Reaction to the IMG preliminary grading of clubs has had a very mixed response from clubs and fans alike with those faring well being relatively comfortable with their score, while those who are down the rankings kicking back against the system, criteria, the Rugby Football League, and IMG.

There is no question that IMG have been handed a poisoned chalice, and it is impossible for them to make proposals to expand the game without upsetting a few, if not the majority of clubs.

But if you believe what a lot of fans say, in that the game is dying, then there seems to be little option than to try something radical and make a change at a fundamental level.

Social media is awash with criticism, but those with the most to lose will always shout the loudest, there are unlikely to be many evangelists putting a positive slant on the proposals, as those who are destined to benefit will keep their heads below the parapet.

 

Seven Betfred Super League clubs have been awarded Grade A status in the indicative phase of the new club grading process that is being introduced as part of Rugby League Commercial and IMG’s ‘Reimagining Rugby League’ strategy.

Leeds Rhinos lead the way, following detailed analysis of every club’s performance under five pillars – On-Field Performance, Fandom, Finances, Stadium and Community.

But they are run very close by three other clubs with Wigan Warriors, St Helens and Catalans Dragons all close behind.

Kristian Woolf returned to the Totally Wicked Stadium, this time in charge of a Tongan side starting an historic three game test series against an England side under the control of Shaun Wane who was looking to banish thoughts of a disappointing World Cup last November.

England gave debuts to rising stars Mikey Lewis and Harry Newman but were without regular skipper George Williams who will miss the opening two games through suspension, the skippers arm band being thrown in the direction of rugby prodigy Jack Welsby, captaining his international side for the first time, and on his home ground.

The home side were the favourites with a six-point handicap on the coupon, the good crowd in St Helens with their fingers crossed that Tonga wouldn’t provide the shock and heartache that Samoa inflicted in the semi-final in November 2022.

England Head Coach Shaun Wane has named his 19-strong squad to face Tonga in the opening match of a historic three-game autumn international series at St Helens’ Totally Wicked Stadium this Sunday.

The side will be led by St Helens full-back and three-time Super League Dream Team player Jack Welsby – at 22 years of age England’s youngest-ever captain and the first Saints player to lead England since James Graham against Australia in the 2010 Four Nations competition.

Hull KR half-back Mikey Lewis is set to make his international debut after an impressive season during which he helped the Robins reach both the Betfred Challenge Cup Final at Wembley and the Betfred Super League play-off semi-finals.

Lewis was previously part of the mid-season international squad but didn’t feature back in April against France.

England Head Coach Shaun Wane has named his 24-player squad for the upcoming three-game series against Tonga.

This historic series – the first between the two nations and their first meeting since the epic 2017 World Cup semi-final in Auckland – will see England host Tonga this Sunday at St Helens’ Totally Wicked Stadium, before meetings at Huddersfield’s John Smith’s Stadium (Saturday 28 October) and at the AMT Headingley Rugby Stadium, Leeds, on Saturday 4 November with all games kicking off at half past two.

  Wane names five NRL players who also featured in last autumn’s World Cup campaign, including winger Dom Young – the NRL’s leading try-scorer in his last season with Newcastle Knights – John Bateman, Tom Burgess, Victor Radley and Elliott Whitehead.

 

After stunning a Featherstone Rovers side, who were already making plans for 2024 in the Super League, with a sensational performance last weekend the London Broncos made the trip to the south of France to take on a Toulouse XIII side who were the hot favourites to make an immediate return to the topflight after having been relegated at the end of 2022.

It was an expansionists’ dream game with the guarantee that a side away from the rugby league heartlands would be plying their trade in the top division next season and the bookies had handicapped the home side by six points with the expectation that it would be a close game but with the French side being victorious.

With changes in the offing for league structure in 2025, and possession being nine tenths of the law, then it was crucial for both sides that they gained promotion from today’s game.

One hundred and sixty-six games over 13,280 minutes had led us to Old Trafford and the 2023 Super League Grand Final between the top two sides in the competition as the Wigan Warriors took on the Catalans Dragons for the biggest prize in the domestic game.

Wigan were the slight favourites with the bookies to take the spoils despite the Dragons having been victorious on two out of the three meetings so far this season.

