Love Rugby League’s 2024 predictions revisited: We owe Wigan Warriors an apology…
It's safe to say we were slightly wrong about Wigan Warriors and St Helens in 2025.
With the off-season in full swing, it’s time for us to eat a slice of humble pie here at Love Rugby League towers: as we revisit our predictions for the 2024 Super League season.
Back in February before a ball had been kicked, our team stuck their proverbial necks on the line to try and pick the final order of the Super League table, as well as the winners of the major trophies and the identity of this year’s Man of Steel.
Without giving too much away early on.. let’s just say we’ve got work to do for 2025. You can, however, go back through them in all their horrific glory below if you fancy a laugh.
FULL RECAP: Super League 2024: The Love Rugby League team predict the new season
Let’s get stuck in then: we can’t delay it any longer.
Super League champions
Not actually terrible, in hindsight. Drew Darbyshire and Ben Olawumi get a tick in the box here for picking Wigan Warriors – but the less said about Aaron Bower’s call of St Helens, the better.
They only returned their worst finish in the entire Super League era instead. Great work.
But Wigan were worthy champions come the end of the season and LRL’s two Lancastrian moguls were on the money.
Challenge Cup winners
A reversal in fortunes – and yet more blind faith in a St Helens side who were pretty terrible for most of 2024, in truth. Drew and Ben went for the Saints to lift the cup aloft at Wembley; they were beaten in the quarter-finals by Warrington Wolves.
But Aaron opted for Matt Peet’s Warriors to win the cup: which they successfully achieved courtesy of victory against the Wire in the final.
READ NEXT: Super League’s one-game wonders including Leeds CEO, Origin icon and Castleford trio
Man of Steel
This is where things get quite wild.
To be fair, we’d challenge anyone to have successfully predicted in February that Hull KR superstar Mikey Lewis would go on and be crowned the winner: but our picks weren’t exactly close to the mark.
Drew went for Lachlan Lam – and that was the best pick out of all three of our team given where he finished in the rankings: 5th.
Ben’s pick was Jai Field – he didn’t even come inside the top 10. And Aaron went for St Helens (Editor’s note: AGAIN?!) fullback Jack Welsby. Another who missed out on the top 10 altogether.
We promise we’re going to try and do better in 2025, honestly.
The league table
Ben was the best here – getting four teams in their correct position on the pre-season rankings. He correctly said Wigan would finish 1st, Leigh 5th, Huddersfield 9th and London 12th.
Drew got Wigan, Leigh and London right on the money – while Aaron only got London in the correct position. Perhaps most embarrassing of all is the fact that all three of us had Salford missing the play-offs by a distance. We had them 8th, 10th and 10th in our predictions – and they finished 4th.
Other hilariously bad takes including all three predicting Catalans to come 3rd, and everyone suggesting St Helens would end the year either 1st or 2nd.
The good news for you, dear reader, is that it’s only a few weeks until we’ll do it all again and you can laugh, argue or simply shake your head at how bad our prediction game truly is.
READ NEXT: Huge Salford Red Devils financial decision made by RFL as distribution request answered
