HAVE WE ever had quite as entertaining and enthralling start to the season as the one we’ve witnessed in 2026? It’s certainly hard to remember one that beats it.

Round One saw seven games, seven close contests (the largest winning margin was 16 points), shocks, surprises, sell out crowds and no end of tremendous skill on show.

Unsurprisingly Super League newcomers York stole most of the headlines after kicking the season off with a quite remarkable 19-18 victory over 2025 treble winners Hull KR.

Many said the Robins had one eye on the World Club Challenge against Brisbane Broncos a week later, and the trip to Las Vegas after that. Whether that was the case or not, nothing should be taken away from Mark Applegarth’s Knights, who defied anyone that wrote them off this season before a ball had even been kicked.

Not to be outdone, two days later Toulouse, another of the sides new to the expanded Super League this year, travelled to Wakefield and also picked up the points in another narrow victory that went down to the wire.

Bradford Bulls weren’t able to make it a hat-trick of wins for the promoted sides, losing out to Hull FC in the final six minutes. 

Although they didn’t take the points, they didn’t let anyone down with their determined performance, never-say-die attitude and expansive playing style.

Anyone who said that the three promoted sides would add little to the competition must surely have been left eating their words after the first weekend of action.

Yes York, Toulouse and Bradford may still find themselves in the bottom half of the table come September, but they’ll certainly not be the walkovers the pessimists were suggesting. 

And if the opening round wasn’t good enough to do it by itself, Hull KR made sure everyone went into the second round of fixtures with a real spring in their step.

The Robins bounced back from their York disappointment in quite spectacular style, going head to head with NRL champions in a World Club Challenge that will go down in history as one of the greatest. 

The hosts repelled a late Brisbane comeback to secure a 30-24 victory, and add a fourth piece of silverware to their trophy cabinet.

You can read all about that game and enjoy a range of pictures of the night over the page, but the lift that result gave to the British game will no doubt continue to be felt for a while yet.

All of this excitement and positivity on the pitch comes at time where once again there is much negativity off the field.

Hot on the heels of Featherstone Rovers being denied membership for the 2026 Championship season after entering administration, Halifax Panthers became the latest historic heartlands club to disappear from the fixture list.

Their problems may only be temporary though, despite their liquidation, as it is hoped that new owners will come in and not only resurrect the club, but make it financially strong enough to satisfy the RFL and be allowed to resume their season.

At the time of going to press the Panthers had already seen two games postponed – against Sheffield and Barrow – and there has been no word on what might happen in terms of replaying those, or the Panthers’ remaining fixtures.

What the opening weekend did prove once again is that the players will always stand up and deliver the goods, no matter what outside noise is happening elsewhere.

Time and time again the players step up to the mark, put their bodies on the line and deliver great entertainment – but what do they get for that.

They certainly don’t get the wage packets of footballers, or the celebrity status that stars from numerous other sports enjoy.

Even when Hull KR became World Club Champions, very few national news outlets picked up on the news and gave them the credit they so richly deserved.

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again, we need someone at the top of the sport who can really sell the game and give it the nationwide appeal it deserves.

One of the take aways from the strategic review that was released ahead of the season was the possibility of moving the Challenge Cup Final away from Wembley. An argument for this was that it is too big for our needs and it never sells out.

What backward thinking! Surely we should be finding ways to attract more people to it, rather than being happy with what we’ve got and working to that.

York didn’t announce their official attendance from the opening game, but it was close to an 8,500 sell-out, which added to the other attendances that week means just short of 74,000 fans took in the seven games live. Add to that those that watched on Sky and there is no reason why Wembley shouldn’t sell out every year.

So why doesn’t it? Because we don’t make an event of it. Yes, there are die-hard fans that will travel anywhere to watch the game, but for more casual fans to do that in big numbers, there has to be something more than just a game available to them. It has to be an event, with stars, celebrity and all the glitz and glamour that come with that. Much like what the games in Vegas are starting to offer.

Taking the game away from Wembley to give the appearance of a fuller crowd isn’t the answer for me. For many, Wembley, as a stadium, is a major pulling factor of the Cup Final, so take that away and you make even less of an event of the day and give more people even less incentive to make the trip, so it would be foolish to think that a smaller venue would sell out. If you make less of the day, fewer will be attracted to it.

If we keep reducing the size of the venue to make it fit us, we’ll be playing the final in a local park sooner than you think. 

Let’s turn this logic on its head and start building the game up to fill the venue and find a way to make rugby league too big for Wembley.

First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 518 (March 2026)