London Broncos vs Wigan Warriors Predictions: Champs to win big in the capital

It’s the champions against the new boys on Saturday afternoon as Wigan Warriors head to winless London Broncos looking to continue their flawless start to the new Betfred Super League season at the Cherry Red Records Stadium (kick-off 15:00 GMT).

The Broncos came so close to securing that elusive first win back in the top flight when they went down to an agonising late defeat at Hull FC last week, but they are likely to face another tough afternoon when the World Club champions arrive in the capital. Off the back of that win over Penrith, the Warriors have put 30 points past both Castleford and Huddersfield, making it a task to find the value in our London Broncos vs Wigan Warriors predictions...

Team news

London have signed Hull KR hooker Reiss Butterworth on a short-term loan deal and the 25-year-old goes straight into their squad for the next fortnight. Butterworth was last year’s Player of the Year in Betfred League One as Dewsbury Rams won promotion.

Wigan make a couple of changes for the trip to the capital, with Junior Nsemba and Jacob Douglas coming in to replace the experienced Liam Marshall and Liam Byrne. The latter has a hip injury which kept him out last week so teenager Nsemba could make his return having undergone surgery in the off-season. Another youngster, academy product Zach Eckersley, is also added to the squad. Byrne is expected to be back available for next week’s trip to Salford Red Devils.

Veteran forward Mike Cooper is expected to be out for six weeks with the knee injury he sustained against Penrith, which is far less serious than was originally feared. Hooker Kruise Leeming is also still out with his ankle injury.

Wigan Warriors to win by 21-25 points @ 13/2

Put simply there is no chance of London winning this game, despite how close they came to a famous win at Hull FC last week. Wigan are just too big, too strong, too experienced, too good, so it feels just a case of how close the Broncos can keep it.

Mike Eccles’ side are a spirited bunch who will know they face a real fight to win a game this year, but last week would have given them a huge lift to have a go at Wigan in front of their home crowd. Eccles will be taking inspiration in his pre-match talk from the Warriors’ last visit to London, which ended in a famous 18-16 win for the Broncos five seasons ago.

But ominously for London, and the rest of the field, this Wigan team already looks even better equipped to defend their title than they did to win it in the first place last October. I expect both a spirited London performance and a comfortable Wigan win, of anywhere between 18 and 30 points.

Tyler Dupree anytime tryscorer @ 9/2

Take your pick from the usual array of devastating suspects for Wigan’s likely points scorers this week, and the Warriors will have to share the tries around without Marshall who has run in five in three games already.

After blanking when we backed him to score against Castleford Tigers, Tyler Dupree came up trumps with a try when we didn’t back him last week. But I always fancy the big forward for a try given his deceptively quick feet and positional instinct in the final third, so let's see if he can come up trumps again in London. His 9/2 odds imply an 18% chance of him getting on the scoresheet, but I think that's on the low side.

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