Why Should I Support Wigan?

Saints aren’t playing this weekend. None of last year’s Super League top eight are except for Wigan, who take on Sydney Roosters in the World Club Challenge. There are 101 reasons why this is a bad thing but the main thrust of the problem is that those top eight Super League sides enter the Challenge Cup at least one round too late. By the end of the 2020s Super League’s top two will no doubt get a bye to the semi-finals. But this is another story altogether, which I may or may not write at some point in the future. There will be plenty of time for it since Saints don’t play again competitively until February 22.

The planned meeting with the Roosters this Friday doesn’t count. It’s a practice match which Saints are quite happy to announce with some fanfare in the local press but not so happy to let you, the fan, in to see. Not that you’ll be missing much. Apparently they are only going to play at 70%. Who knows how you do that? Good luck telling Matty Lees, Morgan Knowles and Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook to knock 30% off their effort level.

For now I’m going to focus on the World Club Challenge itself. There is some debate among our number on social media about whether or not our friends from the Pie Dome winning would be A Good Thing. I know, but there is. I’m not going to be supporting them. I wouldn’t support them if they were playing against a select XIII made up of Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and nine of the most dangerous inmates from a bad Sky One documentary about Death Row. But I get that not everyone who supports Saints hates Wigan with quite the same level of vigour. Commitment I call it. It’s a virtue, but I understand that others may see it differently. I am sure that there was an age several eons ago when it was quite normal to roll up to watch Saints one week and then head down to Tesco Central Park the next. But that was before The Dark Times. Before Wigan became the only professional club in the country and their fans started to learn the words to Simply The Best.

My problem is not that it is Wigan. Well, not only that. My problem is the argument that if Adrian Lam’s side win it will be somehow ‘good’ for the Super League and the game in the northern hemisphere. Why will it? To my dismay I have witnessed Wigan winning several World Club Challenges both here and in Australia and never have any of them changed the Australasian attitude to Super League or the international game. We’ve seen Saints, Leeds, Bradford and heck, even Widnes win the thing before now, but none of those could change antipodean minds either. Wigan could rack up 60 points against the Roosters on Sunday and the Australian view will still be that this is nothing more than a pre-season friendly and who cares anyway? Until we can beat the Australians to either a World Cup or during an Ashes series that will remain the Australian stance. Without those accolades we will remain inferior in their minds and no amount of World Club Challenge wins, sponsored by Dacia, BetFred or some pea manufacturer from Sheffield will change that.

Adding to the meh-ery of the event this year is that it is just possible that Latrell Mitchell, one of the Roosters and indeed the world’s better players, will not be gracing the World Club Challenge with his presence. Instead he could be turning out for the Indigenous All-Stars as they take on the New Zealand Maori side in Melbourne on Friday (February 15). That choice is one to which he is fully entitled and with which I have no particular beef but it is nevertheless a damning indictment on where the World Club Challenge stands in the minds of the best Australian players.

So there is no real reason to support Wigan this year. No tangible benefit to Super League or the world game as a whole. Perhaps if there were I could put my hostility towards them aside for 80 minutes and cheer them on. If it meant that the World Club Challenge could thrive and that one day a week without a Saints match would make some sort of logical sense. I might sacrifice it for the cause. Right now I feel like I am missing out this week. It seems like the Super League season has been brought to a crashing halt for no good reason other than so that the Aussies can sneer at us whatever the result on Sunday night at the DW. Or worse still, so that people who openly support Ben Flower can spend the next 12 months gloating at everyone while dusting off their Tina Turner wigs for another tuneless rendition.

No doubt, the pros of a Wigan win do not outweigh the cons. I’m slightly edgy that they will get it too. These are the sorts of games they win. When it really matters to them and they can see a golden age of gloating on the horizon. They are also the sorts of games that NRL teams lose, still a few weeks away from any competitive action at home and on the back of a flight almost as draining as Wigan’s tactics. I hope the Roosters can do it but you know what? Like them, I don’t really give too much of a shit.