Who will take Super League seriously, if not ourselves?

We should be seeing one of the games of the Super League season on Thursday night. Wigan will host Hull KR in a repeat of the 2024 and 2025 Grand Finals and a repeat of the 2026 Challenge Cup Final.

These two sides have faced each other in six knockout matches since 2023 and have developed a burgeoning rivalry. Yet for the second league contest this year between the sides, we are going to get a no contest. And we all know that before a ball has been kicked.

In the reverse fixture in May, Matt Peet chose to field a side of academy and reserve players to rest his first choice squad ahead of the Challenge Cup Final. Hull KR took the opposite approach and won 62-4 in a match with the intensity of a behind closed doors opposed training session. It was a win that brought little joy for Hull KR, little despair for Wigan.

This Thursday, Willie Peters has chosen to name a hugely weakened side instead. To paraphrase Brian Noble, "we expected George Formby but got George Foreman".

Willie Peters' selection seems to be a tacit acceptance that Hull KR, in poor form, do not think they can go to Wigan and win.

Willie Peters has often been reluctant to rotate his starting line up. Whilst he seems to have an iron-clad faith in his starting 17, that does not seem to extend to those in reserve. Arguably, a consequence of Hull KR's youth system not being as developed as others in Super League.

Leaving this to one side for now, let's look at the wider context currently facing Super League and the game in the UK.

Super League's broadcast deal with Sky Sports and BBC Sport is due to expire at the end of this season. The shirt sponsor of our national side and all of our major competitions are reported not to be renewing their sponsorship involvement in the sport. Talks are ongoing regarding NRL investment in the British game.

At a time when we are trying to sell the sport to interested stakeholders on multiple fronts, the two league matches between the Grand Finalists of 2024 and 2025 have (and will surely prove to be) non-events.

If I was heading negotiations at Sky Sports, I would ask why my organisation should pay increased rights to broadcast Super League if matches involving our biggest teams so readily turn to farce?

If I was a prospective sponsor, I may think twice about wanting my company's branding adorning a competition where the competitors treat what on the face of it are important matches as unimportant.

The RFL has adopted an inconsistent approach to reprimanding clubs who do not select their strongest 17 for a match.

My view is that Matt Peet in May and Willie Peters in August are both entitled to select whichever side they want from their squad of players and do what they see as best for their side. 

And there are competing factors. The decision to schedule one of the biggest games of the Super League season the week before the Challenge Cup Final (and there was always a good chance at least one of Wigan and Hull KR would be in it) was foolish.

It is hard to criticise Matt Peet's selection when Wigan currently have the Challenge Cup in their trophy cabinet.

Hull KR are about to play their fourth game in 14 days. This is a tough sport and for any player who played in all of those games it is an enormous strain. It is hard to criticise Willie Peters for prioritising the welfare of his players.

Whether right or wrong, it does not mean those decisions come without consequence for the sport more widely.

A wider question is why do coaches see the regular Super League season as so unimportant that two (what should be) valuable competition points can be sacrificed, with little harm done?

Had Wigan chosen to select a full strength side against Hull KR in May and won (something that you would probably put at a little over 50% probability), Wigan would be two points clear at the top of Super League now.

Instead, they are level on points with Leeds. It is not applying hindsight to say that these lost points could have been the difference between a first and second placed finish, come the end of the season.

What this shows is that Wigan are not too concerned whether they finish 1st or finish 2nd. And with good reason. The reward is the same. Under our current play off structure, there is no discernable advantage to finishing 1st by comparison to 2nd.

We will, as a sport, rightly build up Leeds v Wigan next week as a League Leaders' Shield decider. Yet in reality we know that for whoever loses that match, their prospects of success in 2026 will be no less or no greater than had they won the match.

Hull KR are taking a chance with their selection on Thursday but seem to be backing themselves to win their final two matches of the season; knowing that by doing so they will finish in the top 6 (results depending, they may only need one win from three).

Again, whether Hull KR finish 3rd, 6th or anywhere in between, the run to Old Trafford will be very similar. The only difference would be whether you play your first fixture at home. Maybe a small advantage but certainly not an insurmountable obstacle. Certainly not one that is concerning Willie Peters.

My eyes are also drawn to the bottom of Super League. Two points separate Toulouse in 9th place and Bradford in 14th place.

The absence of relegation means that these six sides are presently playing matches of no consequence. We could have meaningful matches involving the clubs near the bottom of the league. We instead have meaningless ones. And that is our choice.

When you eliminate meaning from fixtures, there must be a trade off. The argument in favour of the grading criteria was that by removing relegation you promote stability and that stability is worth forgoing meaningful ongoing contests.

However, for the likes of Toulouse, York and maybe Huddersfield, there is no stability as no matter where they finish, they may face demotion from Super League potentially as far as weeks after the season ends. That is not stability. Indeed, the grading criteria has simply prolonged the stasis for clubs uncertain of their future.

Meanwhile other sides like Hull FC could finish bottom and face no such consequence for it. Bradford too. Smartly, Bradford giving up a home fixture for 2027 to play in Las Vegas means that demotion from Super League, irrespective of their grading, has become somewhere between a logistical nightmare and impossibility (though based on Bradford's grading last year, you would imagine they would be fine anyway).

By backloading all of the importance of Super League into the play offs and the Grand Final, we guarantee ourselves a blockbuster finish to the season every year.

But it is like a sugar rush. Allowing 27 weeks of battle to build a more natural crescendo rather than a forced one will always be more thrilling to me than trying to force an exciting ending.

The absence of excitement in the bottom half of Super League and several teams towards the top of our competition concluding that winning certain matches in the regular season isn't that important undermines the seriousness, integrity and appeal of our league to existing and potential stakeholders.

This Thursday, as Wigan place the cleaners through a weakened Hull KR side just weeks before the end of the regular season, will be a visceral example of that.

We talk about growing the sport. Yet I fail to see how that can be done until such time that we treat the first 27 weeks of our premier competition with seriousness, and not just the final three.