The elite rugby league picture in England for 2025 and beyond has been made a little clearer in the last couple of days by IMG’s vice president of sports management, Matt Dwyer.

He sat down for an exclusive interview with Love Rugby League journalist Aaron Bower, with one of the key topics of conversation being how the grading system which determines whether clubs like Bulls make Super League or not will work as the current 2024 season develops.

As it stands, only seven clubs have Grade A status, in Leeds, St Helens, Wigan, Catalans, Hull Kingston Rovers, Hull FC and Warrington, thus guaranteeing their spot in Super League for 2025.

The five highest-scoring clubs below that will join them, which, when the indicative ranking were released last October, were Salford, Huddersfield, Toulouse, Wakefield and Leigh.

But with Wakefield and Leigh, who had scores of 12.52 and 12.45 respectively, only outscoring Bulls (12.02) by around half a point at that time, the Odsal outfit will have hopes of overhauling them ahead of the 2025 season.

Even if they do not, Dwyer has some potentially good long-term news for the likes of Bulls and 13th-placed Castleford.

He told Bower he was confident that, now clubs had clear objectives on what is needed to improve on and off the field, he expects more in the coming years to reach that coveted A grade status of 15 points or more.

Dwyer said that once IMG and the RFL have 12 teams at A-grade, guaranteed Super League level, then they can start to look at expanding the top flight to 14 or even 16 teams, which could spell good news for teams like Cas and Bradford in particular.

As it stands, the Tigers and the Bulls are the only two particularly close to breaking into that top 12, with Featherstone way back in 15th on just 10.65, as of late October 2023.

Bradford Telegraph and Argus: Featherstone Rovers have come agonisingly close to being promoted to Super League a few times in recent years, but they need to make improvements off the field and look extremely unlikely to make the top flight for 2025.Featherstone Rovers have come agonisingly close to being promoted to Super League a few times in recent years, but they need to make improvements off the field and look extremely unlikely to make the top flight for 2025. (Image: Tom Pearson.)

Dwyer did also sound a note of slight caution, insisting that IMG’s focus is mainly on clubs just improving or trying to improve across the board, rather than demanding those from eighth downwards in the indicative rankings get themselves up to an A grade as soon as possible.

In terms of the other main points of interest from his interview with Bower, Dwyer also confirmed that the final gradings that determine the make-up of Super League in 2025 will be revealed towards the end of the year, but well in advance of this season’s Championship Grand Final, so clubs in the second tier will know where they stand in terms of having a chance of a place in the top flight next term.

Dwyer also announced that while all those in the top three divisions will be kept updated regularly during the year about how they are progressing with the IMG criteria, there will be no ‘live system’ to go on, where clubs can find out their exact score at any given time.

Dwyer revealed that is simply because IMG want to focus on driving the game forward, as opposed to clubs becoming obsessed with their scores, and say, for example, where they could earn an extra 0.1 or 0.2 points.

It is also due to financial data only being published once a year, added to the fact that information is also lagged by a season.