Predictions are Like Arseholes. Everybody Has Got One

 

Aaron Bower has managed to get two articles in The Guardian on the eve of the start of Super League XXX nod to the Super Bowl). Super League returns and, 30 years on, it’s going back to the future | Super League | The Guardian and Super League 2026: team-by-team guide to the new season | Super League | The Guardian. I am a fan of Aaron, especially when he gets a few column inches in a daily newspaper. Below is his prediction for the Leigh Leopards:

Leigh Leopards

Had it not been for Hull KR’s treble, Leigh would have been the story of 2025. A Championship club as recently as 2022, the Leopards secured their highest finish last season, falling just short of a maiden Grand Final. They should make the top six again, but their squad looks slightly light in a couple of key areas. Injuries could leave them in trouble.

Coach Adrian Lam Captain Lachlan Lam Key player Lachlan Lam Last season 3rd Prediction 6th

Leigh, having finished 5th, 4th and 3rd and ranked the 3rd best in the competition by IMG ratings over the the 3 year period, is going to go into reverse and finish in the last slot in the play-offs. Funnily enough Aaron Bower in Love Rugby League on the 10th February - Super League predictions: Our writers tip Leeds Rhinos for title predicted that Leigh would drop out of the play-off race and finish 7th. Aaron either does not keep a tab on his own predictions, or he has changed his mind in the last 2 days. Aaron's big argument is: "They should make the top six again, but their squad looks slightly light in a couple of key areas. Injuries could leave them in trouble." The reality is Leigh has suffered injuries to key players over the last 2 seasons and still managed to find themselves in the top 4. In my opinion, the depth of the squad is much greater than that of some of their nearest rivals. Wigan, Warrington and Leeds have filled the high numbers in their squads with academy players. Leigh, on the other hand, has Super League experience down to 26. Nathan Wilde has 12 games under his belt.

Aaron Bower – Love Rugby League
1. Hull KR
2. Leeds Rhinos
3. Wigan Warriors
4. St Helens
5. Hull FC
6. Wakefield Trinity
7. Leigh Leopards
8. Catalans Dragons
9. Castleford Tigers
10. Warrington Wolves
11. Huddersfield Giants
12. York Knights
13. Toulouse Olympique
14. Bradford Bulls

Aaron Bower – Guardian
1. Hull KR
2. Leeds Rhinos
3. Wigan Warriors
4. St Helens
5. Hull FC
6. Leigh Leopards
7. Wakefield Trinity
8. Catalans Dragons
9. Castleford Tigers
10. Warrington Wolves
11. Huddersfield Giants
12. York Knights
13. Toulouse Olympique
14. Bradford Bulls

Matt Shaw – Love Rugby League
1. Leigh Leopards
2. Leeds Rhinos
3. Hull KR
4. Wigan Warriors
5. Hull FC
6. Wakefield Trinity
7. St Helens
8. Warrington Wolves
9. Catalans Dragons
10. Huddersfield Giants
11. Castleford Tigers
12. Toulouse Olympique
13. Bradford Bulls
14. York Knights

Ben Olawumi – Love Rugby League
1. Wigan Warriors
2. Leeds Rhinos
3. Hull KR
4. St Helens
5. Hull FC
6. Leigh Leopards
7. Warrington Wolves
8. Wakefield Trinity
9. Catalans Dragons
10. Castleford Tigers
11. Bradford Bulls
12. Toulouse Olympique
13. York Knights
14. Huddersfield Giants

Louis Chapman-Coombe – Love Rugby League
1. Hull KR
2. Leeds Rhinos
3. Wigan Warriors
4. St Helens
5. Wakefield Trinity
6. Leigh Leopards
7. Hull FC
8. Warrington Wolves
9. Catalans Dragons
10. Castleford Tigers
11. Huddersfield Giants
12. York Knights
13. Bradford Bulls
14. Toulouse Olympique

Will Jackson – SARL
1. Wigan Warriors
2. Hull KR
3. St Helens
4. Leeds Rhinos
5. Hull FC
6. Leigh Leopards
7. Warrington Wolves
8. Wakefield Trinity
9. Huddersfield Giants
10. Catalans Dragons
11. Castleford Tigers
12. York Knights
13. Bradford Bulls
14. Toulouse Olympique

Sam Brocksam - SARL
1. Wigan Warriors
2. ⁠Leigh Leopards
3. ⁠Hull KR
4. ⁠Leeds Rhinos
5. ⁠St Helens
6. ⁠Catalans Dragons
7. ⁠Hull FC
8. ⁠Warrington Wolves
9. ⁠Wakefield Trinity
10. ⁠Castleford Tigers
11. ⁠York Knights
12. ⁠Huddersfield Giants
13. ⁠Toulouse Olympique
14. ⁠Bradford Bulls

Sam Cook – SARL
1: Leigh Leopards
2: Wigan Warriors
3: Hull KR
4: St Helens
5: Hull FC
6: Leeds Rhinos
7: Warrington Wolves
8: Catalans Dragons
9: Wakefield Trinity
10: Huddersfield Giants
11: Castleford Tigers:
12: York Knights
13: Toulouse Olympique
14: Bradford Bulls

All Out Rugby League chickened out of full predictions.

