Tryline UK

Hull KR and Warrington have been part of Rugby League (almost) since its formation, yet have only met each other once in the Challenge Cup Final, in 1905, with Warrington coming out on top. It has taken 120 years for that line up to be repeated. In some ways, a lot can happen in 120 years. But also a lot can not  happen. Hull KR, for example, have only won one Challenge Cup in that time. Warrington have a lot more historical pedigree in this competition, having won it nine times. The pressure is on Hull KR tomorrow. This is rightly seen as Hull KR's best opportunity to win a trophy in 40 years. They are top of Super League. They have lost just once all season. They are conceding an average of less than nine points per match in the league this year. Hull KR have not lost a match to any opponent apart from Wigan in 80 minutes, in 13 months (they were, of course, defeated by Catalans at home in golden point last July). Their form is superb. All signs point to a Hull KR victory. The bo...

I always think the sign of a good coach is when they leave the club in a better position that when they arrived. Steve McNamara was appointed Catalans coach in May 2017. In their previous match, they lost 56-12 to Huddersfield at home and sat in 9th place in the table. Catalans currently sit in 8th place after shaky start to 2025. But to look at just the start point and the end point rarely tells the whole story. In his eight years at Catalans, Steve McNamara has won the Challenge Cup in 2018, won the League Leaders' Shield in 2021 and reached the Super League Grand Finals in 2021 and 2023. Whilst this season has been difficult, I expect Catalans will look back on the last seven years with fondness. I recall the scenes at Perpignan airport as the team were greeted by cheering Catalans fans as they secured their first major trophy in 2018. The welcome that the Catalans players received as they arrived at their home play off semi finals in 2021 and 2023 were unforgettable. Those vict...

Rugby League in the UK has had more relaunches, restructures and new eras than I have had hot dinners. If reports are to be believed, we may be standing on the precipice of another new era, with the NRL in some form becoming involved in Super League / the UK game. You would be forgiven for thinking we have t ried different approaches before. We have tried Super League as its own entity twice. We have tried the RFL running the Super League. We have launched "RL Commercial".  We have had Maurice Lindsay, Richard Lewis, Blake Solly, Brian Barwick, Roger Draper, Robert Elstone, Ken Davy and a conglomerate of leading club executives running the league. We have had Nigel Wood, Ralph Rimmer, Tony Sutton and probably plenty of others who slip the mind involve themselves at the highest level of governance of the sport. We tried first past the post. We tried a top 5 play off system. We tried relegation. We tried getting rid of relegation. We tried a top 6 play off system. We tried rele...

In the 59th minute of Catalans v Wakefield, I let out an audible groan as the video referee was called upon to adjudicate on something or other for the sixth time in the previous 10 game minutes. Those 10 'game' minutes actually lasted 18 minutes in the more usual sense of the word. The match itself was thoroughly entertaining but by this point of the second half, it felt as though the match was becoming secondary to micro-analysis of it. Scorned by this, I watched Hull FC v Wigan on Sunday afternoon. Here, I saw an Abbas Miski try awarded following 3 minutes and 49 seconds of video referee deliberations. By the end of this almost four minutes (it felt closer to 10), I had stopped caring whether it was a try or not. In football, Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou is an outspoken critic of video technology in his sport and started playing rock, paper, scissors with his assistant manager as his own form of protest against it. Perhaps I should have started a game of noughts and cr...

I have been disappointed with the BBC's live coverage of its last two Super League matches shown on television. For both Wakefield v St Helens and Leigh v Warrington, there has been 5 minutes of pre-match build up, minimal post-match coverage and no studio or pitchside coverage, merely a voiceover instead. I did wonder whether this may be a consequence of the farcical season opener between St Helens and Salford on the BBC. On that occasion, there was pitchside presentation, there was pre-match build up and post-match analysis.  Salford fielding an academy side and losing 82-0 was an unbecoming spectacle for the sport and would have left sport executives at the BBC angered that they had covered such a no contest. Tanya Arnold, who was anchoring coverage that day, appeared almost apologetic to viewers at the end. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that the BBC concluded that if we were going to serve up such fayre, then they would treat the remaining matches with minimalist c...

Wakefield Trinity have made a really positive start to their return to Super League in 2025. They have won three out of their opening six Super League matches. A sign of the club's progress is the genuine disappointment felt at missing out on a place in the Challenge Cup Semi Finals. The common maxim in sport, especially for newly promoted teams, is to make sure you pick up points in winnable matches at home and not to worry as much about away results. Yet with Wakefield, the opposite has happened. In all competitions, they have played 9 matches, losing all four home fixtures and winning all five away fixtures. What is the reason for this? Well, if the answer was obvious I'm sure that Wakefield head coach Daryl Powell (who is the most experienced in Super League and with the exception of Warrington has done well everywhere he has been) would have figured it out. One reason may be quality of opponent. In Wakefield's away fixtures this year, they have played Goole, Leeds, Hud...