Category: Rugby League

Rugby League News

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One sub club: the players with the shortest careers in Super League

Some rugby league players only appear in the top flight once. They should cherish every minute of it

By Gavin Willacy for No Helmets Required

In Salford’s last regular Super League game of 2024, the coach Paul Rowley gave debuts to eight reserve players to protect his stars for the playoffs. None of them are likely to be on the field when their season begins at St Helens on Saturday evening. Their services may never be required in the top flight again. But, for one night only, they found themselves up against the world champions, live on national TV.

Dan Spencer-Tonks knows what that “for one night only” role feels like. Rowley did the same thing two years earlier, fielding six debutants against Warrington in the final regular round. Spencer-Tonks came off the bench for his only taste of Super League, earning membership of the one sub club. He has spent the last two seasons in the Championship and League One, his time at the top seemingly gone as rapidly as it arrived.

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Wigan, the people’s club, keep their doors wide open in pursuit of perfection

‘Doing it for the town’: Super League’s all-conquering machine have a unique way of involving their community

It is Tuesday morning and there are just 48 hours to go until Wigan begin their Super League title defence against Leigh, not that you would know that when you walk into their Robin Park training complex.

To suggest the mood is relaxed would be an understatement. Some players are taking part in a cricket match on the indoor athletics track, while others are chatting to members of the public and upstairs, their head coach, Matt Peet, is relaxing with a coffee. “If someone said describe a high-performance environment, I don’t think this would be the first place you’d think of,” their former captain and assistant coach, Sean O’Loughlin, smiles.

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Super League 2025: team-by-team guide to the new season

Wigan have no weakness, Hull face a rebuild and newcomers Wakefield will quietly fancy their chances

Super League’s 30th season gets under way on Thursday evening, with the biggest opening-night crowd in the competition’s history anticipated to watch the reigning champions, Wigan Warriors, take on their local rivals, Leigh Leopards. Matt Peet’s side completed an historic quadruple last year and have all the hallmarks of a side that could sweep aside all comers again.

Will Wigan dominate 2025 just like they did in 2024? Can the likes of Warrington, Hull KR and Leeds put up a credible challenge? And who is in a struggle to avoid finishing bottom? Here is the Guardian’s team-by-team guide to the new season.

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‘We’ll be brothers forever but business is business’: Sam Burgess on family, infamy and fears for Luke Littler

The Warrington head coach reflects on high expectations, learning from pain and a Super League opener against Huddersfield and his younger brother Thomas

“A lot of pain or adversity can be a great foundation for future success,” Sam Burgess says as we track back through the dark times, as well as the glory years, which have shaped him. Burgess, the once imperious rugby league player from Yorkshire who earned searing fame and then infamy in Australia, is about to start his second campaign as the head coach of Warrington Wolves.

Having guided Warrington to third place in Super League and to the Challenge Cup final last season, Burgess aims to end the club’s 70-year wait for another championship. It is a sign of the calm hope he feels now that the 36-year-old can reflect on the tumult and strife he has endured – starting with the death of his father from motor neurone disease when Burgess was a teenager to playing with a shattered cheekbone and fractured eye socket while inspiring the South Sydney Rabbitohs to their first NRL title in 43 years in 2014.

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Bright lights of Las Vegas cannot dim the dark clouds over Super League

A showcase in Nevada and a new season imminent, but only the clubs with rich benefactors are likely to thrive in 2025

The new Super League season begins next week with a growing level of excitement around rugby league’s premier competition. Wigan Warriors face Leigh Leopards in a mouthwatering derby as they look to emulate last year’s quadruple, before the sport heads to Las Vegas next month for an historic fixture between Wigan and Warrington.

Crowds are up, interest is growing and the sport has every reason to be optimistic. But skim beneath the surface and these are fascinating times on a financial level, prompting plenty of intrigue about how things look at boardroom level.

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Jillaroos coach Brad Donald resigns ahead of historic rugby league Test in Las Vegas

  • Jess Skinner to take charge for international against England
  • Olivia Kernick and Keeley Davis return to Australia squad

Brad Donald has resigned as Jillaroos coach, with his replacement making an immediate statement ahead of the upcoming Test against England in Las Vegas.

AAP reported last month that Donald’s job was under threat as the NRL finalised an investigation into a disparaging comment allegedly made in front of players.

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Challenge Cup romance returns but has RFL’s revamp backfired?