He stage was set for a fairytale final game of an illustrious career for Sam Tomkins should he be able to lead his Dragons side to victory over the side who he debuted for fifteen years ago and with whom he tasted so much success, including three Grand Final victories.

After dominating the league season, it was Featherstone Rovers who were the massive favourites to make progress in the second play-off semi-final as they looked to end the aspirations of the London Broncos and make progress to take on Toulouse Olympique XIII next weekend in the Million Pound game.

Few gave the Broncos any hope as they made their way up the M1 to Post Office Road, many neutrals believing that it was almost pre-destined that it would be Rovers making the move into Super League this season after missing out in the final in 2019 and 2021.

The bookies thought that it was a foregone conclusion, but the Broncos have timed themselves to peak at the right time of the season and came into the game full of optimism about their chances.

In a repeat of last season’s Women’s Super League Grand Final the York Valkyrie faced the Leeds Rhinos hoping for a better outcome than the 12-4 defeat which they suffered for a heartbreaking end to their 2022 season.

York have dominated this season’s league competition, having gone the entire season unbeaten with just a single league draw to blemish their copybook, and that draw was against the Leeds Rhinos when the sides met and scored twelve points each in mid-July.

  The bookies went with home advantage and gave the Valkyrie the best chance to win the game and secure their first ever title.

A place in the elite group of the Women’s Super League awaited the winners of a play-off encounter between Barrow Raiders and Leigh Leopards as the teams that finished second and third after the regular season looked to replace the Huddersfield Giants at the top table.

The sides were only separated by a point at the end of the regular season with honours shared so far in the 2023 season, Barrow winning the game at Leigh in early September by 14-12, and Leigh being victorious in the first encounter of the season back at the start of May by 30-22.

There was plenty at stake for both sides after terrific seasons as they looked to make the next step as all eyes focussed on the LNER Community Stadium in York for the first of this afternoon’s double header of women’s rugby league.

Bradford Bulls had the unenviable task of a trip to the south of France to take on a Toulouse Olympique XIII side who were cast iron favourites to progress to next weekend’s promotion game against the victors from tomorrow evening’s game between Featherstone Rovers and the London Broncos.

The Bulls took a hammering on their last visit to the Stade Ernest-Wallon back in June when they lost by 52-14 but won the first meeting of the season between the sides by 28-18 in February.

The bookies thought that this would be a win for the home side who finished the regular season in clear second spot, but Bradford weren’t making the nine-hundred-mile journey just to make up the numbers.

After a Titanic battle in the south of France, the Catalans Dragons eliminated the reigning Champions St Helens with a last-minute Sam Tomkins Try which saw the French side into their second Grand Final in three years while ending the four-year domination of the most successful side of the modern era.

The second play-off promised to be equally as dramatic as the Wigan Warriors, sought a return to Old Trafford for the first time since 2020 as they came up against a Hull KR side intent on reaching their first ever Grand Final.

This was the fifth meeting of the season between the two sides with honours shared at two wins each despite Wigan having a massive points aggregate advantage thanks to their 64-6 triumph in the most recent meeting in August and which made them strong favourites with the bookies for the win at the DW Stadium and progress to Old Trafford.

The bookies had made the Catalans Dragons slight favourites ahead of tonight’s final eliminator against a Saints side looking for their fifth consecutive Old Trafford appearance and potentially a fifth consecutive Grand Final win.

The two sides last met in July at the Totally Wicked Stadium when the Dragons secured a 14-12 win with the season’s previous meeting at the Stade Gilbert Brutus at the beginning of May also witnessing a Dragons win, by 24-12 on that occasion.

Steve McNamara’s side have had a week off to prepare for their big game, and once which they will have been building towards for the last month, while Saints had a tough run out last weekend in the opening round of the playoffs when they beat Warrington Wolves by 16-8.

With the London Broncos thrashing the Shefield Eagles by 42-0 earlier in the day to make progress in the playoffs, all eyes turned to Odsal Stadium for the third against sixth encounter between the Bradford Bulls and York RLFC Knights as both sides looked to ensure their progress.

