(Image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)
I HAVE always consistently maintained that the IMG rankings’ basic purpose is a positive one.
After all, how can trying to improve standards at clubs across the board be a bad thing?
Committing to running a financially-sustainable club, while modernising an unfit-for-purpose stadium, as well as working with grassroots rugby league teams within the community, all very important.
The IMG system has always had its critics, Keighley Cougars chief among them, but it feels as if the cracks have really started to show over the last 12 months.
Take the release of this year’s gradings, which came on Thursday.
London are supposedly locked in as the 15th Super League team for next season, yet their grade of 9.77 is woeful.
It’s miles behind the 14th Super League side, York on 13.24, and so if IMG is meant to decide who gets their rightful spot in the top-flight, how can London have a chance when they score so much worse on the system than everyone else?
But aside from the global appeal that the NRL feel a club from the capital would bring to Super League, London would fairly argue that they won the Championship and 1895 Cup at a canter this year.
Add in the fact they were in Super League as recently as 2024, and suddenly their case feels more solid.
Let’s not forget, that was a play-off campaign for the ages that saw London up in the first place, thrilling shock wins at Featherstone and Toulouse getting them promoted.
That jeopardy doesn’t exist any more, with even Barrow, who are 15th on IMG and therefore should logically be going up to Super League, saying promotion and relegation should be based on on-field performance.
It has certainly done Hull KR and Leigh the world of good and maybe there should be a way to implement minimum standards without it deciding who goes up or down?
Leigh are now one of the best Super League sides in the country, going from strength to strength after winning promotion on the field at the end of 2022. (Image: Paul Currie/SWpix.com)
This past year has also exposed the short turnaround between IMG promotion announcements and pre-season.
York and Bulls, the former with half-central funding, had six weeks to turn into a full-time set-up.
The Knights recovered brilliantly to come 10th, but had their struggles, while Bulls were short on squad depth, short on off-field staff and came bottom.
Beleaguered Bulls lost 12 of their final 14 Super League matches on their way to coming bottom of Super League. (Image: Callum Pilkington/SWpix.com)
Many felt Bulls should not have been in Super League in the first place, not unreasonably so after finishing third and losing in the play-off semis in 2025.
But as CEO Jason Hirst admitted at the time, Bulls did what they had to do so they could get their score in the top 12.
And with IMG’s criteria openly laid out, there is a case of ticking some simple boxes to do that.
Castleford have shot up to eighth on IMG now, a Grade A club, yet their 2026 was completely chaotic.
But no points were lost for their coaching turmoil and Ryan Carr’s acrimonious exit, nor their diabolical performances, but doing a bit better on social media than before did.
The scoring system doesn’t seem overly fair and there has been some sniping going on over the last 48 hours.
Some are claiming other clubs have inflated attendances to score higher on that metric for example.
And are stadiums being judged all wrong when you can score points for LED boards that are only temporary or don’t work, but lose some for a TV gantry being a couple of feet short?
And the fact the RFL did not make it mandatory for all clubs to be graded this year suggests they do not have full faith in their own system.
Cougars were unsurprisingly one of the eight Championship outfits not to bother, with co-owner Ryan O’Neill telling the T&A yesterday: “The way rugby league is heading below Super League is worrying.
“The noises about some historic clubs becoming feeder clubs, which I'm sure the NRL deal will push for, or reserves; another unknown reorganisation just months away from the start of the 2027 season; and the uncertainty over whether there will be a Featherstone Rovers and a North Wales Crusaders in 2027.
Cougars tore a beleaguered North Wales to shreds in this April game, at the height of the Crusaders' financial turmoil. (Image: Shaun Harrison)
“It affirms my belief that IMG grading is not the answer to improve the health of rugby league in the UK - it is doing what we predicted, which is protect a closed shop of elite clubs, meanwhile ambition and opportunities for the rest is stymied.”
And these comments highlight the other cracks in the IMG world.
Featherstone have ceased to exist for now, Halifax were liquidated and reformed, while North Wales have been in turmoil all year.
The Championship ended up with a bizarre play-off system that no-one liked and it seems those below Super League are being left to rot somewhat.
Doncaster (yellow) had to beat Barrow twice over during a ridiculously drawn-out 10-team play-off campaign, while they also lost to London twice, including in a one-sided Grand Final. (Image: Olly Hassell/SWpix.com)
If the idea was to improve standards at all elite clubs in British rugby league, then it hasn’t worked.
And if the NRL do strike a deal with the Super League and the two form a partnership, does that not just leave the clubs outside the top-flight in an even more hopeless position?
As is typical of British rugby league, the season is over and we still don’t know what the next one will look like.
It’s a cycle that needs to end.