Category: Rugby League

Rugby League News

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London Broncos graded below Barrow but still set for Super League place

  • Championship winners only 16th in new IMG gradings

  • NRL money contingent on London Super League side

Runaway Championship winners London Broncos have been graded below even Barrow Raiders for next season – but they are still set to become the 15th team in an expanded Super League next season, the Guardian can reveal.

The Broncos have swept aside the second tier in 2026, winning all three domestic trophies on offer after assembling a squad filled with NRL talent. Under the ownership of Kangaroos great, Darren Lockyer, London’s goal was two-fold this year: to dominate on the pitch as well as making a push for the top 14 in the Rugby Football League’s gradings system.

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Will London have a Super League team next season? We still don’t know

The Broncos demolished the second tier, winning 26 of their 27 games, but promotion is not only decided on the pitch

By No Helmets Required

Two years ago this week, London Broncos were relegated from Super League, their ground had flooded and their owner had walked away after spending £24m of his private fortune. The club were soon asking supporters to save them. They did – and fans wearing last year’s away jersey listing those saviours’ names (including mine) across their chests were among the proudest people in the ground on Sunday when London thrashed Doncaster 78-6 in the Championship Grand Final.

London Broncos have completed a second-tier treble this season but their fans cannot celebrate promotion to Super League yet. Instead they will spend this week waiting to see if they have made the grade – promotion being decided not only by gradings based on both on-field and off-field criteria but also the key decision on whether to expand to 15 teams.

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Jake Connor is shock omission from England squad for Rugby League World Cup

  • McDermott wants those who ‘can best stick to gameplan’

  • Hull KR’s Lewis in but no Wakefield players included

Brian McDermott, the England head coach, has justified his surprise decision to omit Jake Connor from England’s Rugby League World Cup squad by insisting the players selected are better suited to his plans to defeat the world’s best.

For the second consecutive year, Leeds Rhinos half-back Connor is the major talking point in a squad that has no players from the new Super League champions, Wakefield. He was left out by Shaun Wane for last autumn’s Ashes despite winning Super League’s Man of Steel award. England lost that series 3-0 after a string of limited attacking displays.

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Sam Walker tops off NRL glory with Kangaroos call-up for Rugby League World Cup

  • Roosters’ halfback among six debutants in Walters’ Australia squad

  • Jillaroos veteran Ali Brigginshaw left out of women’s team

Isaah Yeo will delay pectoral surgery to captain Australia’s men’s Rugby League World Cup campaign, after coach Kevin Walters revealed his 23-player squad that includes Sydney Roosters halfback Sam Walker.

One of six debutants in the squad, Walker will be locked in a four-way battle with Cameron Munster, Tom Dearden and Mitchell Moses for a spot in the Kangaroos’ halves.

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Wakefield’s wondrous Super League fairytale a victory for loyalty and logic | Aaron Bower

Owner has put in £10m but seven victorious players at Old Trafford were in the Championship two years ago and stayed at Trinity

It may seem quite obvious to suggest there is plenty Super League can learn from its newest champions but as Wakefield Trinity’s dreams came true at Old Trafford on Saturday evening, it was easy to ponder just how transformational a moment this is for not only them, but so many others, too.

This fairytale has captured the national attention and punctured the mainstream unlike few other Super League stories in recent times. A second-tier club just two years ago, Wakefield are now champions of England and have a possible showdown with the NRL champions, Sydney Roosters, to contemplate early next year in the World Club Challenge.

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NRL grand final 2026: Sydney Roosters 19-18 Newcastle Knights – as it happened

The first wave of Knights successes came against a backdrop of uncertainty about what a post-industrial future might mean for the steel city. Two decades on, for better or worse, working-class Newcastle is now safer, more confident and outward-looking; also more expensive and exclusive.

DCE has spoken to Channel 9 about the enormity of the occasion.

To be honest, just because of the occasion of the grand final, it’s been really easy to put it to the side. I feel like the moment I’ve made it all about myself at any time of my career, it’s never really worked out too well. So real team focus today.

Yeah, really good. The longer turnaround I feel really helped us. We were able to get extra recovery in and then build our week really nicely. So I feel like it was a great week of preparation. And now it’s just trusting that to go out and play… it’s not about any storyline for us tonight. It’s just about getting the job done.

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Super League Grand Final: Warrington Wolves 10-23 Wakefield Trinity – as it happened

Trinity ended fifty-eight years of hurt with a thumping win at Old Trafford

4 mins. A strong carry from Scott takes Wakefield near to the Wire 20m line, but a mix up late in the set leads to an offside off a poor kick. Williams clears the Warrington lines from the penalty.