A win for Bradford would set up a trip to Toulouse next weekend while should York emerge as victors then they would have the daunting task of a visit to Featherstone while London Broncos would make the trip to France.

York had won both previous encounters in 2023, the latest just three weeks ago, but the bookies made the home side the favourites for the win and handicapped them by six points on the coupon for what could potentially be a classic play off eliminator.

The pinnacle of the Australian rugby league season saw the top two sides in the competition, the Penrith Panthers and the Brisbane Broncos, take the field at the Accor Stadium in Sydney for the 2023 Grand Final as the Panthers looked to secure their third consecutive trophy against the side who last picked up the ultimate prize back in 2006.

Whoever won todays game would join the Melbourne Storm and Sydney Roosters who have both won the competition on four occasions in the modern era, but the bookies were favouring the Panthers as they handicapped them by four points on the coupon.

The Broncos won the opening match of the season against the Panthers by a single point, but the Panthers were triumphant in round twelve, it promised to be a classic between two evenly matched sides as the best in the competition went head to head.

A place in the play off semi-finals awaited and a win for St Helens would see them travelling to Perpignan next week to take on the Catalans Dragons, while should the Warrington Wolves spring a surprise and get the win then they would be travelling to Wigan next week while last nights winners, Hull KR, would be getting on the plane to France.

St Helens have won all three encounters so far in 2023, by twenty-two points at home in April, and by four and then twelve in the meetings in July and a fortnight ago at the Halliwell-Jones.

Warrington had been given a twelve-point start on the handicap coupon after suffering a monumental fall in form following a stunning start to the season, and all but their most optimistic fans were expecting a Wolves defeat and Saints marching closer to another Grand Final.

Super League entered the knock-out stages with a play-off encounter between two sides who have had sensational seasons and exceeded all expectations as Hull KR played hosts to the cup winning Leigh Leopards at Craven Park with the winners going through to a game against one of the top two next weekend.

It was KR who finished the regular season in fourth spot, and they were handicapped by six points on the coupon against the side who felt hard done by when they narrowly lost to the Wigan Warriors last weekend to drop from fourth a swap places with their hosts on points difference.

The season would end for one of these two after what promised to be an intense eighty minutes as the two sides played out a re-run the Challenge Cup final.

It is with great sadness that we have to bring you the news of the passing of RLFANS administrator, reporter, moderator and all-round decent bloke Tony Braisby, known to all as TB, who passed away on the 19th September, at the tender age of 63, after a battle against cancer which finally proved too much.

The now ‘long defunct’ RLFANS Dictionary lists TB as ‘London-based Cas fan moderator closely and directly linked with Mintball, mostly harmless´ and those thirteen words tell you a lot about a man who was a rugby league fanatic, a thoughtful and level-headed contributor and colleague, a long-term partner and latterly husband to Amanda (Mintball), and above all a decent bloke, as you would expect of a flat cap wearing Yorkshireman, albeit on difficult missionary work in London.

The final game of the regular Championship season was a Sunday tea time kick off between the Sheffield Eagles and the Bradford Bulls with plenty still to play for in determining who would have the all important home advantage in next weeks’ opening play-off round.

Both sides were guaranteed a spot, but the winner of this encounter would determine who would finish the season in third spot and have a home game next week against York RLFC Knights, a win for Bradford would see them finish third, while a loss for Sheffield would see them drop to fourth and have to face London Broncos in Sheffield in a weeks’ time.

The Bulls were slight favourites with the bookies but they were only handicapped by two points on the coupon, all indications were that it would be a close one.

The final round of the regular season was critical for both sides and the mathematics were a little complicated depending on who you were pulling for as Halifax needed to win and hope that Barrow Raiders lost to York RLFC Knights to get a play-off place, while Swinton Lions needed to avoid losing by more than four points to send Whitehaven down, or do better than Keighley Cougars result, to maintain Championship football for 2024 by the narrowest of margins.

Swinton showed massive character to beat their relegation rivals Whitehaven last week by a single point to grab themselves a massive lifeline, and they would be confident about kicking on from that and spoiling Halifax’s party.

A fifteen-minute delay to the kick-off, to allow half a dozen Halifax players time to negotiate traffic around the ground, added to the pre-match atmosphere.