News that covers Rugby League in Australia.
You always have to watch these media types, they will give you one side of the story, but leave out the other. Earlier this season the NRL put out a set of guidelines that teams needed to follow that outlines how much time NRL players and coaches should spend being available to the media and…
The Melbourne Storm are the 2012 Premiers after defeating the Canterbury Bulldogs 14-4. The Storm came into the Grand Final in great form and simply looked to be playing on a completely different level to the Bulldogs. In a game that was dominated by brilliant coaching by from both sides, the execution the Storm showed in attack…
So here we are, Grand Final week and in a few days time lives will be changed. As a fan this whole week reminds me of 2003 when my Penrith Panthers made the Grand Final. I was never nervous at all, just confident.I enjoyed that entire season and I wouldn’t change a single thing about…
The Wests Tigers have announced that Tim Sheens will not coach the club in 2013. At this stage he is still an employee of the clubs though. That move will be to avoid having to pay out the remainder of his contract, something the club simply can not afford. It has being reported that Sheens…
Canberra Raiders youngster Josh Papalii has turned his back on New Zealand after being recruited by Queensland coach Mal Meninga to represent a state he once used to live in. Meninga has openly talked for a year about pressuring Papalii to turn his back on the country of his birth and that was helped along by the…
The Canterbury Bulldogs will take on the Melbourne Storm in the 2012 NRL Grand Final after beating the South Sydney Rabbitohs 32-8. The Bulldogs got off to a great start with an early try but from that point on it was all Rabbitohs. The Bulldogs looked right off their game, they dropped a lot of…
The Melbourne Storm have destroyed the Manly Sea Eagles 40-12 in what was nothing short of an ambush! Manly basically got off to the worst start possible and looked really sluggish throughout the first half. Dropped balls, silly mistakes and a leg injury to Steve Matai knocked the Sea Eagles right off their game. If…
Have you ever wondered why it is only in recent years that clubs have pushed fans to buy club memberships in big numbers? Well its simple really… You see, when you get one of the plum jobs going around on the board of a football club, you want to keep it! Have you ever walked…
There is a lot of angst among media types at the moment in regards to the access they get to players and coaches and the quality of answers they get when they are fortunate enough to interview these people. I can see where they are coming from and to a certain extent, I agree with…
No one gives a stuff about teams that lose in the semi finals. They get so close to being in the Grand Final, and yet they are not even a footnote in history when it comes down to it. This week we have four teams all with stories to tell about their journey to get…
On Thursday the 27th of September the 8th Australian Rugby League Immortal will be announced in Sydney. The current list of immortals and the year in which they were given the honour by Rugby League Week magazine are: Clive Churchill – 1981 Bob Fulton – 1981 Reg Gasnier – 1981 Johnny Raper – 1981 Graeme…
Conflicting reports today that winger Beau Ryan will leave the Wests Tigers and head to the Cronulla Sharks really to me sums up the way the Wests Tigers are being run at the moment. Its confusing. I wrote earlier this year that I felt the biggest problem the Wests Tigers had was that they had…
The South Sydney Rabbitohs have smashed the Canberra Raiders 38-16 and are now one win away from making the NRL Grand Final. This was a really tough game early on and you got the feeling that Souths were more prepared for the early exchanges than the Raiders were. It was only about 15 minutes into…
A sub standard crowd for an elimination final has watched the Manly Sea Eagles defeat the North Queensland Cowboys 22-12. This is a game that will be remembered for a very long time and for all the wrong reasons. First of all, as predicted Manly fans didn’t turn up in big numbers at all. 18kms…
Week one of the finals season was sensational, it was one of the best opening weekends of a finals series I can remember. I enjoyed every single game and in week two of the finals, I think we are in for more of the game. Can the Bunnies rebound after a terrible performance? Will the…
You know, 18kms isn’t very far. That is the distance between Manly and the Sydney Football Stadium. I’m the first to say that the Sydney Football Stadium isn’t the best place to get to if you don’t live in inner Sydney. I have made the journey there many times before to watch NRL games, State…
The Canberra Raiders have beaten the Cronulla Sharks 34-16 in front of 24,450 at Canberra Stadium. This was a really entertaining game to watch and early on the Raiders had it all over the Sharks. The Sharks love an arm wrestle though and for all the quality posession and field position the Raiders had, the…
The North Queensland Cowboys will face the Manly Sea Eagles next weeked after disposing of the Brisbane Broncos 33-16 and ending their 2012 season. This game pretty much went the way that I expected it too. The Broncos poor form leading into the finals meant they were no match against an in form Cowboys side…
The Melbourne Storm have blown the South Sydney Rabbitohs off the park in a clinical display in a huge 24-6 win in Melbourne. I said before the game that if the Rabbitohs were to win the match, their forward pack needed to step up and breathe fire for 80 minutes. They started the game looking…
The Canterbury Bulldogs have beaten the Manly Sea Eagles 16-10 to earn next weekend off and book a place in week three of the finals. The game was a brutal one that at times saw momentum swing from one side to the other. The Sea Eagles could not have hoped for a better start to…
I can understand why New Zealand Warriors fans are a bit worried right now. After watching another disasterous season with a disasterous coach at the helm and knowing they actually have a very good lineup that can go places with the right leadership, they keep hearing some worrying names being tossed in their direction. The…
The Sydney Roosters have announced that Catalan Dragons coach Trent Robinson join the club starting next season on what is a three year deal. Robinson was previously an assistant coach under Brian Smith in 2010 and linked up with the Catalan Dragons in 2011. He has done OK with the Dragons and his ability to…
The Sydney Roosters have announced that they have “parted ways” with Brian Smith today. This doesn’t come as a surprise after the season the Roosters had. I always got the feeling it was going to end this way for Smith. He was brought in to try and fix the club and rid them of a…
Bulldogs fullback Ben Barba has won the 2012 Dally M player of the year with in what is fittingly a run away victory. Matthew Bowen finished second in the count while Cooper Cronk finished third. Barba also won the headline moment of the year, the fullback of the year and the Provan Summons medal which…
If I was running the Australian Rugby League Commission today I would have called NRL chief medical officer Ron Muratore into my office today and fired him on the spot. Making Rugby League as safe a sport as it can possibly be has been one of the major goals of every Rugby League administration going…
When the season kicks off, everyone feels like they have a chance of winning the NRL Grand Final. Soon after though, reality starts to set in and teams that started off with high expectations find themselves on the wrong end of too many scoreboards. So who were the most disappointing teams in season 2012? Obviously the level…
While player managers scramble to the media telling everyone that will listen that the NRL salary cap should be raised immediatley, it seems the NRL itself is holding off on any such move. There are two major reasons for this. First of all, there are a number of clubs that could really use a jump…
The first week of the NRL Finals series kicks off this weekend and it is shaping up as the NRL marketers dream. There are so many big match ups in the first week of the finals and the new finals system should make things easier for fans to follow too. The NRL captains call was…
The NRL came out yesterday with a curious announcement that, one week out from the finals, it would send any shoulder charge that made contact with a players head or neck straight to the judiciary without any grading. This process is usually what happens with the most extreme cases of foul play and usually results…
With Rugby League in Australia now predicted to generate an average of $270 million dollars per year the game administrators have an opportunity to do something they have not been able to even think about for a very long time. Building a legacy. While clubs grants will be raised along with the salary cap, Rugby…