Wigan Warriors will take the innovative step of staging a “home” game on the road on Saturday when they play Catalans Dragons at The Den, home of Millwall FC. While there is trepidation and obvious uncertainty surrounding the move, the club is confident it will be a success. Super League has the annual Magic Weekend slot in its calendar when all teams play a round of fixtures at a neutral venue but Wigan will go a step further when they play their Super 8s game in London.
With no London presence in Super League for the first time following Broncos’ relegation from the top flight last year, Wigan have used that absence to their advantage to try to seize some capital exposure. Despite fans voicing concerns about moving a regulation home game 200 miles down the M1, the club’s rugby director, Kris Radlinski, sees no reason why the experiment cannot benefit both Wigan and the sport.
“When you do things like this you’ve got to expect you’ll ruffle a few feathers,” Radlinski said. “We’re doing it to promote our brand and promote the game in London but I can sense the frustration of the Wigan fans as well. The important thing at this stage is to win the game – that’s massively important because for us to go there and lose, it wouldn’t be looked upon favourably by the fans.
“But although we’ve not been hugely successfully in London as a sport, the Wigan brand is strong down there. That’s why we’ve got the support of the Rugby Football League in this move; they understand the power of our brand.
“Going to Wembley nine times on the bounce and things like that have created a legacy which has made Wigan rugby league a household brand in places like London.”
With the sport still attempting to put down strong roots in London 120 years into its existence, the Wigan coach, Shaun Wane, also believes taking the sport’s big names to the capital is the strongest way to grow rugby league in London.
“Taking a big brand down there is the way forward but I know that there’s good work going on at grassroots level in the capital,” Wane said. “It’s as strong as ever in that sense but yeah, taking teams down to London to boost the profile is a smart way to roll. If we could send another game down there I’d be all for it; the benefits for the sport could be huge. It’s good for the sport and that has to be paramount to everything we do.
“We’ve got the best sport in the world and I want the big blue-chip companies to see our sport and see Wigan. We’re the most famous rugby league club in the world and we want to keep spreading our name and the sport’s profile.”
Despite London Broncos’ average attendances being under 2,000 during their final season in Super League last year – a figure that has fallen further this year – Radlinski is optimistic they will be able to pull in a strong crowd given the support of Millwall in the project. “The marketing that has taken place has given us a significant presence down there already, and if we’re looking to get around the 10,000 mark it’ll make it a real success.
“Millwall have been unbelievably supportive of it from start to finish and they’ve been great to work with. We never want to be a sport which wants to survive. We want to push it further. I know certainly, us as a club, we don’t want to just survive. We want to keep growing.”
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