Jack Heggie looks ahead to exciting campaign for Super League Wheelchair champions

The Wheelchair side lifted the Super League title just 24 hours after Matt Peet’s men’s outfit defeated Catalans Dragons 10-2 at Old Trafford.

Chris Greenhalgh’s side were crowned champions in their short history after defeating Leeds Rhinos 46-40 in Manchester last October.

The Wheelchair Super League will return on Sunday 16 June as a five-team competition, featuring Halifax Panthers, Hull FC, Leeds Rhinos, London Roosters and Wigan Warriors.

Each team will play ten rounds of fixtures, with the Grand Final taking place on Sunday 13 October – and shown live on Sky Sports (venue TBC).

Wigan Warriors will also play in the European Club Championship on Saturday 6 April against the Dragons at Robin Park Arena – that blockbuster fixture will be preceded by the annual Wheelchair 4s curtain raiser.

Grand Final hat-trick hero and England international Jack Heggie believes 2024 will be the biggest yet in the sport’s history.

“From the back of the World Cup and with England winning and filling out the house in Manchester, and then last year’s Grand Final having the most fans at domestic level, the game is going to keep going upwards,” he said.

“If you’d have said to us when I first started that we’d be on a broadcaster like Sky Sports, like the BBC, and being at Super League launches and things like that, we’d have said you were taking the mick out of us!

“We’ve got the European Cup final, the Challenge Cup, the league and then obviously the Grand Final, it gets bigger and bigger every year.”

Heggie and his team-mates are looking forward to adding to last year’s achievements, while the newly formatted Challenge Cup will be a straight knockout tournament involving all five Super League teams, plus current holders Catalans Dragons and two Challenge Trophy qualifiers.

Wigan have been drawn to four-time cup winners Halifax Panthers, with ties to be played on Saturday, April 27.

Semi-finals are scheduled for Saturday 11 May, with the final once again taking place at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield on Saturday 1 June – and shown live on BBC Sport.

“We acknowledge that we won the Grand Final last year, but we had to draw a line under it and we’ve made a real conscious effort to do that in pre-season,” Heggie said.

“As a club, across all the teams, we always want to look to the future and win trophies. We want to win all the competitions this year.

“The history of Wigan as a rugby league club, with the men’s team and now with the expanded teams within that club, it’s about winning.

“But it’s also winning with good processes and winning with a good culture. I think that’s something that we’ve been very conscious of in the wheelchair programme. We can always improve.

“Wigan have backed us with resources. We’re all one team, we’re all wanting the same thing - to win our respective competitions.”