Rugby League Journalists

 

In the late 80's and early 90's, the only place to get Rugby League news was in the newspapers. As a regular reader of The Independent the main Rugby League correspondent was Dave Hadfield. In my opinion he was one of the best National Newspaper journalists who ever covered the sport. I also met Chris Irvine, who wrote for the The Times several decades. Both of these were proper journalists, writing for proper newspapers at a time when the printed word was important.

The modern day equivalent would be Aaron Bower and Matthew Shaw, with Aaron trumping Matt because he occasionally writes for The Guardian. The other main journalists I can think of are Martyn Sadler, John Davidson. and feature writer Gavin Willacy. 

On the whole Love Rugby League and All Out Rugby League do a really good job, they scour the club sites, and forums and have the ear of coaches and agents. Total Rugby League, have positioned themselves behind a paywall, and sometimes you wait a week to read article which you find out is two paragraphs long and you have wasted your weeks allocation.

The scourge of the Rugby League is obviously reserved for Serious About Rugby League (SARL) which is 99% Clickbait. They have recently branched out into podcast territory, providing one of the worst podcasts on Youtube. One of the most watchable podcasts is provided by Rugby League Outsiders, the presenting is amateurish but engaging, but their production values are absolutely top notch, which puts to shame The Last Tackle Podcast which should have much higher production values, due to having a string of top ex-players like Kev Brown, Adrian Morley and Paul Sculthorpe. Instead it is like they have used a 15 year old mobile phone to record the programme.

All Out Rugby League have branched out and now produce high quality show Back Ten, with the omnipresent Kyle Amor, who despite the gruff hairy arsed prop routine is quite amiable. High quality guests range from James Graham, Steve McNamara, Adrian Morley and Ellery Hanley, The latter of course was totally unwatchable, Hanley may have been the best player I have ever seen, but as a person is unpleasant and unintelligible. He is the Rugby League equivalent of Chris Eubank.

Super League Raw, gets an honourable mention, with low production values, they provide enthusiastic and informed opinion. Graphics are good and the research is impressive, but the Zoom style podcast is still a little low brow.

The rest have some merits like, Total Rugby League. Martyn Sadler maybe one of the most influential journalists, but he lacks the presence of a presenter with stuttering gutteral utterances between sentences.

The main reason for this post was the standard of output from one of Love Rugby Leagues journalists, Louis Chapman Coombe, who has churned out 694 articles in 18 months without knowing very much about the game. Predicting how Leigh Leopards and Leeds Rhinos could line-up for round one | Love Rugby League dated 13th January 2026, Chapman Coombe uses his inside knowledge to predict how Leigh and Leeds will line up. 

Likely Leigh Leopards starting line-up:

1 Bailey Hodgson
2 Keenan Brand
3 Tesi Niu
4 Umyla Hanley
5 Innes Senior
6 Adam Cook
7 Lachlan Lam
8 Joe Ofahengaue
9 Edwin Ipape
10 Robbie Mulhern
11 Jacob Alick-Wiencke
12 Owen Trout
13 Isaac Liu
Bench: 
14 Liam Horne
15 Aaron Pene
16 Jack Hughes
17 Matt Davis

First issue is number 5. the starting winger on the left flank, has gone to new boy Innes Senior. Lam is very conservative with his playing squad and normally only inserts players due to injury or impressive performance in training (pre-season). The current incumbent of the no.5 jersey is Josh Charnley, sitting second on the all-time Super League eight tries behind Ryan Hall. Louis thinks Senior will replace Charnley before a ball as been kicked.

Adam Cook will play at no.6, Lammy Snr has stated this numerous times and Gaz O'Brien will be used more sparingly.

The props Joe Ofahengaue, Robbie Mulhern and Owen Trout, all three are starting props, so who drops out? The answer is not clear, but for the first game I predict maybe Robbie Mulhern becoming the impact prop. It would allow Leigh to play with only the three props in a rotation. This would also depend on the health and performances of Aaron Pene, who I agree will be on the subs bench. What I don't expect is for Frankie Halton not to make the match day squad. I was so shocked I had to research if Halton had surgery in the pre-season. I full expect Frankie to wear No.11 and start as the left sided 2nd rower. Frankie's 2nd row partner will be Alick-Wienke or Owen Tout. 

The bench will contain Liam Horne, Aaron Pene, but the other 2 positions will occupied by one of the props or one of the 2nd rowers, with Jack Hughes or Matt Davis to appear as 18th man.

Honestly there is no way Josh Charnley and Frankie Halton are sitting eating popcorn in the stands.

The next offering is: Every Super League club's best signing ahead of 2026 incl Hull KR 

Leigh Leopards: Jacob Alick-Wiencke

Potentially one that’s gone under the radar, but it’s a very good piece of business from the Leopards.

If you know anything about the Leigh Leopards, then you will know that they need a quality half-back. Gaz O'Brien and Ben McNamara did a reasonable job assisting Lachlan Lam. In 2024 Leigh signed Matt Moylan, a sublime attacking threat, but he came from the NRL with rumours of being a bit light in defence. This proved to be the case, and to counteract this, Lammy swapped O'Brien and Moylan. Moylan was fine at Full-back until he bruised his ribs. He cut his contract short and Leigh signed Armstrong at Full-back leaving O'Brien at stand-off. All of 2025, everybody was crying out for a new half-back, with more creativity than O'Brien. The star Leigh signing is therefore Adam Cook.

Louis Chapman Coombe's bio suggests a favouring of Union over League, and to be quite honest, he should stay there.