Super League Preview - Saints v London Broncos

Super League returns this week as deposed champions Saints host newly promoted London Broncos on Friday night (February 16, kick-off 8.00pm).

The offseason always feels that bit longer when your campaign ends with a painful defeat. There haven’t been many more ouch inducing in recent years than the semi-final defeat by Catalans Dragons at the end of 2023. With virtually the last act of an annoyingly stellar career Sam Tomkins sliced through a Saints defence which was fully sold on the idea that he was going to kick a drop-goal to break a 6-6 tie. The quest for five in a row ended, we’ve been waiting impatiently for Round 1 of the 2024 campaign ever since.

As it arrives it brings with it the visit of an unlikely Championship Grand Final winner. The vagaries of the playoff system have provided a scenario in which the team that finished fifth in the regular season have somehow found themselves among the elite. Yet not for long.

The vagaries of IMG’s grading system mean that London - ranked 24th in the new grading system according to our new strategic partners - will be heading back to the second tier for 2025 irrespective of where they finish in the table. This rather depressing scenario has the potential to make the game look very silly indeed should the Broncos end up anywhere but rock bottom. It’s unlikely, but the London side could emulate what Leigh managed last season as a newly promoted club - that is make the playoffs and/or win the Challenge Cup - and still find themselves escorted from the Super League premises like a Saturday night punter who’s had one too many. Their name isn’t down.

For now they’ll be focused on the job in hand so we’ll do the same. Saints Head Coach Paul Wellens has had to deal with a smattering of injury problems before naming his first 21-man squad of the year. Morgan Knowles was expected to be fit for this one but is being held back until next week due to a groin issue. Meanwhile Joe Batchelor will be missing for what is predicted to be a few weeks because of a collarbone injury. 

Saints will also be without Moses Mbye. The man who came in towards the end of 2023 to replace Joey Lussick as the back-up hooker is still struggling with a knee problem. So too is Agnatius Paasi, who hasn’t been seen since John Asiata’s scandalous assault in July’s Challenge Cup semi-final. Mbye should return within weeks but the prognosis for former New Zealand Warriors prop Paasi seems less certain.

With no Mbye and with James Roby now retired the inclusion of Daryl Clark takes on even greater importance. Clark joins Saints after almost a decade at Warrington and is one of three new recruits set for a competitive debut. Centre Waqa Blake has arrived from Parramatta Eels and should start while locally born ex-Catalans Dragons back rower Matt Whitley could also feature. 

With Knowles and Paasi out and Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook having joined Roby in calling time on his playing days, one of Saints’ legion of back rowers may have to step into the front row. That won’t be Whitley, but if Sione Mata’utia gets the gig then the ex-Widnes man could get a start alongside Curtis Sironen with Batchelor out. James Bell should fill the loose forward role.

Matty Lees is back in contention having missed pre-season friendlies with Swinton and Salford. He and Alex Walmsley are the front line props but last year’s breakout star George Delaney could also rotate into that role along with Mata’utia. Jake Wingfield missed much of last season through injury but his versatility could prove useful with a couple of pack stars out.

There are fewer problems in the backs. Wellens did express some concerns earlier in the week about Mark Percival but the centre is included. He’s also celebrating a two-year extension to his contract which will keep him at the club until the end of 2026. If he is fully fit we should see him hold down one centre spot with with either Blake or Konrad Hurrell occupying the other. Blake could also be utilised as a winger, otherwise expect Jon Bennison to continue in a role he fulfilled so well in 2023. He certainly seems to be ahead of Tee Ritson in the current pecking order.

Jonny Lomax has taken over the captaincy from Roby and is also one of the main creative sparks in the side alongside halfback Lewis Dodd. 

The Broncos would be well served to treat this season as one in which they have nothing to lose. Individually, maybe the players will be motivated by the opportunity to show prospective Super League suitors that they can perform at the top level. For the moment there isn’t a huge amount of Super League experience within their ranks while in ‘it doesn’t rain but it pours’ news they have already lost fullback Josh Rourke and hooker Bill Leyland to long term injuries before a ball is kicked. 

