Super League’s grim reality laid bare in Wigan’s demolition job at York

Wigan’s display in their thumping 72-20 win at York underlined their title credentials once more: but it also laid bare the grim reality of a 14-team Super League in its current form.

The general consensus around extending Super League ahead of the 2026 campaign was positive, but among the main concerns was the quality of games we’d see.

And not for the first time this season, Saturday afternoon’s game between the Warriors and the Knights threw up 80 minutes only those of a cherry and white persuasion will reflect fondly on.

It wasn’t a contest, ever. 58 seconds in, Sam Eseh crashed over for the opening try after York sent the ball out on the full from kick-off.

Not until Wigan put the cue on the rack and walked away from the table to smoke a cigar in the final ten minutes did York look like breaching them, and to their credit, they did so four times.

Had it not been for that ten minutes, we’d have been on for a new record Super League scoreline: St Helens hold onto that now having beat Salford Red Devils’ youngsters 82-0 in Round 1 last season.

Super League’s grim reality laid bare in Wigan’s demolition job at York

Hosts York have a partnership with Championship outfit Newcastle Thunder, meaning they can effectively pick a best 17 each week across two squads.

And yet, Mark Applegarth was only able to name one prop on his bench for a Super League clash against one of, if not the, competition’s best side.

Contrastingly, Matt Peet had Bevan French on the bench at the start of the afternoon, and within 25 minutes, the game was well won, so he was able to test out his plan to switch Jack Farrimond into hooker.

Some of what the Warriors produced was sublime, as was the case last week at Wakefield. But here, so many of their tries and points came as a result of cutting through tired, poor York defence like a hot knife through butter.

Wigan’s quality is evident, but the lack of quality in the Knights squad is coming to the fore now.

They’re not alone either. Fellow promoted sides Bradford Bulls and Toulouse Olympique enjoyed relatively positive starts to life in the top-flight, but the reality of a gruelling Super League season is now seeing them all struggle.

All three find themselves among Super League’s bottom five, and by the close of play on Saturday, they could well occupy three of the bottom four spots.

Huddersfield are this season’s basement boys, they’ve put in some pathetic performances, but aside from the Giants, it’s the three promoted clubs in the most trouble at the bottom end of the division.

Player pools, squad depth and quality. All now are under the spotlight, as was predicted would be the case.

Where York and Toulouse are concerned, their promotion came with the caveat they would receive half the amount of central funding that landed in the other 12 clubs’ bank accounts, around £650,000 compared to £1.3 million.

Sport is always going to throw up games between teams at different ends of divisions, but the gap cannot be as big as it is currently in Super League.

Saturday’s clash had the feel of a Challenge Cup Third Round tie where Wigan were up against lower-league opposition, the same as when they faced Rochdale Hornets earlier this season.

That simply cannot be the case, and the game needs to find a way to ensure it isn’t come 2027.