Super League 2023: St Helens still the team to catch

Once again it is Wigan, at 4/1, who present the most logical alternative, led for the second season by Matt Peet, the former youth coach who arrived at his position in a different way to Wellens but is equally embedded in his own club’s culture and tradition.

Peet has brought in centres Toby King and Jake Wardle to bolster a defence that was found wanting at times last term, and if they can add steel to a side whose biggest pre-season coup was the retention of all-action winger Bevan French, it could well be the year in which the Warriors step back to the summit and they are 7/2 in the League Leaders’ Shield betting.

The fight to fill out the remainder of the top six play-off slots is the most open in years, with arguably every side, even including perennial relegation battlers Wakefield and ambitious, rebranded Leigh Leopards, harbouring realistic hopes of extending their respective seasons. They are 8/1 and 7/2 respectively in the Super League odds for a top-six finish.

Huddersfield have restocked wisely, not least in landing playmaker Jake Connor from Hull, and present the sturdiest threat to the top two at 8/1, whilst Lee Radford’s Castleford (12/1) have also enjoyed an eye-catching close-season after strengthening their spine with the additions of Gareth Widdop and Jacob Miller.

Rohan Smith’s Leeds (8/1), who turned a shock relegation battle into a Grand Final appearance last term, remain something of an enigma, and Salford’s hopes of sustaining last season’s success rest perhaps a little too heavily on the shoulders of Brodie Croft (pictured below), who is 16/1 to retain his crown in the Man of Steel betting.

Warrington’s bolstered pack should ensure no repeat of 2022’s nightmare for Daryl Powell, while Catalans, Hull KR and Hull FC – the latter re-energised by the cross-city switch of veteran coach Tony Smith – can all make confident noises about what lies in store.

The fight to avoid the drop is especially pertinent in the penultimate year before automatic promotion and relegation may be banished, and while it is hard to look beyond a straight fight between Leigh and Wakefield, there are plenty of factors – not least Leigh’s brash confidence and Trinity’s sheer bloody-minded resilience – that could suck others into the vortex.

For the sport as a whole, and the continuing financial health of clubs in the top-flight and beyond, the Super League 2023 season is pivotal with Sky’s existing contract set to expire and the value of any extended arrangement likely dictated by the immediate attractiveness of the product on the pitch.

With a degree of limbo over the future structure of the game, there was always a danger that clubs would enter the new season in something of a holding pattern, too nervous to throw caution to the wind until the exact nature of IMG’s proposed requirements are made plain to them in March.

On the contrary, Wigan and Salford grasped hold of their respective stars French and Croft – the latter tied to a historic eight-year extension – while a robust pre-season promotion is set to lead to the sold-out signs being propped outside Craven Park for Hull KR’s home opener against Wigan.

They may be familiar hands grasping the Grand Final trophy in the Super League 2023 finale on October 14 at Old Trafford, but the intervening eight months promise to lead the game to areas it could never have imagined.

Rugby league’s willingness to embrace change will be critical when it comes to charting its future course.

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All odds and markets correct as of date of publication