New format was supposed to send Super League teams to lower-league grounds but things haven’t quite gone to plan

It is officially the start of the new Super League season this weekend, but not quite as you may remember it. The road to Old Trafford begins next Thursday when the reigning champions, Wigan, take on Leigh in a mouthwatering local derby. But before then, all 12 top-flight clubs enter a revamped and remodelled Challenge Cup much earlier than usual.

In recent years, Super League clubs have entered as late as round six. This year, they come into the competition at round three after the Rugby Football League decided to try to pump some magic into the cup’s earlier rounds by guaranteeing all Super League sides would be drawn away at lower-league opposition. However, it hasn’t quite gone to plan.

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Rugby’s concussion trial moves a step closer to reality after high court progress

  • Judge confident of issuing directions for trial this year
  • Class action contains 386 union players, 177 from league

The class action being brought by hundreds of former rugby union and league players over the devastating effects of repetitive head injuries has taken a significant step forward at the high court in London.

Four years after the Guardian first reported that a group of eight former union players, including the World Cup winner Steve Thompson, had been diagnosed with neurological problems which they claimed were caused by their playing careers, the presiding judge, senior master of the king’s bench division Jeremy Cook has set out a roadmap for the landmark case.

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Broncos’ Ezra Mam expected to be suspended for nine games by NRL

  • Player sent breach notice for bringing game into disrepute
  • Mam was fined for drug driving and driving without a licence

Brisbane star Ezra Mam is set for a nine-game suspension after being sent a breach notice by the NRL for bringing the game and the Broncos into disrepute.

Mam, 22, was fined $850 for drug driving and driving without a licence when he appeared on 16 December in Brisbane Magistrates Court. He was disqualified from driving for nine months and issued with an infringement notice for failing to have proper control of a vehicle.

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From rugby league to the NFL: rookie loving each day despite Patriots’ woe

Jotham Russell switched from Tweed Heads Seagulls to the Pats’ practice squad and dreams of making the grade

By Gavin Willacy for No Helmets Required

Desperate to find breakthrough international stars, NFL talent scouts seem to have found two avenues well worth pursuing. Of the athletes in the league’s International Player Pathway (IPP) in 2024 and 2025, the latter group was announced last week, around half were rugby players of both codes from Australia or athletes with Nigerian heritage. In Jotham Russell, the NFL have both.

A year ago, Russell was pursuing his rugby league career at Tweed Heads Seagulls in Queensland’s Hastings Deering Colts competition. Identified as a potential NFL player, by January he was at trials for the IPP program at the IMG Academy in Florida. The Australian with Nigerian heritage survived the Rookie Camp in May and pre-season to sign for New England Patriots’ practice squad, watching an NFL game from the sidelines for the first time when the Pats lost to Jacksonville at Wembley in October. It has been a bewildering whirlwind.

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The curious case of South Sudanese streets named after Australian rugby league greats | Kieran Pender

Darren Lockyer Road, Mal Meninga Drive, Arthur Beetson Way… either the game has really taken off in Juba, or someone’s having a laugh. We launched an investigation to find out

I was on the hunt for Darren Lockyer Road, in Juba, the capital of South Sudan.

This incongruous road nomenclature, half a world away from Queensland in Australia, where the rugby league great is a household name, first came to my attention via a tweet. Not just any tweet – an official government tweet.

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Ellie Kildunne: ‘Women’s rugby is on the rise. The level has really gone up’

Harlequins and England back is one of the world’s elite and is in demand across different leagues and codes

By Gavin Willacy for No Helmets Required

Ellie Kildunne wants to be considered the best rugby player in the world and could take a step towards that accolade on Sunday by being crowned women’s 15s player of the year. The England full-back is shortlisted at World Rugby’s swanky event in Monaco, hours after taking her Harlequins side to Saracens for a London derby.

Having won every game with England this year, and played sevens in the Olympics for Great Britain, Kildunne says she may need to test her versatility in the best 13-a-side competition on earth: Australia’s National Rugby League Women’s Premiership.

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Smartball has revolutionised data in rugby and refereeing could be next | Gavin Willacy

New technology can tell how much a kick is swirling but not whether a pass is forward or a try has been scored – yet

By Gavin Willacy for No Helmets Required

While Twickenham debated why England can’t hold on to a lead at home and whether the southern hemisphere is pulling away from the north in rugby union now as well as league, those watching the Autumn Nations Series on TV saw a new toy being played with.

Viewers as well as match officials, broadcasters and coaches could now see exactly how much spin was on a pass, how high a kick went and how much it was spiralling. But however impressive the smartball technology, two of rugby’s thorniest questions – did that pass go forward? And did the player ground the ball for a try? – remain unsolved.

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