Junior Nsemba ready to keep Wigan Warriors as Super League’s ‘top dogs’ in 2025

In Wigan Warriors’ dream 2024, they unearthed another prize alongside their incredible trophy haul: young star Junior Nsemba.

Coming into the side regularly on the back of an injury to now retired stalwart Willie Isa, Nsemba made an immediate impact and made himself a name Matt Peet could not leave out of his side.

It was truly an incredible year for the 20-year-old, Nsemba scoring seven tries, gaining 1,294 metres, with 12 line breaks, 94 tackle busts, and an average of 20.7 tackles made per game.

Such statistics earned him a call-up to the England squad and saw him also sign a contract that will keep him at the Warriors until 2030.

Now, the Warriors head into the 2025 Super League season as the side everyone wants to beat with the Grand Final trophy, Challenge Cup, and League Leaders’ Shield in their trophy cabinet but Nsemba is making sure that there is no internal pressure as he looks to continue his phenomenal rise.

“As a club, first of all, I feel like we’re the top dogs right now. We’re going to have a bit of pressure to obviously keep the spot,” Nsemba said.

“But at the same time, we don’t want to put too much pressure, otherwise we’ll crack.

“But for me personally, I obviously had a good year last year. I was in a successful team. Young Player of the Year, England, it all came in one.

“So now for me, it’s about staying composed and not letting that get ahead of me. Just because I know in a career like this, it’s not going to always be win, win, win, England and all these trophies.

“I know it’s not going to always be like that. So I just need to mentally prepare for a time when it could switch.”

We keep our ‘souls strong’ to help on the pitch

While everyone else in the sport might be talking about Wigan keeping hold of all the major trophies, Nsemba says it is not a conversation the club are having internally.

Rather, they are looking to continue to instil a culture that naturally brings success along with it.

“As a team, we’ve personally not spoken about the trophies yet. But for me, I’d personally say the trust in each other,” he added.

“Last year we were able to do it just from trusting each other’s teammates. And Matty Peet, he’s big on culture.

“Outside of rugby, we’ve got groups or as a big group, we’ll get a coffee or we’ll play cards or something.

“We want to take each week as it comes, game by game. We want to know how strong we are, like our souls, if you know what I mean.

“Leave the physical factors out of it for a minute. We just need to make sure our mindset and our spirit is strong. That will help on the pitch.”

Sky Sports will again show every game of the Super League live this season – including two matches in each round exclusively live, with the remaining four matches each week shown on Sky Sports+