ARE WE starting to see the wheels coming off the expanded 14-team Super League?

The decision to elevate Bradford Bulls, Toulouse Olympique and York Knights into the top flight and increase the number of clubs in Super League was met by criticism from some quarters. But early-season performances, and some big wins from that trio, contributed to a largely successful opening third of the campaign.

With that decision looking like it paid off, coupled with increased crowds across Super League, strong TV viewing figures and the new ruck-speed rules having led to a faster game than we have witnessed for a long time, 2026 looked like it might be a year of positivity for rugby league.

But as with most things, once the newness and shiny gloss starts to wear off, cracks start appearing.

Super League’s biggest fault line this year has been the number of injuries suffered across the competition. Many are not just niggles that can be managed with a couple of weeks on the sidelines, they are lengthy issues that have a lasting impact on the affected sides.

Whether or not this seemingly increased number of injuries is down to the quicker play we’re watching this year is an issue for someone far more qualified in medicine and/or sports science than me to report on.

But one thing I am sure of is that these injuries have flagged up a major flaw in our rules, that does little to paint rugby league in a good light.

When the dual-registration rule was quietly scrapped at the start of this year and replaced with a new one-week loan system, very little felt like it would change, but it is now proving to be somewhat chaotic.

The media release put out by the RFL at the time of the change closed with the paragraph: “The process will also ensure more focus on the Reserve grade league with clubs encouraged to utilise this system more throughout 2026 over Dual Registration.”

But that isn’t the case with many Super League players making the one-week switch to a fellow Super League side.

The highest-profile example of this recently is Bill Leyland – the Hull KR hooker who joined St Helens on a one-week loan deal for the Good Friday game against Wigan Warriors. He soon earned himself cult-hero status when his two late tries sealed a memorable comeback win for Saints. A week later Leyland was back in Hull KR’s 21-man squad for their game against York but didn’t play.

I do understand that if clubs have a system like this available to them, then it is their prerogative to use it, but it just doesn’t sit right with me.

Surely when the game’s top clubs have done so much work on growing their Reserve and Academy sides, they should have more faith in them than they appear to currently be showing.

For me, more clubs should take a leaf out of Wigan’s book. With injuries also hitting Matt Peet’s side, they could have chosen to go down the short-term loan route ahead of their Round 10 clash against Bradford, but instead they chose to hand a debut to 17-year-old George Marsden (no relation by the way). He proved a revelation in the halves alongside Jack Farrimond, while another Academy graduate, Noah Hodkinson, continued to impress in the backs after being handed his debut just weeks earlier.

How many other gems are there waiting in the wings across Super League for their opportunity to shine? I’d guess there are plenty, but how many will get their chance as clubs favour looking for immediate results over longer-term growth?

While it may not have many fans in Super League, the one-week loan system has provided much-needed respite for at least three clubs in the Championship, where there have been even more issues to contend with.

North Wales Crusaders are the latest club to have faced major financial issues this season, and after conceding the 1895 Cup game against Midlands Hurricanes and not being able to field a team in the league game against Doncaster, they were finally taken over by former owner Jamie Elkaleh and returned to action against Goole Vikings, albeit with a 12-point deduction.

Elkaleh had a brief period of ownership of the club, before stepping away to allow sports goods retailer EggChaser, run by father-and-son duo Bobby and Arun Watkins, to take over in December 2024. They pulled their funding in April, leaving the club in severe financial trouble with players not being paid.

Like Salford and Halifax before them, North Wales saw a raft of players secure their futures elsewhere, leaving them severely short on troops when they did return to action.

All three clubs regularly use loan players from Super League and fellow Championship clubs, with some players already having played with multiple different clubs in 2026.

It is clearly a case of ‘needs must’ when it comes to these troubled clubs simply getting a team out, but when it’s used elsewhere in the game, particularly in the top flight, it does little for the reputation of our game.

Clubs were never allowed to enter a dual-registration partnership with another club in their own league, so why should this new loan system be any different?

The issue clearly comes down to the player pool in the UK not being big enough to sustain 14 full-time clubs and another 20 semi-pro clubs – one of the arguments made by many when talk of Super League expansion was first mooted. But what can we do about it? That’s a whole other question altogether, and one that will be hard to find the right solution to.

One of rugby league’s strongest off-field assets is its family values and the fact that we all look after our own, but for anyone looking on from outside and seeing players swapping and changing teams every week just to ‘make up the numbers’, this situation looks nothing short of amateurish.

First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 521 (June 2026)