The 2018 Rugby Football League Championship is a

rugby league football Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playing field, field measur ...

competition played primarily in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

, one tier below the first tier

Super League The Super League (officially known as the Betfred Super League due to sponsorship from Betfred and legally known as Super League Europe), is the top-level of the British rugby league system. At present the league consists of twelve teams, of wh ...

. The 2018 season is the fourth to consist of the Super 8s structure combining the Championship and Super League three-quarters of the way through the season. The 2018 Championship features 12 teams, which all play one another twice in the regular season, once at home, and once away, totalling 22 games. The 2018 season also features the " Summer Bash Weekend" for a fourth time. This is a 23rd round of fixtures which replicates Super League's

Magic Weekend The Magic Weekend (known as the Dacia Magic Weekend for sponsorship reasons) is an annual event organised by the Rugby Football League in which an entire round of Super League matches is played over a weekend at a single stadium to promote the s ...

concept for the Championship sides. After these 23 rounds in both the Championship and the Super League, the two divisions of twelve are split into three divisions of eight, the "Super 8s". New sponsors for the league were announced in January 2018, and the league will be known as the Betfred Championship until the end of 2019. The bookmakers,

Betfred Betfred is a bookmaker based in the United Kingdom, founded by Fred Done.Pronounced to rhyme with "bone". It was first established as a single betting shop in Ordsall, Salford, in 1967. Its turnover in 2004 was reported to be more than £3.5 bi ...

, extended their sponsorship of rugby league to include the Championship and League 1 as well as Super League.

Teams

This year's competition features 12 teams. The teams consist of nine of the 12 teams from

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

, the champions of the 2017 League One season, the

Toronto Wolfpack The Toronto Wolfpack are a Canadian professional rugby league club based in Toronto, Ontario, who compete in the North American Rugby League. The club originally competed in the British rugby league system but withdrew in the 2020 Super Leagu ...

, and the champion of the League One playoffs,

Barrow Raiders The Barrow Raiders are a semi-professional rugby league team in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England. The club was formed in 1875 as Barrow Football Club. For the 1995–96 and 1996 seasons the club was known as Barrow Braves, becoming the Ba ...

Bradford Bulls The Bradford Bulls are a professional rugby league club in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, playing in the Championship. They have won five Challenge Cups, six league championships and three World Club Challenges. The team jersey is predom ...

and

Oldham Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, amid the Pennines and between the rivers Irk and Medlock, southeast of Rochdale and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, wh ...

, the two bottom placed teams in the 2017 season, were relegated to League One, while

Hull Kingston Rovers Hull Kingston Rovers are a professional rugby league club based in Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, England, that competes in the Super League, the top tier of British rugby league. The club has won five league championships, and one Challeng ...

were promoted back to

after just one season in the Championship.

Regular season results

Final standings

The Qualifiers

Toronto, London, Toulouse and Halifax will play in the 2018 Qualifiers together with Super League sides Leeds, Hull Kingston Rovers, Salford and Widnes. With points reset to zero, after each side has played each other once the top three teams will qualify for Super League XXIV in 2019. The teams finishing fourth and fifth will play each other in the Million Pound Game with the winner also qualifying for Super League XXIV. The losers of the Million Pound Game together with the teams finishing sixth, seventh and eighth in the Qualifiers will play in the 2019 Rugby League Championship.

Championship Shield

The clubs finishing fifth and below in the regular season play for the Championship Shield. Points earned during the regular season are carried forward and after seven more games the top two clubs play in the shield final. Prior to the start of the season it was announced that the two clubs at the bottom of the table will be relegated to the League 1 for 2019, however following an emergency general meeting of the RFL on 13 September 2018 the Championship and League 1 clubs agreed that for 2019 the number of clubs in the Championship would be increased from 12 to 14. To achieve this the team finishing 11th will not be relegated and the team finishing bottom will play-off against the League 1 team that loses the League 1 promotion final to decide which team will play in the Championship for 2019.

Results

Standings

References

{{2018 in rugby league 2018 in English rugby league 2018 in French rugby league Rugby Football League Championship 2018 in Canadian sports