2026 Super League Discussion

[Ian Douglas]

It wasn’t done in Toronto, was it? It was a club built on sand and with owners who weren’t paying players on time, weren’t paying what was owed to businesses that they had worked with and the interest in them from those financing them waned very quickly. That’s all before Covid saw them off. They were unravelling in the background long before Chinese flu and the RFL refusing to bail them out did for them.

A club that lasted 5 years isn’t exactly a good comparison.


That’s very different. London, whilst they may not have been run properly for some time, are an established rugby league club with a core fanbase and a junior game underpinning it. It might not be the biggest club or the most well supported but there’s a baseline to work with. A Manchester club, you’re building from ground zero. The amateur clubs in Greater Manchester are almost all based in Salford, Oldham and Rochdale. It’s fantasist stuff to build a club from nothing and dump them in Super League.

Manchester Rangers were never joining League One. They applied and were rejected because The RFL felt the area was saturated with clubs already. Ottawa became Cornwall and were killed off when they couldn’t find investors to fund six figures to travelling the length of the country every week for third division rugby with just £10k in central funding given to them.

Nobody is saying put Manchester in super league straight away.

theres plenty of players from Oldham, Rochdale, Salford and Leigh etc areas to get a competitive team up and running in the championship and then build from there.

longterm goal would be to introduce RL to the local primary and secondary schools in Manchester and hopefully get a couple of grassroots amateur clubs within the city off the ground to eventually feed into the team.

 

[Taking The Two]

Nobody is saying put Manchester in super league straight away.

theres plenty of players from Oldham, Rochdale, Salford and Leigh etc areas to get a competitive team up and running in the championship and then build from there.

longterm goal would be to introduce RL to the local primary and secondary schools in Manchester and hopefully get a couple of grassroots amateur clubs within the city off the ground to eventually feed into the team.

Putting brand new teams into the lower league(s) is essentially a death knell from the beginning. Teams rarely last. London Skolars went after 20 years, only a rebranded Midlands have survived from that era where South Wales, Oxford, All Golds and Hemel came in and Cornwall went in the blink of an eye. Plenty here are suggesting a Manchester club needs to be in Super League. It’s fantasy stuff.

There’s already existing clubs. Salford have gone bust and finding their feet again, Oldham appear to be a mess and have been booted out of their ground and Rochdale and Swinton appear to be just about keeping their heads above water. More doesn’t equate to more quality.

 

[adamkungl]

"organic" expansion via local development and lower leagues is a fantasy. It will never work for good reasons.
The expansion club doesn't have the local development quality to compete at even a 3rd tier pro level. And you can't recruit northern players on 3rd tier part timer salaries, so you can't build via recruitment either. And now the 3rd tier doesn't even exist so that bar is probably higher.

The only possible way is to go all in full time, and if someone is willing to tip that kind of money into a rugby league club the RFL should be talking to them about a super league license and doing due diligence on viability.

The Toronto thing might have been built on sand, but it did prove that with vibrant marketing you can attract an audience to Rugby League in a non-heartland city. This is the #1 important lesson here, #2 is keeping investors at a high standard.

If say Nick Politis came along and wanted to start a Manchester Roosters club, the RFL would be insane to not get on board. The Melbourne Storm prove that top down expansion club development works. Melbourne in the 90s was even more foreign to Rugby League than Manchester is now. It's a long road but if the finance is stable and willing to see it through it can be done. In the modern era, putting a successful, quality, professional club in front of kids and new fans eyeballs is the ONLY way expansion will succeed.

Delusions about P&R would prevent this but an elite Manchester club backed by NRL money, set up with feeder arrangements with Oldham, Swinton, Rochdale and Salford would be great for the sport.

 

[adamkungl]

Anyway 2 wins to promoted clubs and 2 wins to French clubs, good weekend for us pro-expansion degenerates.

France-watch: Between Catalans (4) and Toulouse (9) and others (4) I count a full 17 France players in Super League this week.

 

[Gobsmacked]

"organic" expansion via local development and lower leagues is a fantasy. It will never work for good reasons.
The expansion club doesn't have the local development quality to compete at even a 3rd tier pro level. And you can't recruit northern players on 3rd tier part timer salaries, so you can't build via recruitment either. And now the 3rd tier doesn't even exist so that bar is probably higher.

The only possible way is to go all in full time, and if someone is willing to tip that kind of money into a rugby league club the RFL should be talking to them about a super league license and doing due diligence on viability.

The Toronto thing might have been built on sand, but it did prove that with vibrant marketing you can attract an audience to Rugby League in a non-heartland city. This is the #1 important lesson here, #2 is keeping investors at a high standard.

If say Nick Politis came along and wanted to start a Manchester Roosters club, the RFL would be insane to not get on board. The Melbourne Storm prove that top down expansion club development works. Melbourne in the 90s was even more foreign to Rugby League than Manchester is now. It's a long road but if the finance is stable and willing to see it through it can be done. In the modern era, putting a successful, quality, professional club in front of kids and new fans eyeballs is the ONLY way expansion will succeed.

