Are the Robins stumbling at the finishing post?

Is it really possible that Hull KR might not win the League Leaders’ Shield?

I doubt it, despite their disappointing 28-12 defeat against Wakefield Trinity on Saturday.

The Robins are still two points ahead of Wigan in second place and they should comfortably defeat Warrington Wolves at home on Thursday night.

If they do, I assume they will be presented with the Shield after the game.

On the other hand, if Warrington can spring a shock and come away with a victory from Sewell Group Craven Park, it would give Wigan a chance of winning the Shield but they would have to make up the difference between the scoring records of the two clubs, which currently stands at 41 points in Hull KR’s favour.

It’s very difficult to see Wigan putting such a big score on Leeds on Friday night, although not impossible. Leeds also suffered from a sudden loss of form when they were defeated 16-8 by Catalans Dragons last Thursday night. I suspect that if Jake Connor returns to action against Wigan, then we will see a very different Rhinos performance compared to what we saw against the Catalans.

Nonetheless, Leeds currently sit in fourth place and their result against Wigan won’t change that position if Leigh defeat Huddersfield on the same night.

So will Leeds be up for it against Wigan.

Will their coach Brad Arthur decide to play Jake Connor in a game that, in positional terms, has little meaning. Will he instead give Jake another week to recover from his injured ribs.

If I were him, I would certainly be tempted to do that.

Then again we have the race for sixth place between Wakefield and Hull.

Hull will host the Catalans on Thursday night and if they win, as they should, it will mean that Wakefield will have to win at Salford the following night.

No doubt Trinity will take a significant following to that game in order to shout them home.

And, whatever the result, who knows what will happen to Salford after that game.

Will the Red Devils go into administration to try to find new owners?

It looks to me as though that is probably the best alternative that faces the club.

Having said that, it’s been a remarkable achievement to get to the end of the season.

Who owns the Super League?

It would be interesting to undertake a survey to ask the general public which sport they think of when they hear the expression ‘Super League’.

Any Rugby League fan would of course immediately think of our elite competition.

But what would non-Rugby League fans think?

I suspect that some of them may instead think of the Women’s Super League football competition.

That competition has recently kicked off a new season and an email about it came flying into my email account that gave some
It had some interesting information.

The thing that caught my attention most of all was the fact that the competition has attracted a sponsorship deal by Barclays Bank for £45 million over three years.

If true, then that dwarfs the sponsorship money that our own Super League generates.

Furthermore, Barclays is not the only major company to be involved with them.

British Gas is an official partner, tying in energy discounts with Sunday fixtures and offering ticket giveaways.

And IMG have been appointed as the Women’s Super League exclusive international media rights partner, securing 13 new overseas broadcasters ahead of the season, including deals with Movistar (Spain), Stan Sport (Australia), and beIN Sports (Southeast Asia).

“This marks the WSL’s broadest global footprint to date,” said the press release.

So what are IMG doing for their Rugby League partners?

But that’s not all.

Nike has signed a league-wide partnership, covering the WSL, Championship, and League Cup. The multi-year deal includes:
Supplying boots and gloves to players without personal contracts (over 250 players signed up already).

Launching the first ever league-branded lifestyle merchandise range, opening new commercial and retail streams.

Those are the sort of deals I would like to see happening for our competition.

Perhaps they already are, but we are not being told about them.

Hull’s digital growth

Another email that came into my inbox during the week was from Hull FC, which was celebrating the club’s digital growth over the last twelve months.

They have now attracted 65 million engagements on their various social media channels over that period.

The figure is up from 21 million the previous year.

The club is therefore expecting to register top marks for that part of the gradings assessment that covers social media.

The email gives some details across the various social channels and they do indeed make impressive reading.

Hull FC CEO, Richie Myler, said: “While much of the focus has been on our improvements on the field and across our performance department in 2025, this is a major off-field achievement and shows the strides we are making elsewhere across the club.

“While improved on-field performance has undoubtedly helped increase our engagement, our digital team has put a huge amount of time and energy into producing fresh, new content and ideas this year, and fine-tuned what already was a strong output across our channels.

“These figures will play a huge part as we aim to return to Grade A status when the IMG Grading results are announced next month.”

That is entirely admirable, but I have two questions that arise from such good news.

If social media engagement for the club is rising so rapidly, wouldn’t we expect to see significantly increased attendances?

Hull do generally get five-figure attendances, but they don’t seem to me to be increasing significantly.

I would love to know why that is.

The second question is related to how the club monetises that digital growth.

Clearly they will be able to generate advertising for their digital output, although I’m not sure how much income the club will earn from that and whether it will cover the cost of creating extensive social media output.