This Thursday night the Betfred Super League season will kick off for the 27th time.
To me, it seems almost like yesterday that we were having that amazing start to the first season at the Charléty Stadium in front of 17,873 spectators on March 29, 1996, when Paris St Germain defeated Sheffield Eagles 30-24.
On that night, many of us thought that Rugby League had finally broken through the barriers that had held it back for so many years.
But how wrong we would be.
Unfortunately since then we have never managed an opening night with a crowd as big as that first one, apart from when we held the Magic Weekend at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff right at the start of the 2011 season.
On the opening day that year we got an attendance of 30,891 in Cardiff under the roof of the stadium for four matches on the opening day.
Looking back, it’s interesting to see that the biggest margin of victory of the whole weekend was when the Crusaders, then based in Wrexham, defeated Salford 42-12. It wasn’t obvious at that stage that the club would cease to operate as a Super League club at the end of that season.
But what can we look forward to this week?
I’ll highlight one thing that I’ll be looking for in each of the Super League games that are due to be played this weekend.
In the opening night’s game between St Helens and Catalans, most people will want to see how the new players perform for both sides, particularly Mitchell Pearce for the Dragons.
But my focus will be on the battle between the fullbacks with Sam Tomkins facing a challenge for his England place from the young pretender Jack Welsby of St Helens. At some point I expect Jack to inherit Sam’s England fullback shirt. But will it be this year? After all, Sami isn’t getting any younger. Thursday night’s game could give us a very big clue as to whether that is likely to happen.
The following night Hull KR play Wigan in another televised game.
Wigan have been mightily impressive so far in the pre-season and I think they could be too strong for the Robins on Friday night. Wigan look to me to have a potentially dominant forward pack this season and the Robins could be the first to feel their power.
On the same night Castleford face Salford at the Jungle and I’m looking forward to seeing what Joe Westerman will bring back to Castleford twelve years after he last played for the club and how he performs against Salford’s Elijah Taylor, who will be vital for the Red Devils if they are to improve on their eleventh-place finish last year.
On Saturday Leeds Rhinos take on Warrington Wolves at Headingley in the first game to be televised live on free-to-air TV. On this occasion I’m looking forward to seeing the presentation of the match as much as the match itself.
Later on Saturday, Toulouse Olympique will take on Huddersfield Giants at the Stade Ernest Wallon. Will they be able to survive the departure of Johnathan Ford, who has been their chief playmaker for the last ten year? Who will take over his role? And will Ian Watson have transformed his team into a winning outfit? We’ll have some of those answers by the end of the game.
Finally, Wakefield host an injury-hit Hull FC on Sunday. Can Hull perform without Jake Connor and can Trinity sustain the improvement they made under Willie Poching in the last seven games in 2021? In their last match in 2021 Trinity hammered Hull 44-12. I don’t expect anything like that on Sunday, but I find this game a very hard one to predict.
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