London Broncos may have missed the cut for Super League in 2026, but under new ownership with rugby league legend Darren Lockyer at the helm, the club is aiming to make a big impact in the capital.

IT’S fair to say that those rugby league fans who believe a successful club in London could be one of our sport’s greatest assets feared the worst after learning back in 2024 that David Hughes, long-term owner of the London Broncos, was pulling the plug.

For years he had dug deep into his pockets to ensure league had a professional presence in the nation’s capital. Without him, many feared the Broncos would go the same way as the London Skolars, dwindling interest and dwindling revenues finally making the club unviable.

And then something little short of miraculous occurred. First, last spring, came news that Leeds Rhinos CEO Gary Hetherington was turning his attention southwards and buying up Hughes’s share in the club. And then, jaws dropping further, in September Hetherington announced that one of our sport’s biggest names and his business partner were also aboard. Nightmares turned, once again, to dreams.

Darren Lockyer, former Australian captain, and – to use a justifiable cliché – fully fledged rugby league legend, and mining magnate Grant Wechsel, had snapped up a 90 percent stake, pledging to return the Broncos to the top table and make rugby league a major sporting presence in the capital. 

Their plans are bold: big-name signings alongside significant investment in promoting the game to Londoners, something Hughes had perhaps neglected. But almost immediately they hit a bump in the road. Having applied for promotion to Super League, they missed out to Bradford, York and Toulouse. 

“It would have been a good start, but it made no difference to our 100 percent commitment,” says Lockyer, while admitting playing in the Championship meant the club missed out on a couple of unnamed NRL stars. “It’s a double-edged sword to some extent. We’re not complacent but hopefully we’ll put up a strong showing in the Championship, work on improving our grading and see where we are at the end of the season. We’re optimistic but taking nothing for granted.”

Of course, even if the Broncos won the Championship – last season they finished a lowly 10th – promotion isn’t guaranteed. “We can only focus on things we can control,” says Lockyer pragmatically.

“We believe grading exists to ensure clubs strive to be better off the field. Many struggle to turn a profit so making the club viable as a business is a priority. We need to increase revenue and when we do, we can invest more.” 

Thankfully, Hughes had ensured that any debt was written off. “Effectively me, Grant and Gary have a clean slate,” Lockyer adds.

So how do you turn a sport of limited but – fair to say – dedicated support in London and the south-east into one that turns heads, attracts fans and, crucially, players? “There are lots of expat Australians, Kiwis and northerners in London,” says Lockyer. More than 80,000 Australians alone live in the capital. “And we want them to come along but maybe more importantly we need to target London-born people too, and the local community around where we play. We’ll make gameday an event people want to attend irrespective of the rugby and win fans that way,” adding the caveat that “winning matches will, obviously, help too.

“We also need to connect with community and amateur clubs in the region, Richard Jones and the London Rugby League Foundation (see RLW number 511) and schools. Our social media presence needs a total revamp. We must show we care – because we do – and offer programmes and pathways for all levels.” Rumour has it that serious money will be invested into luring young sportspeople to rugby league rather than the myriad of other sporting options available in London, which will presumably require boots on the ground. “We have players and a coach keen to get into schools and spread the word, and we are looking at government funding that is available to encourage school sport,” he adds.

That coach is Australian Jason Demetriou. He has played extensively in the UK, has coached both here and in Australia and is currently heading up the Papua New Guinean national team. “Jason knows the scale of the challenge and he’s up to it,” says Lockyer. He’ll benefit from the Broncos leasing the Hazelwood Training Centre in Sunbury-on-Thames. The former base of London Irish RUFC, it offers possibly the best facilities available to any rugby league club. “All our teams will move in and we’ll take our offices there too,” confirmed Lockyer who is also hoping new players can be housed nearby.

Demetriou’s presence has already paid dividends with no fewer than five PNG internationals joining the Broncos, alongside other new arrivals headlined by former Australian prop Reagan Campbell-Gillard. Meanwhile ex-coach Mike Eccles becomes director of rugby with a brief to target youth development and former coach Danny Ward, who oversaw the Broncos’ promotion to Super League in 2018, returns as Demetriou’s assistant.