Alex Walker is unavailable so perhaps former Hull FC man Hakim Miloudi could play at fullback with Illies Macani and new signing Lee Kershaw on the wings. Jarred Bassett, Robbie Storey and Dan Hoyes provide the centre options. 

In the halves Italian international Jack Campagnolo is set for a debut with the returning James Meadows likely to partner him after two seasons at Batley. 

In the pack Rob Butler and Rhys Kennedy offer front row experience while Sam Davis is the dummy half. Behind those three captain Will Lovell, Marcus Stock, Emmanuel Waine and Dean Parata could all feature,

London haven’t been in Super League since 2019 so there is no real recent form between these two to consider. Four years ago the Broncos beat Saints twice at home, prevailing 23-22 in June and 32-12 in July that year. Yet they got no change out of their last visit to St Helens, going down 26-0 as Justin Holbrook’s side went on to claim the first of what would be four Grand Final wins in a row for the red vee. 

This latest meeting looks a foregone conclusion. A question not of whether Saints will start 2024 with a win but by how many. And the Broncos will not measure the success of their solitary season in the top flight - for now - by how they fare against the division’s serial winners. In that sense it’s a free hit for Mike Eccles’ men, but they will do well to get within 30 points of what should be a charged up Saints outfit playing in front of their own fans.

Squads;

St Helens;

1.Jack Welsby, 2. Tommy Makinson, 3. Waqa Blake, 4. Mark Percival, 5. Jon Bennison, 6. Jonny Lomax, 7. Lewis Dodd, 8. Alex Walmsley, 9. Daryl Clark, 10. Matty Lees, 11. Sione Mata’utia, 15. James Bell, 16. Curtis Sironen, 18. Jake Wingfield, 19. Matt Whitley, 20. George Delaney, 21. Ben Davies, 22. Sam Royle, 23. Konrad Hurrell, 24. Jake Burns, 25. Tee Ritson.

London Broncos;

3. Jarred Bassett 4. Hakim Miloudi 5. Illies Macani 6. Jack Campagnoli 7. James Meadows 8. Rob Butler 9. Sam Davis 11. Will Lovell 13. Dean Parata 15. Marcus Stock 16. Jordan Williams 17. Sadiq Adebiyi 18. Emmanuel Waine 19. Rhys Kennedy 20. Oli Leyland 21. Robbie Storey 24. Matt Davies 26. Jensen Monk 27. Dan Hoyes 28. Jack Hughes. Lee Kershaw 

Referee: James Vella

Season Preview 2024 - Wigan Warriors

The Story Of 2023

Wigan were the last team to win the Super League Grand Final before Saints began their run of four in a row, so there was a degree of symmetry in the fact that it was Matty Peet’s side that ended their rivals’ dominance in 2023.

Wigan claimed a sixth Super League crown with a 10-2 win over Catalans Dragons at Old Trafford. They also won the League Leaders Shield for the fourth time, snatching it on points difference ahead of both the Dragons and Saints. 

That trophy-laden end to the year hadn’t looked on the cards on the evidence of their opening match. Peet’s men went down 27-18 at Hull KR with Shaun Kenny-Dowall claiming a hat-trick for the Robins. The response in the next two games was emphatic. Neither Wakefield nor Castleford could register a single point as the Warriors ran in 36 at Castleford and 60 at home to Trinity. Yet an 18-10 home defeat by Catalans left them with a 50% win rate from their first four as we moved into March. 

Five league wins in a row followed, including a 13-6 win at Warrington - which ended the Wolves’ streak of eight wins to open the season - and a 14-6 Good Friday success over Saints. Still, a loss at Hull and a 40-18 towelling by a 12-man Leeds side following Zane Tetevano’s red card showed that Wigan were still suffering from a little schizophrenia. A narrow win at Hull KR stopped the rot but convincing losses to both Catalans and Saints showed that deficiencies remained. 

