Super League at 30: Iestyn Harris looks back on the summer era change

The 12 clubs of the first ever Super League in 1996 represented by the likes of Lee Crooks [Castleford], Martin Offiah [Wigan] and Robbie Hunter-Paul [Bradford] The 1990s were a time of seismic shifts in British sport, and rugby league was no exception. Much like the Premier League's breakaway from the Football League in 1992, rugby league's new dawn came in 1996 when the game was flipped completely by the input of Sky TV owner Rupert Murdoch. In came floods of welcome cash and, in return, rugby league in the northern hemisphere changed forever. The switch from winter to summer gave a new focus, a new season and new branding. It was the catalyst for stars such as Paul Sculthorpe, Andy Farrell and Iestyn Harris to emerge as the vanguard for a sport defined by its willingness to adapt and change. Faster, fitter, stronger, more dynamic. A new era. "It was quite a pivotal time for the game," former Great Britain and Wales international Harris told BBC Sport. "We'd just come into the summer rugby era and the full-time era and you felt the launch of Super League was going to be something special and take the game into the modern day." Iestyn Harris became one of the outstanding players o

Mar 26, 2026 → Mar 26, 2026