To use an Australian idiom, it’s a big ask to invest in a business on the other side of the planet. What attracted Lockyer? “It kind of came out of the blue,” he confesses. “A consultant myself and Grant were working with mentioned London were looking for investment and they thought it might interest us because we’re rugby league men. I thought about it for a few days, so did Grant, and we decided it was a risk we wanted to take. 

“First, it’s rugby league. Second, as a former Brisbane Broncos player the name appealed.” He’s still on the Brisbane board but insists the two clubs will remain standalone. “And lastly London is a great world city, a place people want to move to and want to visit. It’s attractive to players’ families in a way that perhaps elsewhere isn’t. We’re possibly the only professional sports club in the city with London in our title, meaning we can have broad appeal. People get excited about London and we thought we could use that to our advantage, attracting players and sponsorships.”

Sponsors like Cash Converters, the Australian retailer now the club’s chief backer? “Correct,” says Lockyer. “Australian brands looking to extend into the UK know where to come.” The takeover and rebrand of the club has already seen a major new kit supplier on board. Reebok have designed a striking blue shirt with red and white trim.

Lockyer was not forthcoming on whether he expected NRL involvement in Super League as cryptically indicated by Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC) chief Peter V’Landys during his recent visit to the UK. But, like Lockyer, V’Landys was keen to stress how important increasing revenue streams, especially the forthcoming broadcast deal, is and that growing the sport from the base – schools and youth – was vital. However, Lockyer did say that whatever the governance structure of the sport in the UK – and he is an admirer of the ARLC’s independence from the NRL clubs – he and Wechsel were determined to see the job through. He plans to be in London a minimum four times a year depending on circumstances, adding that “Grant has more flexibility. Between us we want to be on top of what’s happening.” 

A documentary crew has followed the pair since their involvement was announced, presumably with the intention of winning an online audience similar to that attracted by Wrexham FC’s Hollywood-royalty owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney or Formula 1’s Drive to Survive, albeit perhaps on a more modest scale. But who would have envisaged such a project one year ago when London were effectively in survival mode and lost their opening match of the season to League One newcomers Goole in the Challenge Cup?

Lockyer hopes things can be different this year from the off. “The Challenge Cup is a focus,” he says. “With not getting into Super League it will give us an indication of the level we’re at. We will give it a real go and hopefully get some media exposure.” There’s no doubt that in just three months, and on the back of the Wembley test, interest in the Broncos has intensified. “And with Brisbane Broncos coming over for the World Club Challenge in February maybe we will see them in London,” he adds.

So can the Broncos unearth another Louis McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Kai Pearce-Paul or for those of a certain vintage, Cliff Watson? And, more pertinently, can they succeed where previous wealthy backers – Brisbane Broncos in the 1990s followed by Richard Branson and his Virgin brand – failed? “Success is never guaranteed,” concedes Lockyer. “But the world has moved on. We can reach new audiences now in many different ways and on many platforms. We have a business plan and are engaging sponsors. A rich owner isn’t enough these days. In the past London’s marketing has been pretty poor. We are rebranding and rebuilding. On the playing front our ideal would be to have, in 10 years, a team comprised mainly of players from this region. Just think how many potentially great rugby league players there are in London’s population.”

How long might it take before we see a difference? “On the field I’m confident that there will be an immediate, positive difference,” he predicts bullishly. “Off the field we’ll be working hard. I reckon maybe three years to achieve cut-through and by the fifth year I’d like to see us turning a profit.”

It has been said way too often, since the early days of Fulham the predecessor to today’s Broncos, that the forthcoming season is make or break for London’s professional team. So, we won’t be doing that. Suffice to say that with the arrival of Hetherington, Wechsel and Australia’s most-capped test player, Darren Lockyer, this is going to be a season like no previous one. And an important one at that.

First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 516 (January 2026)