Widnes most likely to get in the way of Toronto’s Super League dream

Toronto will start the Championship season as heavy favourites to secure promotion to Super League.

The Wolfpack suffered a shock defeat to London Broncos in last season’s Million Pound Game, as they were denied successive promotions.

With the Super 8s now scrapped, that may well favour Toronto, who romped to the League Leaders’ Shield last season and even managed five wins in The Qualifiers, but that wasn’t enough to go up.

Since going down, Toronto have bolstered their squad with six signings headlined by Super League winner and former England international Jon Wilkin, while they recently announced a $10m investment to bolster their bold plans.

They will start the season as 5/4 favourites to win promotion via the Championship Grand Final, which will be the climax to the season following a top five play-off.

Relegated Widnes are deemed by competition sponsors Betfred as most likely to challenge, and they are priced as 3/1 second favourites.

The Vikings will seemingly head in to the campaign under a cloud of uncertainty over the ownership of the club, following proposed takeover talks over the past month which continue to rumble on.

They lost a significant portion of their squad after relegation, including homegrown talent Matt Whitley and Danny Walker, who have joined Catalans and Warrington respectively.

Joe Mellor and Tom Olbison went to promotion rivals Toronto, while they have only managed to bring in four senior signings – though one of them is former Wigan centre Anthony Gelling.

Toulouse are next at 8/1, while Leigh and Featherstone are 10/1 after significant re-building of their squads in the off-season.

Newly promoted Bradford are ones to watch at 16/1 to win the Grand Final.

At the other end, Rochdale and Swinton are tipped to finish in the bottom two.

To view the latest Championship odds, click here.