I'm not sure there's a definite 'Big Three'. A 'Big Two' (Leeds and Wigan) and a 'Big Six' (Wigan, Warrington, St Helens, Leeds, Bradford & Hull FC) I can see. Three's just a very odd number.

Also Huddersfield are not a 'big' side. They struggle to get any kind of crowd, even to raise 6k for a massively discounted cup game against the champions. They're Ken Davy's fantasy RL team, and as soon as he pulls the plug they'll plummet back down to hanging around with Widnes & Wakefield.

Possibly the current league table ?
and as it stands he would be correct !!

If we were to decide who RL's 'big three' were, the league table after 16 rounds of a 27 round league + play-off structure, when 1 team had only played 14 games and 2 had played 15 games, would obviously be the way to do it.

Why not have a grading system on numerous points such as stadia quality, what each team brings to the competition and average gate?

Surely that would work to see who is the bigger teams?

All time big 3 are Wigan, Leeds and Saints.

Looking at a set, limited period in history is completely subjective as anyone can manipulate it to show what they're after.

Who cares?

If as a fan you need your ego massaging by being told your big is "big" you are probably not that bothered about the bigger issues in the game.

This question was raised about 6 years at a rugby seminar in Leeds University a graduate took it up as a project as follows: We have 4 specific era,s of activity and the top 3 taken from each era.

Era 1 1st Oldham 2nd Huddersfield 3rd Halifax
Era 2 1st Wigan 2nd Swinton 3rd Huddersfield
Era 3 1st Wigan 2nd St Helens 3rd Leeds
Era 4 1st St Helens 2nd Leeds 3rd Bradford



Era 1 was Pre First Word War
Era 2 was between wars
Era 3 was post Second World War
Era 4 is Professional Superleague

The Top 10 for all eras is

1 Wigan
2 St Helens
3 Leeds
4 Bradford
5 Warrington
6 Huddersfield
7 Hull
8 Widnes
9 Halifax
10 Hull KR

Results taken from 1895 there was a short period from that time when Broughton Rangers and Manningham were prominent but that was only for a couple of seasons until the Northern Rugby was fully developed.

1 Wigan Warriors 16 13 1 2 609 201 27
2 Huddersfield Giants 16 12 0 4 480 288 24
3 Warrington Wolves 16 10 1 5 470 305 21

Which means little after 16 rounds, especially given that only twice in the last 10 seasons has Huddersfield's league position improved after round 16.

So it could be (depending on whichever criteria you want to chuck in & I've not added the additional trophy's to other clubs coz I couldn't be d)!

Wigan 65
Leeds 39
Saints 36

The next 3 would be :

Widnes 30
Bradford 27
Huddersfield 25

Ooops, no Wire

...

Hull FC are the rugby version of spurs won a cup but come short of the big prize (unfortunately)