The 10 biggest winning margins in Super League history

As a neutral we love to watch the really close fought and tight matches where teams might only score two tries a piece but it equals drams right down to the wire, but as a fan there’s not much better than watching your team play electric rugby and put a pasting on another team.

This favours the latter as we look at the biggest ever wins in Super League history, ranking them from 10 all the way down to number one.

For context the word biggest in this sense is literal to it’s meaning in terms of the numerical biggest, it doesn’t account for occasion or rivalry or underdog status – it’s simply a top 10 of biggest victories, or widest margins of defeat, however you want to frame it.

To offer an example the ‘biggest’ win in the most recent 2022 campaign was Salford Red Devils’ victory over Wakefield Trinity where they ran out as 74-10 victors with Joe Burgess scoring a hattrick, Ken Sio and Ryan Brierly both scoring a brace and Mark Sneyd kicking 22 points.

Here’s the list of the top 10 throughout Super League history and when margins of victory are tied then away victories take precedence, if both victories are away then positional rank of the opponent at the end of the season is the tie breaker.

10: Wigan Warriors 78 – 4 Workington Town (1996)

The very first Super League season features on this list with the eventual end-of-season competition winners Wigan kicking off this list.

With this being the first season of summer rugby there wasn’t a standard Grand Final style playoff system in place and so the top four went into a competition called the Premiership to award the winner and Wigan defeated St Helens 44-14 despite having finished one point short of their rivals in the standard league table.

As for this game it was a star-studded Wigan putting Workington to the sword, in their first and only season of Super League as they got relegated, with Steve Barrow, Henry Paul and Shaun Edwards all scoring hattricks and cross-code stars Jason Robinson and Andy Farrell also getting on the score sheet with Farrell tallying 22 points via a try and the boot.

9: Leigh Centurions 4 – 78 St Helens (2005)

Amazingly in this game not a single Saints player scored a hattrick and that was because a massive 11 separate players scored tries with Paul Anderson, Ade Gardner and Sean Long all scoring a brace.

The 14 tries got so much that even the kickers rotated twice with Jason Hooper and Jamie Lyon both going 100% on their three and two kicks after Sean Long put over six of his nine conversions.

A young Chris Hill came off the bench for Leigh on debut in what was a very long season for the Leythers with only two wins across the 28 league games, whilst Saints won the table with 23 but lost to the eventual Champions Bradford Bulls in the elimination finals.

8: Leigh Centurions 0 – 74 Leeds Rhinos (2005)

As referenced in the above game it was a long season for the Centurions with two 74 point defeats yet they didn’t even manage to score in this game against the Rhinos, which is why Rhinos rank above Saints.

This game did see a hattrick scored with Ashley Gibson crossing three times and Ryan Bailey, Mark Calderwood and all-time Super League leading try scorer Danny McGuire also scoring braces.

Gibson added to his 12 points from tries with a further five kicks to tally a total of 22 points in a victory that featured some all time legends of the game including the likes of Ali Lauiti’ti, Barrie McDermott, Keith Senior and Gareth Ellis. Leeds would ultimately fall to the same fate as St Helens losing out to Bradford Bulls in the Grand Final.

7: Warrington Wolves 82 – 6 Harlequins (2011)

6: Hull FC 82 – 6 Salford City Reds (2004)

Another score of the exact same margin however Salford finished ninth in the 12 team 2004 season, relative to Harlequins 12th placed finish in a 14 team league, hence this Hull FC victory ranks above Warrington’s.

FC finished the season third ahead of the likes of Wigan and St Helens but it was a successful season typically based on strong defence, as they boasted the second fewest points conceded, however this fixture saw them score a huge 15 tries with 11 of them being converted.

Three of the starting back five scored two or more with Shaun Briscoe at full-back bagging himself a hattrick, the only man not to score for the Black and Whites starting back line was Colin Best which was uncharacteristic given that the Australian scored 40 tries across 63 games for the Airlie Birds.

5: Wigan Warriors 84 – 6 Bradford Bulls (2014)

Wigan kick off the top five and are the most modern team on this list so far as they ran out 78 point victors against Bradford Bulls and that total was one of the reasons why they were the ;league’s highest scorers, averaging over 30 points a game.

Wigan’s successes of the 2014 season saw them finish second but they eventually fell short to St Helens in the Grand Final, whilst Bradford finished just one spot off the bottom despite six victories.

As for this game it was a whole team effort with 12 different try scorers to Bradford’s one with poor Luke Gale again being on the receiving end of another pasting consequent to a superb performance in the halves by a 19-year-old George Williams and the experienced Australian Blake Green who both crossed over as well.

4: Hull KR 6 – 84 Wigan Warriors (2013)

Wigan go back-to-back on this list but with the away element being a factor this just pips their Bradford victory as they put up another 78 point victory against a sorry KR side.

Blake Green was involved heavily in this game as well as he scored a hattrick whilst Matty Smith, Iain Thornley and Chris Tuson all added braces for a Wigan side that went all the way.

More impressive was the fact that this was a Hull KR playoff team that they managed to humiliate with Pat Richards putting up 30 points alone in what would be his final season at Wigan.

3: Leeds Rhinos 86 – 6 Huddersfield Giants (1999)

Leeds open up the podium positions for the biggest victory with their 80 point defeat of a Huddersfield side that finished bottom of the table, as Rhinos finished third behind Grand Finalists Bradford Bulls and Champions St Helens.

The top point scorer on the whole season, Iestyn Harris, probably has this game to thank for the award as he scored four tries and kicked 13 conversions for a total haul of 42 points, almost half of the Rhinos total.

Winger Paul Sterling scored a hattrick with full-back Marcus St Hilaire adding a pair on as well as a crowd of 11,525 at Headingley basked in the summer sun as they watched Leeds put on a show and tally one of the biggest wins Super League has ever seen thanks to a Harris masterclass.

2: Warrington Wolves 80 – 0 Wakefield Trinity (2015)

Warrington feature for a second time and via the same margin as Leeds in third and with both sides winning at home, against a team that finished bottom of the table the only deciding factor was the fact that Warrington failed to let their opponents have a consolation try.

Instead Warrington put on a show with an 80 points to nil victory against a sorry Wakefield with a 50 point second-half display highlighting that the Wire showed no mercy in this one.

Richie Myler scored a hattrick from half-back and Toby King and Gene Ormsby scored from the back five however it was Ben Currie who bagged a brace that impressed whilst fellow forward Ben Westwood also crossed over in this humiliating defeat for Wakefield.

1: Bradford Bulls 96 – 16 Salford City Reds (1999)

The highest total in this list and also the highest ever scoring game in Super League history, the most points ever scored by one team in a single game and the most tries ever scored by a single team in one game and it happened over 20 years ago suggesting it might never happen again.

Despite this remaining the most impressive and biggest victory in the history of Super League it came for a team that didn’t win either the League Leaders Shield or the Grand Final with Bradford finishing third and then losing in the play-offs to the infamous ‘Wide to West’ play as commented by the legend Eddie Hemmings.

Despite the disappointing season end it doesn’t take away from the record-setting game in which the Bulls scored 17 tries with Robbie Paul, Jamie Peacock and Justin Brooker scoring four, three and two tries a piece with a further eight players also crossing over on one occasion in front of 11,596 at Odsal.