The next attack from the Wire has Walmsley claiming a towering kick close to the Trinity line, but he can’t do much when he lands and the ball is turned over.

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Wakey-Wakey: Trinity’s rapid rise and Grand Final run shocks fans from long slumber

Club was a ‘shambles’ before takeover by boyhood Wakefield fan Matt Ellis – and on Saturday they face Warrington for the title

Last one out of Wakefield on Saturday, turn off the lights. Some 965 days ago, this story began on a field in Siddal on the outskirts of Halifax with just a few hundred people there to see it: this weekend, one of rugby league’s grand old clubs will be the headline attraction in front of more than 70,000 supporters when Trinity face Warrington in their maiden Super League Grand Final.

It is a rise so rapid it almost defies belief but to understand it you must appreciate where this club were in the food chain even just a few short years ago. It was late 2023 when boyhood Wakefield Trinity fan Matt Ellis completed a takeover of the club; £10m worth of investment later, the results are clear to see on and off the field.

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Warrington’s bid to make it fifth time lucky fuelled by 70 years of agony

Wakefield’s progress has brought romance to the Grand Final but Warrington ending their long title drought would be just as stirring

It is a tale of two potential fairytale endings on Saturday evening with a unique twist. A startling statistic has spread across social media since last weekend’s Super League playoff semi-finals: of all the towns and cities across Europe with a population of more than 200,000, it is said that only two do not have a professional football team.

Those two settlements will be front and centre of the rugby league landscape, as Wakefield Trinity and Warrington Wolves go in pursuit of history at Old Trafford. Trinity were in the Championship only two years ago, and hunting a first major trophy since 1968.

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Nathan Cleary completes NRL boxset with his first Dally M medal

  • Player of the decade finally wins player of the year

  • Tamika Upton wins her third NRLW medal

Nathan Cleary has completed rugby league’s boxset of awards after the Penrith star was voted the runaway winner of his first Dally M Medal at the NRL’s gala night.

Unable to attend Wednesday’s awards in Sydney after his horror ankle injury in Penrith’s preliminary-finals loss, Cleary finished 14 points clear of Cronulla half Braydon Trindall.

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Knights stun Panthers to book NRL grand final berth after Nathan Cleary suffers compound fracture

  • Newcastle defeat Penrith 22-14 in preliminary final

  • Phoenix Crossland sent off for hip-drop tackle on Cleary

Newcastle are through to their first grand final in 25 years after holding on to beat Penrith 22-14 with 12 men, after Panthers star Nathan Cleary sufffered an ankle fracture in a hip-drop tackle.

On an afternoon of high drama at Accor Stadium, Newcastle hooker Phoenix Crossland was sent off for the tackle that left Cleary with a compound fracture and dislocation of the ankle late in the first half.

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Nawaqanitawase genius helps Roosters sink Dolphins and reach grand final

  • The union-bound winger runs in two tries at Suncorp

  • Returning Sam Walker orchestrates 36-20 win

Sydney Roosters are through to their first NRL grand final in seven years after Mark Nawaqanitawase’s genius and a miracle Sam Walker injury comeback inspired a 36-20 demolition of the Dolphins.

The Roosters shot out to a 16-0 lead inside 27 minutes in front of a sold-out preliminary final crowd of 52,286 at Suncorp Stadium on Friday night.

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Toulouse lit up Super League but French fans miss out on TV coverage

Sylvain Houles’ newly promoted team finished alongside Catalans in mid-table but their big battle is for exposure

By No Helmets Required

Every now and then, something dramatic is required. No one could blame Sylvain Houles for threatening to quit rugby league if his Toulouse Olympique team were replaced in Super League next season by London Broncos. After all, he has just taken them to eighth in the table on half funding, finishing above their rivals Catalans Dragons for the first time in 25 years in the process.

The rumour that Toulouse could be ranked 14th by IMG and relegated has since been quashed – to every sane league fan’s relief. Shane Richardson, the NRL head of strategy, says the aim is to build the code’s presence in France, not slash it in half.

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NRL open investigation into fans after top referee pelted with rubbish at Eden Park

  • Ashley Klein targeted after Warriors’ season ended by Knights

  • Official had to be protected by security on way off pitch in Auckland

The NRL has threatened to ban fans who peppered referee Ashley Klein with projectiles, with the integrity unit investigating the aftermath of the Eden Park clash.

Vision from after full-time in Newcastle’s 12-10 win over the Warriors on Sunday showed Klein being hit with a raft of bottles, cups and rubbish as he walked from the field.

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