fiji and Papua New Guinea, being the national sport in the last.New Zealand are the current World Cup holders.

The Rugby Football League Championship (known as Co-operative Championship due to sponsorship by The Co-operative Group) was formerly called National League One. With the inclusion of a French team in 2009 (Toulouse) it has taken a more European dimension and has changed its denomination. It acts as the second tier competition below the Super League Europe.

Championship teams are only allowed one quota player. The division below the Championship is the Championship 1 (previously National League Two).

Between 1999 and 2002 teams below the Super League took part in a single division known as the Northern Ford Premiership (NFP). In 2003, the NFP was completely re-organised into National Leagues 1 and 2. Teams that finished in the top ten of the NFP joined National League 1 and the bottom eight joined National League 2. They were joined by London Skolars from the Rugby League Conference who entered National League 2. York City Knights replaced the defunct York Wasps (who had folded mid-season) and also joined National League 2 in 2003.

At the same time, National League Three was created with teams from the Rugby League Conference and from the BARLA amateur leagues. It was intended that there would be promotion and relegation between National League 2 and National League Three when League Three became more established.

At the end of the 2005 an extra team was relegated from Super League in order to accommodate French side Catalans Dragons. In turn an additional team was relegated from National League 1; thus the number of teams in this division remained at ten. In 2009, with the introduction of Toulouse into the competition, the title “National League” was no longer appropriate. From the 2009 season the competition will be known as the Championship, with The Co-operative continuing their sponsorship of the competition. This addition raised the number of teams in the competition to 11.

The record crowd for a club game at this level of competition was set in 2008 at the Stobart Stadium when Widnes defeated Salford 20-18 in front of 8,189. The crowd record for regular season attendance was also broken in 2008 with an average of 2,205 speactors at each game.

Thursday 29th July 2010, 19:30GMT

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Sky Sports 4 (19:30-22:30)
Sky Sports HD4 (19:30-22:30)