Every major golf competition has its ‘moving day’, the third round of a four round competition when those players on the fringes of the leader board know that they need to push into the top echelons or drop out of contention as the top players pull away into their own little competitive group for the final round.

With eighteen rounds of a twenty-seven round Super League 2023 now almost complete (barring the postponed game between St Helens and the Huddersfield Giants) we are two games away from entering the final quarter of the regular season, a crucial time when clubs need to start making their move if they are to peak at the end of the year.

Cast an eye over the fixture calendar for the coming round and it is clear that it could have a significant influence over the final league table, our very own Super League ‘moving day’.

What a round of fixtures we have over the weekend of the 13th to 16th July at a time when four Challenge Cup semi-finalists will be a little pre-occupied with what they will have to do the following weekend to try and secure a place at Wembley.

We start on Thursday evening with third placed St Helens hosting the league leading Catalans Dragons who are still licking their wounds after the Huddersfield Giants extinguished their fire in their own back yard in round eighteen. A thirty-three-point win would lift the Saints into top spot, but a win of any description would see the Champions level top with the French pretenders to their throne. A win for the Dragons gets them some breathing space at the top over a Leigh Leopards who are chasing them down for the Minor Premiership. A notional TV audience will be glued to their sets.

There are three games on Friday, Sky having chosen the game between fourth placed Wigan and fifth placed Warrington for transmission to the nation. Both sides know that a loss would throw them into the mid-table scrap for play-off places while a win would keep their top spot hopes alive as they would move level on points with the Leopards. The win crucial for both sides in a game that is difficult to call with both sides suffering a downturn in form last time out.

Seventh placed Leeds Rhinos have their eyes set on a top six finish after a mixed 2023 and they take on Hull KR who are currently seventh but struggling for form. A win for either side would see them into the six, at least temporarily, in a battle that looks like it will go down to the last week of the season. This one is impossible to call.

The final game on Friday is a bottom three encounter between a Huddersfield Giants side who beat the league leaders at the weekend and a Wakefield Trinity side who recorded their third win in four games when they beat Wigan. A Wakefield win would see them level on points with the Castleford Tigers in eleventh and pile the pressure on their close neighbours. A win for Huddersfield would probably see them safe from the drop as they would be eight points clear of the bottom spot. A real four-pointer of a game.

Saturday plays host to another massive game at the bottom as Castleford Tigers travel to Hull FC needing a win to help their quest to avoid a relegation dogfight and keep some daylight between themselves and Trinity while for Hull FC, any loss will probably end their quest for a top six place as they fall away from the clubs above them.

The round is completed on Sunday with the East Lancs Road Derby between the Salford Red Devils and Leigh Leopards. Leigh will know by this point whether a win would put them top of the table in an unbelievable first season back in the topflight. Salford will go into the game knowing whether they need a win to maintain, or retain, their top six place. It should be one of the most nail biting local derbies of all time between these two sides with both teams needing the win for different reasons.

The fixture calendar would have struggled to come up with more of an intriguing set of fixtures than it is delivering in round nineteen. We look forward to being entertained, thrilled and amazed by what will unfold next weekend.