London Broncos coach makes renewed IMG plea amidst ‘sliding doors moment’

London boss Mike Eccles has made a renewed plea to IMG to shed some light on the Broncos’ next steps with a ‘sliding doors moment’ coming up in the next few months.

The capital club, promoted up from the Championship via the play-offs in 2023, already know that they are set to be demoted back to the second tier come the end of the current season.

Eccles‘ side currently sit bottom of Super League with two wins to their name from their first 20 games of the campaign.

But however they’d have performed, given IMG’s grading system, they’d have been preparing for a demotion now.

Having been deemed just about good enough to stay in the Championship in IMG’s initial gradings last October, the Broncos desperately want to know just how far they’ve come in the last 10 months, and how far off the mark for a Super League place they are now.

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London Broncos coach makes renewed IMG plea amidst ‘sliding doors moment’

Clubs won’t be told their latest grading until the end of the season, which makes planning more difficult across the board.

London have enjoyed some success off the field in the top flight this season, seeing attendances at Plough Lane increase by more than 100% on average, but are still in the dark over where they now sit in regards to IMG’s criterion.

Eccles’ plea for some help from the game’s new partners were made live on national radio, appearing on TalkSport‘s ‘Hawksbee & Baker’ programme on Thursday afternoon.

The Broncos chief said: “We’re still in the early stages of this 12-year deal with IMG. They see London as key, but at the minute, it’s certainly hurting our development and our progress.

“You’re trying to work out the numbers on the spreadsheet in terms of how long it would take you (to get back up to Super League), and we don’t know how long that is, but we know it’s a long time.

“This is probably a sliding doors moment these next few months to be totally honest with you in terms of how the future looks for us.

“We just need, at some point, to be able to understand exactly what you’re required to do – in a realistic timeframe – to be in Super League. At the moment, we don’t quite have that.

“Nobody really knows how it’s going to be crunched up again in October, but we certainly know that based off the fact we were graded 24th and you need to be in the top 12 to get in Super League, we’re some way away.”

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