If you are part of a management team that decides to give away the naming rights sponsor of a competition that is struggling for money for no money what so ever, you should be fired. When you go back to your superiors and tell them about the great deal you “negotiated” that will see you…
Congratulations to the Leeds Rhino’s for winning the 2012 Golden Boot Award! Wait, what? You see, over the last 48 hours when certain people have tried to justify naming Kevin Sinfield as the best player in the world, they have all, without fail, pointed to the record of the Leeds Rhinos. Why? Even my new…
World wide fame comes with many different perks, and one of those perks is that you wake up some days and you are featured in the English press. Nigel Wiskar is a writer for the Mirror.co.uk and he did a write up on the reaction to Rugby League World making the laughable announcement that Kevin Sinfield is…
Rugby League World magazine in the UK has Leeds Rhinos lock Kevin Sinfield as the best Rugby League player in the world. Laughably, when the same magazine named its “best team in the world” last month, Kevin Sinfield wasn’t even in it! There is no way at all that anyone with any interest in Rugby…
When I look back on 2012 I will think of a time when the game of Rugby League finally had its destiny in its own hands again. With new leaders taking over the game in Australia and a massive broadcasting deal putting hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank each year, Rugby League now…
Tickets have now gone on sale to the general public for the 2013 Test match between Australia and New Zealand to be held on April 19th at Canberra Stadium. This match will be important to both teams as it is really their last good hit out before the 2013 World Cup kicks off at the end of…
Update Feb 28, 2013: Premier Sports To Carry NRL Coverage Across The UK Update Mar 07 2013: New Zealand NRL Television Rights Announced Update Mar 08 2013: You can watch NRL games from overseas by clicking this link! The NRL has announced that they have signed off on an international broadcasting deal that will ensure…
Sport England has announced that they have slashed funding to the Rugby Football League due to a failure in reaching participation goals it has agree to with Sport England from 2009-2013. Sport England was to have given the Rugby Football League £29,408,341 during that period. Instead the RFL will now recieve £27,563,684, a drop of…
There will be a number of rule changes that will come into effect for the 2013 NRL season. Their announcement has come at a strange time but then again, with the way the ARLC is making decisions, you can’t be all that surprised. From the NRL official web site the new rules are: Benefit Of The…
In all his gloriousness, League Freak asked in November how everyone gets by in the off-season, and I’d like to offer up what I’ve been getting up to over the past three months. 2012 ended with my club, Hull KR finishing outside of the top eight playoff places for the first time since our inaugural…
Its not too often I post Youtube videos on the site but I had to show this one off! This Billy Slater Trubute video was put together by a Twitter follower of mine called Andrea. Andrea is a massive Billy Slater fan and her Twitter user name is actually @SlaterLover. You can follow here on…
The 2013 NRL season is going to be an interesting one to watch simply for the fact that the game finally has enough money to do things it hasn’t been able to do in well over a decade. How this changes the way the games administrators make decisions is anyone guess right now. Will we…
The financial problems facing Newcastle Knights owner Nathan Tinkler have come back to hit both the Newcastle Knights and Newcastle Jets, with the Australian Tax Office moving to have both clubs wound up. The Sydney Daily Telegraph is reporting that the Hunter Sports Group, which owns the Knights and the Jets, Newcastle’s A League soccer club, have…
It is always hilarious when you read the Rugby League World awards. Basically this small English Rugby League magazine talks up these awards they hand out. That are supposedly voted on by a group of “international” Rugby League journalists. We all know that to English League types, “international” means a bunch of Poms, a few…
Going into the last Ashes Cricket series against the combined nations of the world and a couple of Poms, I wanted Shane Warne to make a comeback. I felt as though Warne could have added something to the side we desperately needed. His ability to tear through a batting lineup and put the best batsmen…
Award in Rugby League rain like confetti these days. You have organisations and magazines handing them out to all and sundry and forming groups of people who vote based on their own agendas or in most cases, ignorance. That is why The King Of Rugby League Awards stands out from the crowd. I am the…
When Israel Folau reached out to the Parramatta Eels and told them he wanted to come back and play Rugby League for them, it put a number of different elements onto an eventual collision course that ironically would see Folau decide to turn his back on Rugby League once again, Folau’s decision to turn his back on one of…
Today David Campese has got himself in a bit of trouble by voicing an opinion. After hearing that the Sydney Morning Herald had sent Georgina Robinson to cover the Australian Rugby Union team’s tour of Europe Campese made a controversial tweet and referenced former Sydney Morning Herald Rugby Union writer Greg Growden who was one of many…
You don’t know him, I don’t know him, but Dave Smith just stepped into the highest profile sports administration job in Australia. Having watched the press conference announcing David Smith as the new NRL CEO a few things came out of it for me. Firstly, Smith, a Welshman based in Sydney in his role in…
Any international sporting competition is incomplete unless it has one very important element….mascots! Personally I don’t even watch an international sporting competition unless I have been marketed a mascot that I can buy in various forms. I like to think back over the history of sporting mascots…they really do complete the entire sporting experience! So…
Cricket Australia has made major changes to the traditional summer format next season in a move to give the Australian test team the best chance possible to win The Ashes. With the series signally the beginning of a new broadcasting deal Cricket Australia had the ability to go into next summer with a few changes that include…
Ever wondered how much damage one little lie could do? One Newcastle player certainly found out the hard way. Before the salary cap was introduced, players had to play for the team representing the area they lived in. If a player residing in Sydney wished to change clubs, he had to leave the suburb he…
The Salford City Reds are currently fighting financial problems after a number of people, including former players, had to fight the club to get money they were owed. In this environment, youngster Joel Moon decided to leave the club and play for the much more financially sound Leeds Rhinos. One that back for this Salford…
The Penrith Panthers have been rumoured to be after him for nearly a year, and he has been photographed taking a tour of the Canterbury Bulldogs training facilities. At the end of all of this, Johnathan Thurston is expected to become the NRL’s first $1 million dollar a year player. There is no doubt at…
For the last two weeks Rugby League fans have been promised that the NRL Draw would be released “Tomorrow”. We have all waited patiently, all looking forward to see the make up of the season and finally having the luxury of being able to play trips to away games well in advance. We are all…
When you cross the white line and onto the playing surface of a Rugby League field, the risk level rises. Rugby League is a tough sport and there are about a million ways to get injured playing the game. When you take the field, you know the risks, and you accept them. When you become…
Thanks to funding from the New South Wales government, Sydney will host two games in next years State Of Origin series with Brisbane hosting the other match. Over the last few years the NRL has been pushing for more funding to host these games. Ironically it was Victoria’s willingness to pay to host matches that…
What type of journalist would call George Piggins up and allow him to spew his ridiculously opinions completely unchallenged? As Russell Crowe stands down as an owner of the South Sydney Rabbitohs, having saved the clubs from financial oblivion, George Piggins took just hours to try and lay the boot in. He claimed that Crowe…
Russell Crowe has made the decision to sell his controlling interest in the South Sydney Rabbitohs to focus more on his family. When Russell Crowe and Peter Holmes a Court took over the South Sydney Rabbitohs the clubs was a mess. On the field they were not worthy of a place in first grade. Off…
Rugby League simply does not play star players what they are worth to the game. With the NRL’s salary cap used to keep costs down, keep clubs financially viable and give us a competition that is as even as any competition in world sport, it is difficult to find way in this system to reward…