Last month ARLC Chairman John Grant was asked about the ridiculous situation in the State Of Origin series that saw both Queensland and New South Wales actively recruiting players who were not born and raised in Australia. His reply was pathetic and limp wristed. “I don’t think the State of Origin rules are going to…
If you needed any evidence as to why British Rugby League is written off, ignored or laughed about by outsiders, the England vs Exiles “International Origin” match would be pretty much all you needed to see. Played in front of a tiny, barely interested crowd, England managed to beat an Exiles team made up of…
Australia has State Of Origin. Oh, that was just a stand alone statement. That has nothing to do with these bloody ridiculous “International Origin” games the RFL have come up with because, if their eyes, this shithouse English side is too goo to play against the likes of say France or Wales. As Ian Golden…
Recently Warrington Wolves coach Tony Smith told the media that the game administrators needed to look at ways to create more buzz around the sport and compared it, strangely, to Darts. Yes, Darts. He also talked about the need to make decisions that would probably upset some of the big power brokers in the game,…
Last night Australia selected New Zealand born and raised James Tamou to play for the Kangaroo’s. He will go on to play for New South Wales in the State Of Origin series. It is a move that has caused uproar among fans and the media. Nobody feels like this is the right thing to be…
Being this good just comes naturally to me. I’m not moving to England! I don’t need to live in Leeds to tell the Rugby Football League how bloody terrible they are. As if I would sell my beast of a car so that I could travel to places like Salford and Warrington in a Vauxhall!…
Bradford Bulls fans have woken up to the news this morning that their club could be dead and buried within a fortnight. The Bulls released a statement today pleading with fans to donate £100 each to save the club. They claimed they need to raise around £1,000,000 to survive and £500,000 just to survive through…
Last night in England the Rugby Football League was supposed to announce all of the venues that would be used for the 2013 World Cup. For what ever reason, that did not happen and in all the confusion about why the announcement wasn’t being made, it felt like the RFL just decided to announce what…
Last night in England the Rugby Football League was supposed to announce all of the venues that would be used for the 2013 World Cup. For what ever reason, that did not happen and in all the confusion about why the announcement wasn’t being made, it felt like the RFL just decided to announce what…
The Rugby Football League has signed a three year deal with trucking company Stobart. The deal involved Stobart putting large Rugby League themed stickers on 100 of their trucks and involves no money. In exchange for this the Super League competition will carry the Stobart. This is insane! Nothing against Stobart, they’ve done a great…
The RFL put out and extrardonary press release last night in which they confirmed their planned 2012 tour of New Zealand had been cancelled, blamed Australian administrators for the cancellation, and then decided to change the laws of the game. You know, just because they felt like it! The stupid, pathetic, egotistical failures within the…
Imagine that you own a Newspaper based in London. London is the biggest media market in the country, and the vast majority of your newspapers sales are in the greater London region. The good people of London are like any other people anywhere else in the world. They want to be informed about what is…
So here we are, the 2011 Four Nations Final. Australia vs England at Elland Road in Leeds. England are full of confidence after their big win over New Zealand in Hull. I watched the game and England did play well, but New Zealand were terrible. I don’t know how much England is really going to…
I’m looking at Rugby League on a world wide basis, and I can not for the life of me understand why the RFL has any influence on the decision making process at international level. The RFL and its shambolic track record. An organization that can not even properly administer its own tiny little club competition….
First of all I want to tell British Rugby League fans to stop being so reactionary. What has happened has happened. You can blame this and that, but at the end of the day the real problem is that the foundations that the game in Great Britain is built upon are completely rotten. Until the…
The Rugby Football League have announced a team which they will run out as a representative of England today, and there are a few interesting things to come out of it. The big news of the day is that Joel Tomkins asked to not be considered for selection for “Personal reasons”. Thise personal reasons are…
It is finals time in the National Rugby League and Super League. This is the business part of the season, where the game and its sponsors get the most attention. Yet here we are, in 2011, and teams on both sides of the world are refusing to talk to the media. They are under self…
Jack Reed is like a gift from the Rugby League Gods. Reed is a 23 year old center for the Brisbane Broncos. This time last year, he didn’t think he had much of a career ahead of him as far as Rugby League went. Perseverance paid off though and today he is a top performer…
I’ve been saying for some time that Rugby League in Great Britain, and Super League in particular needs fixing. In 1996 Rugby League in Great Britain was given a whole lot of money to help try and form an elite club competition that would provide broadcasters with a nice amount of content they could show…
Canberra, Newcastle, Brisbane, Townsville, New Zealand, Melbourne and the Gold Coast. These are the names of teams that have come into what we these days call the NRL over the course of my lifetime. The presence of these teams have been nothing short of vital to the survival of the club I support in Sydney,…
In a stunning turn of events, the Wrexham Crusaders have withdrawn their license application to the Rugby Football League, meaning they will drop down a division to the Co-Op Championship next season. This decision means that the team that was heavily favored to be axed from the competition next season, the Wakefield Wildcats, have earned…
The NRL’s next broadcasting deal will see a huge leap in the amount of money the game makes. By at least 2015, we will have an 18 team competition (With the addition of Perth and most likely a second Brisbane team). The deal after that, which will run between 2018 and 2023, will see further…
Better late then never huh? So I didn’t want to comment on the “International Origin” game until I’d actually seen it. If you were scanning Twitter during the match, you will have seen how much fun I had with the match. In fact I tweeted so much, I got blocked as they were a limit…
There is something about playing for your state or your nation that you so special. The pride, the passion, the drama, the excitement….you just can’t manufacture that. Oh wait, you can it seems! Welcome to International Origin ladies and gentlemen, the Rugby Football Leagues latest bastard creation to try and save its slow decay to…
Rugby League is a funny sport in that, it is controlled by just a few countries, and yet there is a will to have it become a true international democracy, even though there is no way in hell that will ever happen! In the past, many in England have felt that the international schedule is…
I’ve written so many article about the changed that need to be made within the game of Rugby League in Great Britain. If you want to read them, go looking through the site archives. What if you started to think outside the box though? What if you stopped thinking about the basics, and went after…
Rugby League in Australia is about to secure a broadcasting deal that will see it earn more than $1 billion dollars over the five years of the contract. The NRL salary cap will rise by an incredible $2.7 million dollars. Two new teams will enter the competition and first grade squads will rise to 30…
English Rugby League players get no respect. They are under paid and they have very little profile in the media. Because of this, players find it hard to get any sort of decent personal sponsorships, and you know who is to blame for all of this don’t you? Well, take your pick…. The BBC, Soccer,…
A Pacific Islands All Star Team will face England in 2012 with England to do a tour of Australia and New Zealand. With no international competitions having been planned for 2012, the year before the World Cup, this is seen as a way to expose England to some high quality opposition, give Pacific Islanders a…
In the wake of Kyle Eastmonds announced defection to Rugby Union at the end of the Super League season there have been a number of very interesting reactions. Calls to raise the Super League salary cap, to pay Super League players more money, to form a players unions, central contracts, expansion, contraction…..everyone has an opinion!…