Category: Rugby League

Rugby League News

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Wigan humilate scoreless St Helens to reach Challenge Cup final

  • Semi-final: St Helens 0-32 Wigan

  • Warriors will face Warrington or Hull KR at Wembley

The Challenge Cup kings are at it again. For the first time in a good while, Wigan were arguably underdogs going into this semi-final against their fiercest rivals, St Helens, with a run of form that included four successive Super League defeats before stopping the rot last week against promoted Bradford.

In contrast, St Helens are joint-top of Super League and have won their past five, but when it comes to Wigan and the Challenge Cup, this relationship is anything but ordinary. For the 34th timethe Warriors have reached the final.

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Craig Bellamy tight-lipped over Melbourne Storm future amid ‘private’ illness

  • NRL coach undecided on plan for next season in light of medical condition

  • Rugby league veteran turns spotlight on return to form in Wests Tigers clash

Craig Bellamy is staying private about his illness, the veteran Melbourne coach wanting the spotlight to remain on the Storm rather than his health.

Bellamy fronted the media at AAMI Park ahead of the Storm’s Sunday afternoon clash with Wests Tigers, with the side looking to stop a record-extending seven-match losing streak.

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The new 14-team Super League is working. Why not add London too?

Bradford Bulls, York Knights and Toulouse are holding their own and the league needs more reach and diversity

By No Helmets Required

With the Rugby Football League’s next round of talks with the NRL due on 15 May, the decision whether Super League will remain at 14 clubs or expand again to add London Broncos is imminent. The club could squeeze into a 14-team league via the IMG gradings but that would send any club ranked beneath them down to the Championship, potentially putting newly promoted York or Toulouse in grave and unnecessary danger. That would be foolish given the unique markets those clubs represent.

The three teams promoted to the expanded Super League this season have defied expectations. They have won three games each, beating champions Hull KR, Hull FC, Catalans and Wakefield along the way. They also gave Wigan, Leigh and St Helens major scares. And none of them occupy the bottom two places after 10 rounds of games.

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Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy diagnosed with neurodegenerative disorder

  • Rugby league veteran to stay at NRL club amid horror start to season

  • Specialists say coaching ability not affected in immediate future

Craig Bellamy has been diagnosed with an unspecified neurodegenerative disorder but will remain as coach of Melbourne Storm in the immediate future, the club has said.

The club issued a statement 24 hours out from Melbourne’s NRL clash with the Dolphins in Brisbane, with the 66-year-old Bellamy recently undergoing a series of medical tests.

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Jarome Luai confirms he will join PNG Chiefs as NRL expansion side make first signings

  • Tigers star agrees to $1.2m-a-season tax-free deal after PNG visit

  • Try-scoring record-holder Alex Johnston also confirms 2028 move

Jarome Luai has declared he wants to grow a nation after confirming he will leave Wests Tigers to take up a tax-free contact and become the face of the Papua New Guinea Chiefs in 2028.

Luai has signed a two-year deal with the Chiefs, which includes an option in his favour for a third year.

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New England coach McDermott backs Connor and criticises Wane’s ‘unfair’ treatment

  • Super League Man of Steel central to World Cup plans

  • McDermott: ‘We can win it; absolutely we can win it’

Brian McDermott, the new England head coach, has insisted that Super League’s reigning Man of Steel, Jake Connor, is central to his plans for this year’s World Cup, before appearing to attack the treatment of the Leeds Rhinos half-back by his predecessor Shaun Wane.

McDermott was unveiled on Thursday as England’s coach on a short-term deal for the tournament in Australia this autumn. The former Leeds and London coach is now working in the NRL as an assistant for Gold Coast Titans and saw off competition from Sam Burgess to be named as Wane’s successor.

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Brian McDermott to be named new England rugby league head coach this week

  • Coach comes out of five-man shortlist to land role

  • Will aim to help England lift Rugby League World Cup

The former Leeds Rhinos coach Brian McDermott will be named as Shaun Wane’s successor as head coach of the England men’s national team later this week.

McDermott, the most successful coach in Super League history having guided Leeds Rhinos to eight major honours during his time with the club, has seen off interest from the likes of Sam Burgess and the current Rhinos coach, Brad Arthur, to land the honour of taking England to this autumn’s Rugby League World Cup in Australia.

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Winter is coming … back? Super League could revamp schedule as part of NRL takeover

  • CEO Andrew Abdo: ‘There are clear pros and cons for it’

  • London Broncos key to multimillion takeover vision

Super League could move back to a winter competition to allow year-round global broadcasting of rugby league if the NRL agrees a deal to take control of the British game.