Perhaps the lowlight of this inconsistent spell was a barely credible 27-26 reverse at Wakefield which had followed wins over Huddersfield and Salford. It may have been just the jolt they needed  as they ended the regular season with nine straight wins to claim the top spot. This run included a 64-6 pasting of Hull KR who had knocked them out of the Challenge Cup at the semi-final stage 12 days earlier. It also saw Wigan pull off a really impressive 34-0 shutout of the Dragons on their own patch and a 50-0 larruping of Leeds to avenge thar earlier loss. 

Top spot brought with it a home semi-final and again Rovers stood in the way. Unlike in the cup meeting, Wigan were comfortably the better side and ran out 42-12 victors. The Grand Final was a rather more attritional, unattractive affair in which Liam Marshall scored the only try in a 10-2 win. 

The 2024 Recruits

A lot has been made of how well Wigan have recruited ahead of their title defence. And with some justification. It’s a little top heavy, but it looks ominous. Four of the six major new signings are prop forwards and a fifth is a hooker. But perhaps the pack is exactly where they needed to strengthen. For too long now their front row in particular has been populated by grubby dark arts merchants who never quite convinced. 

It would be odd for this column to start anywhere but with Luke Thompson. The 28 year-old won two Super League Grand Finals as a Saint, making 164 appearances for the first team in seven years after coming through the academy. He moved to Canterbury Bulldogs in the NRL in 2020, but after an injury hit spell in Australia he returns to England and the other side of Billinge hill. If he is fully fit and still has the hunger then Thompson will again be the best prop in Super League. Yet it’s hard to shake the feeling - given the way he left Saints in the middle of the pandemic season and the fact that he has joined the other side on his return home - that he is motivated by something other than trophies.

Sam Walters has the potential to achieve everything Thompson has. A Widnesian, 23 year-old Walters was one of the few things Leeds Rhinos fans had to get excited about in 2023. Right up until the time that he announced he was joining Wigan, that is. He already has big game experience having played in the Rhinos’ 2022 Grand Final loss to Saints. He looks a star of the future if not the present and could turn out to be an even better signing than Thompson if he sticks around. 

Tiaki Chan has a slightly lower profile. He has been on the fringes of the Catalans Dragons side where his father Alex also played from 2006-08. Tiaki was a semi regular for the French side last term but did not feature in the Grand Final defeat by Wigan. 

Making up the quartet of props is 20 year-old Sam Eseh who joins from relegated Wakefield. Eseh made 16 appearances for Trinity in what was a difficult year for the West Yorkshire club. He might have to bide his time to get into the side. We mustn’t forget that as well as Thompson and Walters the Warriors also have ex-Salford man Tyler Dupree while former England international Mike Cooper is working his way back to fitness after being Morganknowlesed last term. Yet if and when Ese is unleashed he might find being in a team challenging at the top of the league rather than one flailing around at the bottom more to his liking.

The Wigan pack is further enhanced by the arrival of hooker Kruise Leeming. Another ex-Leeds man, Leeming left Headingley under a bit of a cloud in the early part of last season. He was a key member of the Rhinos squad until new Head Coach Rohan Smith turned up and things seemed to turn a little sour. Leeming eventually asked for a release from his contract and spent the remainder of 2023 at Gold Coast Titans where he made 10 appearances under the messiah that is Justin Holbrook. As well as being one of the best nines knocking around, 28 year-old Leeming can also fill in at halfback should the need arise. 

The one non-forward arriving at Wigan is centre Adam Keighran. A former New Zealand Warrior and Sydney Rooster, Keighran scored 12 tries for the Dragons as they made it all the way to Old Trafford. He can kick goals too. Only five players in Super League slotted over more than the 26 year-old’s 68 goals in 2023. One of those was Wigan’s own Harry Smith. The latter achieved that figure with a success rate of around 62% whereas Keighran’s was up at 77%. All of which could be handy in those tight games against the top sides. 

