The 2025 season isn’t over for Warrington Wolves but they’ve already received bad news ahead of their 2026 pre-season.
It’s been a poor year by the standards that Warrington Wolves hold themselves to as the club are now destined to miss out on the play-offs and with a serious inquest set to begin internally.
That inquest comes off the back of defeat at home to Salford Red Devils as Wire became just the third Super League side to lose to the crisis club, and the only team to lose at home.
The boos around the Halliwell Jones Stadium on Friday night rung out loud and it’s not the first time with fans understandably unhappy with how the season has turned out.
Unfortunately for those fans, it seems it only gets worse as one of Warrington Wolves’ new signings looks set to be banned for the Super League opener in 2026.
Toafofo Sipley handed huge ban and set to miss Warrington Wolves’ pre-season
Warrington have a clear focus on strengthening their pack for 2026 with the Warrington Guardian having reported the signing of Liam Byrne, as well as the confirmed additions of Tevita Pangai Jr from Catalans Dragons and Toafofoa Sipley from the NRL.
Sipley will arrive from Manly in the off-season and would have been looking forward to getting some game time in pre-season, however, that now looks unlikely after the forward has been handed a four-game ban.
The incoming Wire signing was handed a Grade 2 Dangerous Contact charge for a cannonball tackle, which would have carried a three-match ban if he had entered a guilty plea.
Instead, the forward disputed the grading which saw it elevated to a four-match ban, the first of which he will serve this week for the Sea Eagles.
With Manly needing heavy defeats for the Roosters and Dolphins, as well as a win of their own, it means that Sipley has almost certainly played his final game in the NRL, but what happens to the final three games of his ban?
Players can serve them internationally but the 30-year-old has only ever represented the small island nation Niue who aren’t slated to have a fixture.
As confirmed by the RFL, pre-season games do count towards bans but that is capped at two games so the second and third matches of his four-game ban would be taken care of in pre-season, leaving the fourth match to be determined.
Should the Challenge Cup format remain the same whereby Super League teams play in Round Three before their league season starts, then Sipley would miss that fixture. It’s understood that format will remain but should it change, then Sipley’s fourth and final game of the ban would be the Super League opener.
More information on the format and which game Sipley misses will emerge when fixtures are announced in November but Serious About Rugby League understand that the forward’s ban would be likely to carry over, regardless of the fact the RFL now use a new point-based disciplinary system.
As such, it looks like it will be Round Two of Super League before Sipley can debut with this latest ban just a further insult to the injury that has been this 2025 campaign.
Toafofoa Sipley will finish his time at Manly stuck on 99 NRL games after failing to have a dangerous contact charge downgraded at the NRL Judiciary.https://t.co/1kswoLGCm4
— Manly Warringah Sea Eagles (@SeaEagles) September 2, 2025