Andrew Abdo, the CEO of the NRL, told the Guardian the Australian governing body would consider the calendar switch as a key part of a potential multimillion-pound takeover and investment package that would also include a strong focus on a London-based club and major governance reform.

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‘You come back different’: how rugby players change after motherhood

Four England players will miss the Six Nations as they are pregnant. What do they have in store when they return?

By No Helmets Required

When England begin their defence of the Women’s Six Nations against Ireland on Saturday at Twickenham they will be without Zoe Stratford, Lark Atkin-Davies and Rosie Galligan as they prepare to become mothers for the first time. The England rugby league player Kelsey Gentles – who has returned to her sport as a different player and person – says the World Cup winners should embrace the imminent metamorphosis.

Gentles left the Women’s Super League as a sparkling outside back in 2023; when she returned the following year, having given birth to her daughter Maia, she was a prop who blasted holes in defensive lines. She enjoyed a glorious comeback, scoring the winning try as York Valkyrie clinched the Grand Final, but there were challenges along the way.

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‘You need enemies’: joy for Super League as Bradford and Leeds finally resume rivalry

Heavyweight fixture that featured icons such as Kevin Sinfield and Lesley Vainikolo returns after 12-year hiatus

It will almost feel as if Super League has stepped back in time on Friday night as the rivalry that defined the competition’s early years returns after a 12-year hiatus, and it will not just be across West Yorkshire that eyes will be on Odsal Stadium for Bradford Bulls’ derby with Leeds Rhinos. In a small corner of New Zealand, Lesley Vainikolo will interrupt his Saturday morning to watch the return of the derby he starred in for Bradford during the early 2000s, and he will probably not be alone.

Dubbed the Volcano because of his incredible try-scoring record, with 149 in 152 games for the Bulls, Vainikolo rarely gives interviews these days. But the lure of discussing one of Super League’s biggest fixtures returning was too much to resist. “There is no way I’d miss it,” says the 46-year-old, who is now director of rugby at Wesley College near Auckland, the school that forged the career of Jonah Lomu.

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Super League at 30: how media coverage has changed since 1996

After covering changes for matchgoing fans, Gavin Willacy assesses how coverage has transformed for fans at home

By No Helmets Required

Super League celebrated its 30th birthday in style at the weekend. The main party was at Headingley, where Leeds hosted Warrington in a repeat of one of the league’s original fixtures. As Sky Sports anchor Brian Carney welcomed guest after illustrious guest to reminisce about their past heroics, we were shown clips from three of the opening round of games from 1996. That’s because only three were televised. And that was one more than Sky normally showed, despite having spent £87m on the new competition. All seven Super League games were shown live last weekend.

We now consume the game on our phones rather than through hourly radio bulletins. Unless you had a satellite dish on your house in the mid-1990s, you couldn’t watch Super League’s launch. For the opening weekend, Sky sent the media circus to Paris, Oldham and Leeds. By all accounts, members of the press pack were well oiled. In 2026, Super League on Sky is just a well-oiled machine.

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Super League at 30: how the sport has changed for matchgoing fans

A lot has changed since 1996 – summer matches, bigger crowds, more foreign players, a salary cap, skin-tight jerseys and female referees – but some things always stay the same

By No Helmets Required

The first season of Super League kicked off on 29 March 1996, when 17,873 people watched Paris Saint-Germain beat Sheffield Eagles 30–24 at Stade Charléty. The opening fixture might sound outlandish 30 years later, but the first season of the competition set the tone for the next decade.

St Helens ended Wigan’s run of seven successive titles and Bradford showed what was to come by finishing third. The three clubs would dominate the opening era of the new competition before Leeds finally fulfilled their potential. Leeds RLFC (rhinos were still something you only saw at the zoo) finished 10th in the inaugural season, winning just six of their 22 games. Hull KR were scrambling off the canvas, romping to the third-tier title, while Hull FC finished third in the second tier behind Salford and Keighley.

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Featherstone’s long and quiet Sundays in a rugby league town that lost its soul

Club’s financial crisis meant exclusion from the RFL Championship this season, and it could be a long way back for one of the sport’s storied names

Sunday afternoon in Featherstone. The first shoots of spring are creaking through the skyline and the Railway pub is bustling with rugby league supporters as the town’s pride and joy, Featherstone Rovers, prepare to face Swinton Lions.

Or at least, that is what should have happened last weekend. Instead, streets of this West Yorkshire town built on coal mining were deserted. The Railway, just a few hundred yards from Rovers’ Post Office Road home, was largely empty and the gates of the stadium chained shut.

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