I personally think it’s nothing short of lunacy to expand the league from 12 to 14 at the current time. I don’t see any logic to it whatsoever aside from losing loop fixtures. Whilst, I am no fan of loop fixtures, I don’t think any greater consideration has been taken for this proposed move. The last time we did 14, it was a mess, we had meaningless game after meaningless game and play-offs bloated by having over half the competition in contention with winning the Grand Final and being deemed the champion.
We have a smaller TV deal than the last one and subsequently, less money to spread across the teams, so why would we spread it across 14 teams rather than 12? That’s before looking at the standards of clubs as well. Now, I thought they performed admirably all things considered but in 2024 we had a part-time team in London Broncos playing in an elite competition, this year we have Salford Red Devils on the precipice and that’s before looking at teams like Castleford Tigers and Huddersfield Giants who play in a ground that hasn’t been deemed modern since WWII or play in a huge stadium in front of almost nobody despite years of ticket promotions and offers.
Looking at the game here as a whole, we have the following issues:
* A poor and ever declining TV deal.
* Fans don’t like loop fixtures.
* The Challenge Cup is poorly attended throughout the competition.
* What is the point of League One?
* What are the lower league sides playing for season to season?
That’s just a selection of the games ills and I’m sure we could add a few more but looking at it, I think there’s some relative ‘easy’ wins.
Super League
We don’t like loop games and if I’m completely honest, 27 rounds is too many, in my opinion. Rugby League is the faster paced, action packed code, let’s get back to faster paced and a shorter, harder hitting season. Defeats really mean little at the moment. Win a shade over half of your games and you’re in the play-offs, defeats feel like they have little consequence and it’s only the emotive side of rivalry and locality of those you lose to that feels like consequence.
Let’s get back to basics, 22 rounds, 11 at home, 11 away. I hear you cry “but what about the lost games and lost income?!”. Hear me out. Anyway, Magic Weekend. I love it, I know IMG don’t and I know some are less excited by spending a weekend watching 6 live games of rugby league than me but unless city councils are going to pay to host it, I think we should probably look elsewhere for now. You have had games taken to Las Vegas, Hull KR have taken a friendly to Amsterdam, Catalans have taken games around the South of France and into Spain and London Broncos head into Kent each summer, now, I think we should look at this and do something here. We’ve had “On The Road” games in the 90’s and I think if the game wants to grow, it should do the most un-Rugby League like thing and create a plan. If we want to break into Newcastle, Wales, Scotland or grow the game in London more, we have to take the NRL approach. Rather than just sticking a team into League One and letting them sink, let’s invest time and effort into taken games there, putting on a show and gaining traction over the long-term rather than leaving them to play in front of 200 people in the third tier. Let's commit to, say, five years of taking games to Amsterdam with Hull KR as the 'home' team and let's take two games at a time over there.
Anyway, top five play-offs and the winner decided at the Grand Final. The five team play-off just worked better, rewarded the sides at the top well and it just felt like it worked properly.
Championship and League One
Now, the obvious answer would have been a 12-12-12 structure and each league playing the same amount of games but due to the sad demise of yet another non-heartland side, this time in the form of Cornwall, we have 35 teams in total and 23 outside of Super League. I did think maybe one large 23 team league and everyone playing each other once to create the 22 games but I don’t think that works and you lose the tension and build up to big games and local derbies if they’re once a year. Do we admit a ‘team 36’? Again, I’m not sure. I see the obvious merits to it because it then makes the structures fit and everything look and work smoother but do we need another expansion team from a random town in England dumped into the third tier or even a team from a heartlands area? Even if you wanted smaller conferences, 23 is an odd number to work with but it’s manageable with three five team conferences and two four team conferences but requires cross-conference games and I’m not sure the ageing UK rugby league fanbase would take to that, though it’s one I would probably work with to ensure all teams got 22 games.
While there is a disparity between the top of the Championship and bottom of League One, League One has lost its way, nobody knows what it’s for and what the purpose of it is anymore. There was a time where the majority of the league was made up by Coventry, London Skolars, Hemel Stags, Oxford, University of Gloucestershire All Golds and South Wales Scorpions. It had the makings of a development league but that fell away, as did most of those clubs.
If we do have to admit a 'Team 36', do it but don't just admit a random expansion side. We've done that to death. We admit them and that's it. No investment from the sport in the form of community coaches, no financial aid in their early days, it's literally sink or swim and they all, almost inevitably, sink, never to be seen again. Had we had a long-term plan and some proper leadership, we could have had a 'development' league with a range of clubs from the South of England, Wales, the North East and perhaps other places.
The great promotion and relegation debate
Now, I’m no fan of it. I don’t think it works. The Championship teams would come up in October, the Super League teams would have had their squads sorted and the players from the relegated sides would bounce from promoted team to promoted team and given that these players weren’t good enough to keep their former employers in Super League, it often transpired that they weren’t good enough to keep their next employers in Super League. I also doubt the standard of the current Super League sides, let alone those outside of the league, often barred from having academies and having survived on a pittance from the sport for years.
I think there’s some real “sleeping giants” (well, in UK RL terms at least) in the likes of Oldham, Widnes, Bradford and York and I think I would take the NRL approach of growing the game slowly over and admitting these teams to Super League over a longer period if they can satisfy conditions, in the way the Dolphins have and the Titans before them. By all means I want to grow the game and the Super League but let’s get those clubs up to a standard first before we start asking more teams to come in and aspire to that standard. We aren't at the required standard at the minute but with time, we can get sides up to that level and then admit a growing Championship team to then give them time to develop and so on. No timeframes, no promises.
