Over the next few years they continually improved and in 2007 they became the first French team to reach a Challenge Cup Final.
[1] In 2009 Toulouse applied for a Super League licence but failed; however, the RFL were impressed with their application and invited them to play in the Championship.
In 2011 they were relegated but chose to return to the French Elite One Championship after they failed to get into Super League.
[2] Toulouse now play in the Championship, having earned promotion in their inaugural League 1 season of 2016.
Yorkshire added a professional second competition (split west and east to reduce travelling) for the 1898–99 season.
This arrangement lasted until the 1901–02, when the top clubs from each league formed a single new competition.
After this a new structure was introduced where clubs played all the teams in their own county on a home-and-away basis, results counting towards the re-formed Yorkshire and Lancashire Leagues, although due to imbalance in number of teams it was common for a Yorkshire club to have to play in the Lancashire League.
They also had home-and-away fixtures scheduled against a small number of teams in the other competition (usually three); all results were collated into a single table for the Championship.
This lasted only two seasons, and in 1964–65 they went back to one large division subdivided into county leagues, but the play-off were expanded to the top 16 teams.
The following season saw the title change to Premiership and the format was altered so that only the top eight teams in the First Division would compete.
Between 2009 and 2014 automatic promotion and relegation between Super League and the Championship was replaced by a franchise system.
On 17 January 2014, it was announced the third option had been selected, but had been changed to split after 23 games, which would be a complete round-robin and an added fixture, the Magic Weekend.
The top six teams enter the play-offs and the winner is determined by the Super League Grand Final.
First place in regular season is awarded the RFL Championship Leaders' Shield, while the bottom two teams are relegated.