Rugby League news: Super League mid-season grades, average attendances ranked

Hello everyone and welcome to today's Rugby League Live daily blog. Round ten of Super League is done and dusted with wins coming for St Helens, Hull KR, Leigh, Wigan, Salford and Hull FC. Up next is the England international against France in Warrington with the first Yorkshire v Lancashire also taking place on Friday.

Today, we have features with Dany Houghton, Tony Smith, and over in East Hull, an update on Hull KR's stance on recruitment and retention ahead of May 1.

As ever, make sure you are following all our social media platforms and to our daily newsletter to keep up to date with everything happening in the sport.

Details for Hull FC's Challenge Cup tie

Hull FC's Challenge Cup fixture against Castleford Tigers will take place on Sunday 21 May. The Black and Whites were drawn against Andy Last's side on Monday evening with details now finalised for the tie.

Super League round ten attendance watch

A total figure of 55,732 spectators watched round ten of Super League, averaging at 9,288 per match. There were three attendances that broke five figures with St Helens peaking for their blockbuster clash against Warrington.

The champions were on fire against early pace-setters the Wire, defeating them 28-6 in front of 14,866 fans. The game saw Warrington lose their position at the top of the table with Saints putting in a season-best performance to date.

Super League pundit not writing Hull FC off

Castleford outside back Jordan Turner isn’t writing Hull FC off this year just yet. The former Black and White believes Sunday’s win over Huddersfield was a huge stepping stone for them.

Speaking on the Super League Show, Turner, who played for Hull for three seasons from 2010 and 2012 before joining St Helens, knows the quality at Hull and spoke highly of coach Tony Smith.

“It was a huge result for them,” Turner said. “I don’t think too many people would have predicted them to get the win there.

“People are quite quick to write teams off when they’ve gone on a bit of a bad run, but there are some good players that play for Hull FC and obviously Tony Smith is a great coach who has been around for a long time. I expect them to pick up a few more results down the road.”

Super League average attendances ranked to date

The 2023 Super League season is now ten rounds old. Taking a break for the mid-season international between England and France, there has already been one attendance record for the competition as Rivals Round produced some stunning figures.

Good Friday saw Wigan post a sensational crowd of 24,275 for their victory over St Helens, whilst over in Hull, 20,985 saw Hull KR defeat Hull FC. The impressive numbers have kept on coming, with the Black and Whites, Leeds, Warrington, and St Helens also posting further gates of over 15k.

Elsewhere, all but Hull KR, Leigh, Huddersfield, Salford and Wakefield have recorded a figure of 10k at least. It's early days but numbers on the whole are better ahead of the IMG era with clubs tasked to improve their fandom and stadium facilities, thus gaining more followings and greater matchday gates. It's certainly working so far.

Most teams have now played a minimum of five home fixtures, so with that in mind, we've calculated the season averages so far. We'll update this again after round twenty and again at the end of the season where we'll get a more balanced calculation but it's great to see the majority of clubs on course to beat their averages from last season already. Here are the figures so far with the number of home games in brackets.

Every Super League side's mid-season grade

On the latest "House Of League" podcast, host Matthew Shaw was joined by Hull KR reporter Joe Appleyard and former Super League star Paul Cooke. The trio went through each of the 12 Super League clubs, grading their starts to the 2023 campaign. It's worth noting this podcast was recorded on the eve of the round ten fixtures.

The full show can be heard HERE, but here is how each club was graded after nine rounds, with a third of the season gone.

Tony Smith welcoming Hull FC spine dilemmas

Tony Smith may have a spine dilemma for Hull FC's next game. The Black and Whites host Wigan Warriors on Thursday week and could be welcoming back two players from injury.

Tex Hoy should have recovered from a hamstring injury and be available for selection with Jake Trueman targeting the game as his Hull debut. That leaves Smith with some big decisions to make with Davy Litten producing a club Man of the Match performance against Huddersfield last Sunday and Ben McNamara also putting in a good account.

However, Hull's head coach welcomes such headaches with his team putting in a season-best performance against the Giants where the team effort and desire stood out in the win.

"It's a good problem to have isn't it - a really good problem," Smith said post-match. "We'll work something out between now and then.

"Whether he (Jake Trueman) is ready or whether he's not, it's a good problem to have. They are the problems I like to have when I've got a whole heap of people I could select rather than who have I got to put in now because he's not performing well. That's the horrible one."

The big decisions to make at Hull KR

Come Monday, Hull KR's off-contracted players are officially allowed to speak to rival clubs. At the same time Rovers will be free to scout the market for potential players to bring in for 2024 onwards.

Willie Peters has already started getting his house in order. Retaining young prospect Phoenix Laulu-Togaga'e and signing Corey Hall, but also keeping experienced heads like Dean Hadley and Ryan Hall around to ensure the balance between young and old doesn't fluctuate too much on either side.

The Australian still has some missing jigsaw pieces that need to be solved before any talk of big-money signings will circulate. As it stands, the futures of Lachlan Coote, Kane Linnett and captain Shaun Kenny-Dowall are unknown, but it's likely those calls will be made public sooner rather than later.

Danny Houghton outlays the pride in Hull FC display as bar set

There was no prouder man than Danny Houghton after Hull FC's victory over Huddersfield. Ending a run of seven consecutive defeats, Tony Smith's side found their inner strength to finally get the result they desired and showed plenty of encouraging traits to do so.

"We've got to give them something to get after to cheer us home - when you do that, it lifts people off their seats," Houghton told Hull Live post-match. "This place can be massive for us. Our home form has been poor recently, but if we can turn up as we did here and get them behind us, it drives us home.

"We believe as a club, fans, players and staff, that we can turn our fortunes around and if we turn up with that attitude and that desperation as a unit and for each other, then we will win more games than we lose. This was a real blueprint of how we should and want to play."