Championship Talk: Rising Stars

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Gareth is a top rugby league journalist who has one very exceptional distinction. He chooses to write about matters pertaining to the Championship and League One.

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Rising stars

CHAMPIONSHIP supporters will not have been surprised, but it was still exciting to note that two of the stars of last week’s opening Super League fixtures had previously spent their entire careers outside the top flight.

Prop idols Joe Bullock and Eddie Battye were the stand-out performers for Wigan and London Broncos respectively, having bided their time longer than most for a shot at the top flight.

Bullock - who started his professional career as a winger in the Warriors’ academy set-up - came onto the field midway through the first half against St Helens and made a number of stirring carries, helping his side recover from 12-0 down to be level at the break.

Physically and game-wise, Bullock didn’t look an inch out of place, having caught coach Adrian Lam’s eye with strong pre-season performances against the likes of London Skolars and Salford.

Three days later, Broncos and former Sheffield front rower Battye wrote his own headlines with a two-try performance in his side’s eye-catching 42-24 win over Wakefield Trinity.

Battye enhanced his own cult hero status by being shown demolishing a sandwich in a social media GIF that caught everyone’s attention, which was followed by the always entertaining Danny Ward hailing his try scoring heroics.

“For him to get off the nudie run first game is massive,” Ward smiled.

“Nobody wants to see Eddie Battye naked. This is a massive bonus for rugby league.”

All jokes aside, the performances of Bullock and Battye are the latest examples of the standard of talent there is in the Championship - and what they can achieve if given the right opportunities.

Wigan have shown that they are willing to provide that having also signed Swinton’s Chris Hankinson last year, St Helens recruited Joe Batchelor from York this season having produced one of the biggest of these kind of success stories in Alex Walmsley, and Danny Langtree spent almost a decade rebuilding his career before being signed by Hull FC from Oldham late last year.

Also this season alone, Tom Holmes, Matty Dawson-Jones, Matty Fozard, Greg Richards and Ben Reynolds were all signed by top flight clubs while playing in the Championship.

And that’s discounting the host of Broncos like Battye that stayed with the club after their promotion, with Ward showing significant faith in them.

The increasing standards of the second tier - and in some cases like Langtree the third - have helped in making top flight clubs more aware of the talent that’s available there, and the success of the players such as Walmsley and Chris Hill add weight to the argument.

Long may that continue.