Toronto should be given relegation exemption, says Penkywicz

Sean Penkywicz has called for Toronto to be given exemption from Super League relegation this season.

The 37-year-old played for the Wolfpack in 2017 and believes his former club will have to be exempt from the drop if they can’t play any games on Canadian soil.

“I think you have to make them exempt,” said Penkywicz. “I don’t think you can relegate anybody after this.

“They are probably not going to play any games at home now and I think they would have got better the longer the season would have gone on.

“I reckon they would have gone a lot better playing at home because they are all used to playing over there, so I don’t think they would have lost many.”

Penkywicz is now at Rochdale, having signed from Workington prior to this season, and his new side are one of the favourites for promotion back to the Championship this season.

Despite this and the Hornets impressive opening round win over Keighley, ‘Penky’ believes promotion and relegation will have to be scrapped in all divisions if the season doesn’t resume shortly.

“I think if it takes much longer we should just look at playing each other once,” he said. “If that happens though then you can’t really promote or relegate after that.

“So it’s either a season where we cram the games in and have promotion and relegation or if not, then it will just have to be a bit of a showboat league and move on to next year.”

If the league is shortened, Penkywicz has hinted that he may be tempted to go on another year, although the veteran hooker says no decision has been made on that yet.

“This was looking like being my final year because I’m 37 and I’ll be 38 later this season, but it’s always best to decide these things at the end of the season.

“We’ll see what happens because I would like to get to 400 games. I think I’m about 10 short at the moment so I’ll look at things at the end of the year.”