Sam Tomkins: ‘Super League clubs will be queuing up to make Australia trip next year’

Sam Tomkins thinks a lot of Super League clubs will be wanting to follow in the footsteps of Wigan and Hull FC with a similar tour in 2019.

Wigan Warriors and Hull FC made history last week as they played the first ever Super League game outside of Europe.

They also played at the ANZ Stadium as the Warriors faced South Sydney Rabbitohs and FC played St George Illawarra Dragons.

And Tomkins believes more Super League clubs will now follow suit.

He said: “It’s been a great trip.

“I think what Ian (Lenagan) and Kris (Radlinski) have done has set out a blueprint for others. It’s not a big challenge, we’ll come here and play two games then head back and play another. It doesn’t bother us and I’m sure Hull, even though they didn’t get the result last week, will agree.

“I think there’ll be Super League clubs queuing up to make the trip next year.

“A lot of planning has gone into it and it’s paid off because it’s ran like clock-work. We’ve not had much ‘downtime’ as players but we’ve enjoyed the time we’ve had here.”

And the 28-year-old thinks the New South Wales tour, which has brought £500k each to Wigan and Hull, will be beneficial for Super League in the long-term.

Tomkins added: “It’s been great for us to do.

“Some people will complain, we’re in Rugby League and one thing I’ve learnt is that you can’t keep all of the fans happy.

“Whether it’s the structure of the league, away fixtures, dates of games, days of games, times of games, whatever it is you’re not going to please everyone but the bigger picture is we want Super League to grow and to put us on an international stage like this can only help us.”