Delusions about P&R would prevent this but an elite Manchester club backed by NRL money, set up with feeder arrangements with Oldham, Swinton, Rochdale and Salford would be great for the sport.

Exactly.
The trouble with the English fans is they're easily mislead. The rfl do things half arsed so it doesn't work, then go.. see , told you it wouldn't work.

Toulouse and York get a shot at SL , no funding, no time to prepare and if they fail they'll go.. see, we're better off just sticking to the M62.

The insecure fans of small clubs in England want expansion to fail, they set it up that way.

 

[Pippen94]

They were told to buy clubs and merge them or buy a club and move them. They did neither, knowing the reluctance they’d face and how unviable it all was. They pulled their money and the Manchester Rangers went pop. A regular occurrence in the game here.

Well, change. Oldham, Salford, hornets etc should feed into a Manchester team. Before you say it won't work, what's happening now isn't working.

 

[RL The greatest game]

Anyway, back to reality and the real world now. Cas v Wigan today. Not a clue how that goes now after this weekends games. Wigan should win but Cas have recruited heavily and are a bit of an unknown quantity.

A win for the Wigan Warriors, but a bit tougher than people thought it would be

Super League: Castleford Tigers 16-26 Wigan Warriors

Wigan Warriors overcome a spirited Castleford Tigers side to kick off the new season with a win.

www.bbc.com

 

[League Unlimited News]

Detailed results, match reports from all seven games:

THE WRAP: 2026 Betfred Super League Round 1 » League Unlimited

leagueunlimited.com

Round 1 table​

#	Team	P	W	D	L	B	+/-	Pts
1	Catalans	1	1	0	0	0	16	2
2	Leigh	1	1	0	0	0	12	2
3	Warrington	1	1	0	0	0	10	2
4	Wigan	1	1	0	0	0	10	2
5	Hull FC	1	1	0	0	0	7	2
6	Toulouse	1	1	0	0	0	2	2
7	York	1	1	0	0	0	1	2
8	Hull KR	1	0	0	1	0	-1	0
9	Wakefield	1	0	0	1	0	-2	0
10	Bradford	1	0	0	1	0	-7	0
11	St Helens	1	0	0	1	0	-10	0
12	Castleford	1	0	0	1	0	-10	0
13	Leeds	1	0	0	1	0	-12	0
14	Huddersfield	1	0	0	1	0	-16	0

 

[JFK Files]

Cas were ok but just lacked a bit of size & go forward up front.
Not sure when Ashworth is back from suspension but he will help bring that.

 

[parrawentyfan]

After watching only the highlights, that was a fantastic weekend of superleague. The only blemish was the dodgy weather in Perpignan and noone can be blamed for that. If that level of excitement, competitiveness and crowd engagement can be maintained, the comp will be in good health.

 

[Taking The Two]

You’d hope the 2nd week would hold up reasonably well. It’s the first home game for the other half of the league and you would expect big pushes to fill out stadiums, though you do have one fewer game and Huddersfield at home.

 

[Ian Douglas]

You’d hope the 2nd week would hold up reasonably well. It’s the first home game for the other half of the league and you would expect big pushes to fill out stadiums, though you do have one fewer game and Huddersfield at home.

Huddersfield are super league equivalent of the sharks crowd wise.

 

[adamkungl]

Surely this league could make more money with TV contracts if it didn't schedule 3 games at the same time?
Can anyone in England shed any light on what arcane nonsense prevents them from having unique set timeslots each week similar to the NRL?

 

[Perth Red]

Great first round to kick off SL, disappointed we lost but pleased to see York do well.
Big crowds, close games, expansion teams performing, couple of upsets. Can’t ask for more really.

 

[Perth Red]

Surely this league could make more money with TV contracts if it didn't schedule 3 games at the same time?
Can anyone in England shed any light on what arcane nonsense prevents them from having unique set timeslots each week similar to the NRL?

We’ve only just got every game on tv. TV isn’t paying enough to ask clubs to move to poor fan ko times and lose revenue.

 

[RL The greatest game]

Cas Tigers Blake Taaffe to miss the rest of te season with devastating injury

Ryan Taaffe: Castleford Tigers full-back out for season with ruptured ACL

Castleford Tigers full-back Blake Taaffe is ruled out for the rest of the 2026 season after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament on his Super League debut.

www.bbc.com

 

[jason taylor]

Cas Tigers Blake Taaffe to miss the rest of te season with devastating injury

Ryan Taaffe: Castleford Tigers full-back out for season with ruptured ACL

Castleford Tigers full-back Blake Taaffe is ruled out for the rest of the 2026 season after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament on his Super League debut.

www.bbc.com

Well that's a bust on that signing for them. Disappointing for Taaffe - talented player that hasn't had a full opportunity to shine.

 

[Perth Red]

Bradford are back! Nearly 10k at odsal and a big win over Catalans. To think some questioned their return lol.

 

[Perth Red]

Hull kr lose two big names in. WCC with FB artie morgue suspected torn pec and dean hadley suffering a suspected fractured eye socket. Both will be missing for a while it seems.

 

[Ian Douglas]

Catalan are very poor and going in the wrong direction.

they need a French coach and French players.