The Challenge Cup
I love the Challenge Cup. It’s the best competition in the world across any sport, for me. The finals themselves should be enough to have a stream of investors across the world. The average winning margin of the past ten finals has been 5.8 points, we’ve had 8 different winners in the past 10 finals, we’ve had 11 different finalists, we’ve had the late try to win it for Hull KR this year, the Danny Houghton tackle to effectively win the game, the trophy going to Catalans, a golden point win, a one point win in front of nobody and a late Wigan try at Tottenham. It’s cinema stuff. The sort of stuff that, made into a Netflix docuseries blows up the sport and the final as a sporting spectacle. The problem we have is that the final isn’t attended that well and the earlier rounds aren’t either. Season ticket culture has changed the way people view cup competitions and we haven’t moved with the times, in my opinion.
Perhaps controversial but I saw no positive to the changes made for 2025. Whilst, I’m sure the players of West Hull, Wests Warriors and York Acorn had great experiences from playing Saints, Leeds and Hull, I don’t see what it brought the game commercially and I think that’s what we’ve got to be looking at rather than creating nice memories, as harsh as that sounds. Unfortunately, memories do not make money in this instance and we can’t pay clubs and players on memories. I’m not sure we can sell the sport to broadcasters on “so, what we do is put literal amateurs against former internationals, State of Origin players and current England internationals in one of the opening rounds”. Why would a BBC, Sky, DAZN, whoever want to showcase that? The chance of a shock, as you see in the FA Cup in Football is very small and so, you cannot sell it that way.
Now, the season ticket culture has changed cup competitions and how do we reignite the cup? Well, back to the Super League and Championship, where I propose clubs have 11 home games, there are some games to be made up elsewhere and we have a cup competition that is, largely unloved. Why not try and address the problems of both competitions by giving clubs the home games they require and creating a bit of buzz around the cup? I have two similar suggestions, I suppose one is easier to track and follow than the other but they are either: group stages or to follow Football's new approach a "League Stage" as per the Champions League.
I would have no more than 20 teams in the Challenge Cup (again, hear me out). With a group stage, I would have four groups of five teams, with each team playing two home games and two away, so that everyone plays each other once. To separate the clubs, we need pots, I would do them as follows: the previous year's winner, the previous year's finalist and two highest ranked sides from the previous year's Super League in Pot One, Pot Two would be the next four highest ranked sides from the previous year's Super League, the same again in Pot Three, Pot Four would be the previous year's 1895 Cup winners, the previous year's 1895 Cup Finalists and the previous year's two highest ranked Championship sides and Pot Five would be the next four highest ranked Championship sides. Do it so the higher ranked teams get preferential home games as a reward for their onfield success.
Based on the league tables as of 24/07/2025, the hypothetical Pots for the 2026 Challenge Cup would be:
Pot One - Hull Kingston Rovers (2025 Challenge Cup Winners), Warrington Wolves (2025 Challenge Cup Finalists), Wigan Warriors (2nd in SL - highest ranked), Leigh Leopards (3rd in Super League).
Pot Two - Leeds Rhinos, St Helens, Hull FC, Wakefield Trinity.
Pot Three - Catalans Dragons, Huddersfield Giants, Castleford Tigers, Salford Red Devils.
Pot Four - York Knights (2025 1895 Cup Winners), Featherstone Rovers (2025 1895 Cup Finalists), Bradford Bulls (3rd in Championship - highest ranked), Oldham (4th in the Championship).
Pot Five - Halifax Panthers, Barrow Raiders, Doncaster, Widnes Vikings.
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Being lazy, I've got AI to draw a hypothetical set-up for the also hypothetical 2026 Challenge Cup and have got the following:
Group A - Wigan Warriors, Hull FC, Salford Red Devils, Oldham, Halifax Panthers.
B - Hull KR, Leeds Rhinos, Castleford Tigers, York Knights, Barrow Raiders.
C - Leigh Leopards, Wakefield Trinity, Huddersfield Giants, Featherstone Rovers, Doncaster.
D - Warrington Wolves, St Helens, Catalans Dragons, Bradford Bulls, Widnes Vikings.
A quick look and you have a local derby in A between Salford and Oldham, in B between Leeds and Cas, a local derby in Wakefield and Featherstone in C, Warrington v Saints, Warrington v Widnes and Saints v Widnes in D with the return of Sam Burgess to Bradford with his Warrington side and Saints playing Bradford, which was a regular final in the late nineties.
Or the alternate is all twenty teams in a 'Champions League' style League Phase where again, each team plays four games, two at home, two away against teams from the different Pots. Teams who finish 1st to 4th go straight through to the Quarter Finals and are rewarded with a home tie. Teams that finish 5th-12th are drawn against each other and the winners progress to play away ties at the teams who finished 1st - 4th.
1895 Cup
So, we have fourteen teams left (discounting Toulouse who don't take part in the Challenge Cup or 1895 Cup). With the need for 1895 Cup winners and finalists in the Challenge Cup, the 1895 Cup is vital to the sport and the clubs competing. You can't copy the same format with just 14, so to get to 16 you can offer the places to winners of the amateur cup's and leagues or open it up to get a more national feel - so teams who win the National Conference Premier, the Southern Conference winners and even teams from Scotland and Wales, if they can financially compete and complete.
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