MIKE Sunderland hopes common sense will prevail and see a return to home-and-away fixtures for Kingstone Press League One in any restructure of the divisions.

Despite clubs voting in favour of ending the League One Cup from 2018, it is unlikely a return to the traditional fixture format will follow even with a number of blank weekends left in the calendar.

Barrow Raiders are one of the teams who have been particularly hit by the imbalance in allocation of matches and chairman Sunderland has again stated his belief the current format does not work.

"You only have to look at how we have fared this season," said Sunderland. "We've had five of the seven expansion clubs at home this season, but we'll have played Whitehaven, Doncaster and Toronto away.

"We had York at home and Workington at home, and they were two of our best crowds so that proves the method, to me, doesn't work.

"Against Gloucestershire, we had just under 700 and they brought six fans. Now that's not their fault, but unfortunately we get hit with the problems of that."

The subject will undoubtedly come up again at the next monthly meeting between the clubs and the RFL, along with the Super Eights format.

Both Barrow and Whitehaven, who face each other at the Recreation Ground tomorrow, are set to head to leaders Toronto Wolfpack in the second phase, despite the Raiders having already travelled to Canada once this year.

If Haven were to win and Barrow finish third, Paul Crarey's side would face another trip up the coast in the Eights as well, meaning they would have travelled to two of their promotion rivals twice without hosting them.

And Sunderland believes this is a flaw in the fixture formula which needs addressing.

"If we finish third then we end up going back to Whitehaven again, so we'll have had two trips there and two trips to Toronto, and for me it's ridiculous," said Sunderland.

"I can understand it happening in the play-offs, but when you go into the top eight, surely the home match should count as the home game and then you play the next one away – no matter who it is.

"You shouldn't be denied the opportunity of playing an opponent at your home ground."