What Did We Learn From Round 1?

Saints and Wolfpack Start Strong

The Super League and Championship seasons kicked off over the weekend and there were one or two results that weren’t quite expected.  It’s difficult to anticipate what effect the opening round of fixtures will have for each club for the rest of the year but supporters love to speculate don’t they?

St Helens’ ascendancy, Castleford’s demise

Saints made a somewhat comfortable start against last season’s league leaders, Castleford – a bit too easy for my liking!  All the hype around Ben Barba during the close season seems highly justified going on Friday night’s performance and I fully expect him to be up there winning all the accolades at the end of the season.

It’s true that one man doesn’t make a team but if he plays like that every week Saints will be a very hard side to beat by anyone.  I think they’ll be in the top four throughout the whole season now and I’d say some of their fans must be quietly confident about how this season will pan out.  I bet a few are already looking forward to the first weekend in October.

The Tigers on the other hand seemed a totally different team to the one that finished top last season.  Maybe the loss of Zak Hardaker will hit them a lot harder than people expected as Ben Roberts struggled to live up to what was required of him in that full back role.

I was shocked to find out that Castleford have never beaten St Helens in their own back yard for over 25 years!  As it stands the Tigers are bottom of the Super League table but I don’t expect them to stay there.  Leeds and Warrington both struggled the season after finishing top, each for their own reasons, but I would be very surprised if it happened a third year running and Castleford failed to make the Super 8’s.

There could be two French clubs in the Qualifiers

Catalans and Toulouse had considerably contrasting weekends.  Catalans’ away form doesn’t seem to have got any better as they lost at Widnes Vikings, who are tipped by many to finish bottom; and Toulouse enjoyed a very comfortable home win over Swinton Lions, a side that are also tipped to struggle in this season’s Championship.

Admittedly, its early days and Catalans’ home form could see them come through in the end but they almost went down last year in the Million Pound Game and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they became the first club to feature in that dreaded decider for a second time at the end of this season.

Toulouse on the other hand will have been mightily disappointed to miss out on the top four last year and will come back strong this time.  They’ll be very hard to beat at home and they will claim a few scalps on the road this as well – they were the only side to beat Hull KR twice last season.  If we do see both of these clubs in the middle tier we could be in for an interesting seven weeks.

Both sides will come up against much tougher opposition later in the season and it depends on how the sides cope with the pressure they will put on themselves – Catalans to avoid the middle eight and Toulouse to get into it.

The Wolfpack have arrived

One result that raised many eyebrows, including my own, was the final score from Leigh Sports Village on Sunday afternoon.  If there was one team in the Championship that could challenge the might of Leigh Centurions this season it is the Wolfpack.

The Centurions will have been in dreamland being 12-0 up inside the first ten minutes and expecting a huge win from then on but Toronto’s 34 unanswered points meant they have the early bragging rights.  No doubt Paul Rowley will have had a wry smirk on his face at the final whistle having got one over on his former employers, and his side set down a very early marker to declare that they mean business.

For rugby league to succeed in North America, there has to be a successful North American team to gain the supporters’ interest no matter who or where they play.  This will have turned many Canadian (and some American) heads in our direction and if Toronto continue to succeed as they did at the weekend, I fully expect to see them at the top table in 2019.

Let’s face it ... that’s what the RFL wanted in the first place isn’t it?

What can we expect from Round 2?

More of the same I expect.  One tie that catches my eye is the Leeds Rhinos verses Hull Kingston Rovers fixture on Thursday night.  It was to be expected that this game would be shown on Sky as it sees the return of Danny McGuire to his old stomping ground but Leeds should come out on top.

Elsewhere, Catalans have their first home game but it’s a visit of St Helens and I can’t see the Dragons winning this one either.  Castleford entertain Widnes Vikings and we should see them get off the mark in front of their own fans.

In the Championship, Toronto travel to Cumbria to play Barrow Raiders.  The Raiders had to travel to Canada twice last season so it will be a novelty for them to finally host the Wolfpack this time around, although I’m not looking forward to seeing what the score is come full time!

Leigh should get their season going with a home win over Batley Bulldogs and Toulouse face their first major test of 2018 with a trip to Featherstone Rovers – one of a few games that is probably quite hard to call.

If you like what you read then follow all my blogs on Twitter through @TheRLBlogger.