So Who’s Out?

Wigan fans rather strangely wear the loss of their players to NRL clubs as a badge of honour. To them it proves that they are a club capable of producing and nurturing top talent that will be sought after by the very best. To the rest of us it proves that lots of players just don’t want to play for Wigan. You say tomato…and so forth. 

Anyway there are two more being applauded out of the door as both Kai Pearce-Paul and Morgan Smithies make the switch to the Australasian competition. Pearce-Paul joins Newcastle Knights after 61 appearances in cherry and white while Smithies heads to the favoured NRL destination of many an English star, Canberra Raiders. He has the kind of aggression and downright nastiness befitting of anyone called Morgan and who might have designs on being a success in the Australian capital. Both he and Pearce-Paul could be a Josh Hodgson or an Elliot Whitehead. Or they could be Wigan’s first signings ahead of the 2025 season. Watch this space.

Sam Powell spent 11 years at Wigan, making 250 appearances. He played in three Grand Final wins, which is going to be something to impress all of his envious new team-mates with as he makes the switch to Warrington for 2024. Latterly he has been sidelined to some degree by the emergence of Brad O’Neill and a move makes sense at this stage of his career especially with the arrival of Leeming.

Cade Cust’s move to Wigan from Manly Sea Eagles hasn’t been a roaring success. He was a starter in the Challenge Cup final win over Huddersfield in his first season but had fallen out of favour in 2023. Peet preferred Bevan French at stand-off alongside halfback Smith in order to accommodate Jai Field at fullback. Cust was also unfortunate with injuries. He hasn’t moved too far, joining Salford Red Devils along with the versatile Joe Shorrocks.

Two much maligned centres move on as Toby King returns to parent club Warrington to spend more time with Powell and Iain Thornley joins Wakefield’s bid to win some matches for a change down in the Championship. The rest of the Wigan exodus is made up of fringe players and youngsters. Twenty year-old prop Kavan Rothwell heads to Leigh while halfbacks Logan Astley and Kieran Tyrer have gone to Oldham to learn from the greatest Saints player Wigan ever produced in Roughyeds Head Coach Sean Long. 

Two more forwards move on also as Ramon Silva joins Barrow and Joe Baldwin heads to North Wales Crusaders.

What’s The Expectation?

Since most fans of other clubs are talking up Wigan’s chances in 2024 it’s no surprise to see the Warriors fans doing the same. Last year’s title success coupled with some seemingly handy looking recruitment has emboldened them, and perhaps justifiably so. Nothing but a repeat of 2023 is likely to satisfy a fan base if not brought up on winning then on stories of winning and becoming the most successful club in the British game.

What Will Really Happen?

On the face of it there’s every chance that Peet’s side will go back-to-back and win it all again. Their squad does look the strongest while other heavyweights - Saints among them - might be entering a transitional phase. Or they might just be Leeds. 

Wigan have to be a strong favourite for another League Leaders Shield but the key variable is what happens in the playoffs. So much is down to timing. Form and fitness in September and October will decide the destination of the title regardless of what has gone before. That gives everyone else in the top six a chance and so makes picking a title winner so much more difficult.

Wigan also have the world title to play for as Penrith Panthers arrive for a February showdown. This could take a bit out of the champions in the early going but will only impact upon their Grand Final chances if it causes them to slip out of the top two and denies them a home semi-final. That might be a fair trade off to be crowned world champions. Not so much if the Panthers head home with the title.

Season Preview 2024 - Warrington Wolves

The Story Of 2023

After a blistering start, Warrington reverted to the mean of their mediocrity in 2023. They made the playoffs, but when winter was turning to spring in the early weeks of the season the promise had been of so much more than a routine first round defeat at St Helens.

