ON paper, the task for York City Knights this weekend is up there with the toughest they will be faced with this season.

York host Featherstone at the LNER Community Stadium on Sunday evening (7.30pm) and take on a Rovers side which stands at the top of the Betfred Championship table.

Featherstone have won all of their three matches this year, being one of only two sides to still boast a 100 per cent winning start to the campaign.

Toulouse Olympique are that other club and, while the season still remains in its embryonic stage, the frontrunning duo appear to living up their billing as the clear favourites for promotion to the Betfred Super League.

Amid quarantine regulations, the mouthwatering clash between the pair, set to be hosted by Toulouse last weekend was postponed.

While the challenge for York looks particularly difficult, it would also be fair to point that this too will be, on paper at least, the hardest league match that Featherstone will have played this year.

So far the Rovers have beaten Batley Bulldogs (28-18), Swinton Lions (36-6) and Whitehaven (48-14), with victory coming by an increasing margin each week.

None of those sides though finished in the top half of the last completed Championship season in 2019, unlike the Knights who placed third, two spots ahead of Fev.

Featherstone did have a step up in competition earlier this year when they entertained Hull FC in a Betfred Challenge Cup tie that ended in a 34-14 victory for the top-flight side - a game in which the Rovers by no means disgraced themselves as they won the second half 10-0.

Their trip to North Yorkshire however should provide them with the sternest test of their promotion credentials to date.

Many believe that 2021 will be the year that the perennial Championship challengers will finally secure a first ever promotion to the top-flight in the Super League era.

They have good reason to make such a case given the quality of talent possessed by head coach James Webster.

The former Wakefield Trinity and Hull Kingston Rovers has put together a squad that has players dropping down from Super League and those with years of experience in the Championship.

The coronavirus pandemic ended their long-standing dual registration agreement with Leeds Rhinos but in its stead they have recruited established stars from the top division, including prop forwards Craig Kopczak and Junior Moors, from Wakefield and Castleford Tigers respectively.

They come into a pack already compromising of ex-internationals Brett Ferres and Dale Ferguson and veterans of the second tier like James Lockwood and John Davies.

Rovers also pulled off a major coup to bring in Samoa representative half-back/hooker Fa’amanu Brown from NRL side Canterbury Bulldogs.

In the backs, centre Kris Welham was signed from 2019 Super League Grand Finalists Salford Red Devils.

Featherstone look a better team now than the one which was beaten in the 2019 play-off final against Toronto Wolfpack. You would not write them off going one step further this year.

Featherstone squad: Hall, Hardcastle, Gale, Holmes, Chisholm, Kopczak, Brown, Ferres, Day, Lockwood, Davies, Bussey, Minns, Cooper, Field, Halton, Parata, McConnell, Spence, Moors.