The campaign opened with eight league wins in a row. Wire set a searing early season pace. New signing Paul Vaughan looked like the best prop in the league while another new boy - former Catalans Dragons halfback Josh Drinkwater - looked like he was operating at a different speed to the rest of Super League. Even Matt Dufty looked great. After Leeds were thrashed 42-10 on the opening weekend there were victories over Huddersfield, Salford, Hull KR, Leigh, Castleford, Hull FC and the Dragons. The first league defeat of the season did not arrive until mid-April when Wigan turned up at the Halliwell Jones Stadium and left with a 13-6 win.

At which point the self doubt which has prevented Warrington from winning a title in almost 70 years resurfaced. On the back of the Wigan defeat they were dismissed 28-6 by Saints. Wins over Wakefield and Hull KR followed as well as a Challenge Cup triumph over the Dragons. Yet the seeds had been sown. Leigh and Hull FC enjoyed victories over the Wolves, who went out of the Challenge Cup to Wigan in mid-June at the quarter-final stage immediately after a damaging league defeat at Castleford. 

The wheels had well and truly fallen off. The losing run extended to eight games in all competitions by the time of their next success, an 18-4 win at Hull FC at the end of August.  Powell didn’t make it through that sorry sequence, sacked after an abject 42-6 humbling at Wakefield Trinity at the end of July. Youth boss and former Wire front rower Gary Chambers came in on an interim basis. 

Chambers did just enough to guide Warrington into a playoff berth. They won two and lost two of their final four games to sneak into sixth place and claim the last invitation. They weren’t around for long, bounced out 16-8 at Saints in the first knockout round. It left them with disappointment fused with a sense of a season having been put out of its misery. Maybe next year.

The 2024 Recruits 

Perhaps the most important new face at the Halliwell Jones is not a player but the new Head Coach. Chambers was never viewed as a long term replacement for Powell. Former star Lee Briers was on the wish list after the good work he has done as an assistant at Wigan and Brisbane. Yet it was another Brit who has been learning his trade as an assistant in the NRL who got the gig as Sam Burgess was appointed on a two-year deal. It seems a little left field, but whatever happens it is unlikely to be boring.

Back to the playing staff then, where the imported additions are back rower Lachlan Fitzgibbon from Newcastle Knights and Zane Musgrove. The latter was a free agent after his contract with St George-Illawarra came to an end. His final season in the other red vee began with a drunken scrap with team-mate Mikaele Ravalawa which brought him a fine. Standard behaviour which leads Australian players to board a flight to England. 

Fitzgibbon has no such chicanery on his record. Instead the 30 year-old brings the experience of over 100 games with the Knights. The Wire pack is further bolstered by the addition of Jordy. Crowther from Wakefield. Crowther made eight appearances on loan at Warrington last term and now has a two-year contract in his back pocket. Fitzgibbon and Crowther will add depth to a back row already featuring England international Ben Currie and the man who got Matty Peat all in a funk when he moved to Warrington from Wigan, Matty Nicholson.

Those of you who read this column’s preview of Saints’ 2024 season will know that Wolves hooker Daryl Clark has joined the red vee. In response, Wire have added not one but two hookers to the squad in response. Brad Dwyer returns to the club where he started his career after spending 2023 with Hull FC while long time Wigan Warriors stalwart Sam Powell also climbs on board. Powell spent over a decade at Wigan, making 250 appearances in cherry and white. Now 31, he was likely to be pushed to the margins by the arrival of Kruise Leeming at the champions to compliment the improving talent that is Brad O’Neill. Powell will look to start afresh in Cheshire. 

Rodrick Tai is a Papua New Guinean international centre acquired from Queensland Cup outfit PNG Hunters. The 25 year-old has six caps for his country and will look to strengthen a problem area for Wire. To that same end Toby King has returned from a loan spell at Wigan where he managed to win a Grand Final.  It is easy to mock King and we will again, but that experience just has to be worth something to a team which has continually failed to get it done in that department. 

The final arrival is another centre. Wesley Bruines was the forgotten man at Saints in 2023. He was named in Paul Wellens’ match day 17 only once - ironically against Warrington - but failed to actually make it on to the field. The 20 year-old only has a one year deal, but will hope to fare better under the Burgess regime. 

So Who’s Out? 

It’s clearly a blow to lose Clark. So much so that as we have seen not one but two hookers have been recruited despite the fact that Warrington already have Danny Walker looking ready to step in. The bases are covered so long as Dwyer and Sam Powell work out. Peter Mata’utia never really worked out for Wire after following Daryl Powell to Warrington from Castleford in 2022. He was tried in a number of different positions and was average in all of them. He has decided to retire at age 33 after a 12-year career which took in stops at Newcastle Knights, St George-Illawarra Dragons and Leigh as well as Castleford and Warrington. He also played four times for Samoa. 

Another former Castleford man who was perhaps less successful at Wire is three-quarter Greg Minikin. Minikin arrived at Wire from Hull KR in 2022 but has managed only 19 appearances, scoring two tries. Still short of his 29th birthday, he nevertheless drops down a division to join Featherstone Rovers. 

Prop Thomas Mikaele had a big impact during Wire’s hot start to 2023. Since then he has left the club twice and will start 2024 on the books of North Queensland Cowboys. Mikaele first left Warrington on compassionate grounds but returned in August for the remainder of the season. However he now crosses back to the NRL and leaves a bit of a hole in the front row. 

Riley Dean was once a hugely exciting prospect in the halves. Yet the 22 year-old hasn’t really developed as was hoped. He has made only 10 first team appearances in five seasons with Wire during which time he has had loan spells at York, Dewsbury, Newcastle Thunder, Featherstone and Castleford. He now tries a different environment and culture altogether having joined another Queensland Cup side Mackay Cutters. 

Not that he will have needed much persuasion but the influx of hookers may have had some part to play in Aiden Doolan’s departure. The youngster is an academy product but has earned the opportunity to prove himself in Australia with Burgess’ old club, South Sydney Rabbitohs. Jack Darbyshire is another academy product moving on as the centre joins Leigh for 2024.

What’s The Expectation? 

Depends who you ask. A straw poll among the Wire faithful would probably suggest that competing for the major trophies is the plan. After all it’s only four years since Warrington’s last Challenge Cup win and only eight years since the second of their two League Leaders Shields. There’s something missing in that haul but I can’t for the life of me figure out what it is. 

More moderate Wolves might settle for a playoff place as a first target. Once you get there anything is possible. Even if history suggests otherwise. 

What Will Really Happen? 

There should be no reason why Warrington don’t make the playoffs with the squad they have. The top six is not that big an ask in the current climate. The great unknown is Burgess and how he takes to being the man at the helm rather than an assistant. In that respect he’s not in a dissimilar position to the one which Wellens found himself in when he took over the reins at Saints this time last year. Except that he did so on the back of four Grand Final wins in a row rather than a title drought that’s almost as old as my transplanted kidney. 

Wellens had also been at Saints as man and boy whereas Burgess will have to get used to a whole new environment. When he’s done that he’ll have to take on board the fact that he’s now the one responsible for changing the culture at the club and for shaking off the tag of nearly men in a good season and also rans in a bad one.

It would be dangerous and a bit presumptuous to write Warrington off completely but the feeling is that the jump from where they were at the end of 2023 to genuine Grand Final contenders in 2024 is too big for Burgess to make in his first year. It’s not beyond the realms that they could finish higher than the sixth place they managed last year and maybe go a round deeper into the playoffs as a result. And there is always the possibility of a cup win as we saw in 2019. But it’s still hard to see them celebrating with the big prize at Old Trafford.

Probably not their year again then in terms of the Grand Final, but an improvement would not be a surprise.