On the weekend Gareth Thomas played his first Super League game since switching codes from Rugby Union. As a 35 year old Rugby Union player, there expectations were not high at all. In the whole world there are maybe a dozen people that could play in Super League at 35+ years of age, and all…
Few other sports in the world can claim to have the same high drug testing numbers that Rugby League has. Over the years we have seen players testing positive to Performance Enhancing Drugs as well as other street drugs, and while it is almost impossible to get everyone, Rugby League authorities on both sides of…
There is a bit happening ins Super League right now, some things are interesting while others are just batshit crazy! I’m always interesting in hearing, not so much the news about who won and lost, but the news that effects the competition itself. We’ve had a fair bit of that lately! After a tough year…
I find few things in life more boring than Lote Tuqiri. A bloke that played Rugby League as a youngster, went chasing money in Rugby Union (Fair enough), spent the whole time miserable and hating it, wrote about a million news paper articles talking about Rugby League and pleading with League players to switch codes,…
The Telegraph in Sydney is today reporting that Sonny Bill Williams is getting home sick and wants to come back to Australia or New Zealand to resume his football career. You may remember that Williams had a five year contract with the Canterbury Bulldogs. Into the first year of that deal Williams got on a…
The West Tigers have continued to turnover their playing roster by signing former New Zealand Test prop and former Sydney Rooster Jason Cayless. The Tigers forward pack has been one of their major problems in recent years, it has provided little impact against the NRL’s big guns, so Cayless will be a welcome addition to…
As you may know by now Timana Tahu has walked out on his contract with the Australian Rugby Union with a year and a half to still run on it. He has done it so he can return to Rugby League and the Parramatta Eels. Its funny because I seem to remember a stupid Kiwi…
Well the State Of Origin series is over and the next representative football we will be looking forward to is the end of season Four Nations competition held in England and France. The World Champion New Zealand team will be looking to stamp themselves as the best in the world while Australia will be looking…
Remember when I said we’d be in for a lot of comedy value as Super League clubs started talking contracts with players, well, its under way! Some interesting things going on this week with young (Under 35) English halfback Richie Myler telling Salford to show him the money. Myler is a very average player, he…
The Warriors can never just settle, they always have to have something going on. We won’t go over history because we’d be here for years, so lets just look at 2009. The team is set. They had an amazing run in the 2008 finals, they got within one game of the NRL Grand Final, many…
The Brisbane Broncos are tired of being stuffed around by Karmichael Hunt and as a result they have terminated contract talks with the State Of origin Fullback. Thing is, they were weak about it. They have said that they are still willing to talk about keeping him, and that they don’t want to lose him,…
The NRL today announced that it had signed off an some made up rule that would supposedly stop Benji Marshall, an off contract player who would have no obligation or ties to the NRL any more, from playing Rugby Union in Japan before returning to the NRL before the start of the 2009 season. How…
Are the days of England being an easy out for trouble making players coming to an end I wonder? Right now a number of players who have signed with Super League clubs are still waiting back home in Australia and wondering if their past behavior has finally closed a door on them. British officials have…
All the profits from the 2008 Rugby League World Cup will go into a fund to develope Rugby League around the world. On top of this there is $2,000,000 in prize money on offer that will be spread across all ten World Cup teams depending on where they finish the tournament. This is all fantastic…
He is lonely, he feels isolated, he feels homesick, he feels treated badly by his club, and now someone that is part of the Sonny Bill Williams “camp” has put feelers out to the Bulldogs on a possible return. This was always bound to happen at some point. As his merry band of idiots rushed him…
So Super League has finished its latest expansion and we now have a Welsh team in the competition which is great. However already eyes are turning towards a few years from now when all current clubs Super League licenses will come up for review. That means teams with below standard stadiums, poor finances and poor…
I knew the Sydney Roosters match up with the St George/Illawarra Tampons was going to be a dud game and boy did it live up to my prediction. The first half was probably the worst half of football I’ve ever seen. Sure, it was pissing rain, but the dropped ball, the simple mistakes and the…
I’ve tried to avoid talking too much about Sonny Bill Williams because seriously, he is a stupid kid thats been easily led by users. There have been some interesting things I do want to mention though. Despite having a court order stopping him from playing Rugby Union, Dollar Bill Willaims has actually played his first game,…
“I was offered double what I’m on at Canterbury to go somewhere else and I stayed because I wanted to stay loyal to the club and keep the boys around, but to see him leave like that …” “It’s tough because he was a player that I really did look up to and for him…
Well as we all know Mark Gasnier is probably going to opt out of his long term contract with the St George/Illawarra Tampons and take up a huge contract to play Rugby Union in France. Gasnier’s high paying, long term contract with St George/Illawarra basically allows him to come off contract every single season and negotiate with…
The Sydney Telegraph is reporting that Craig Gowers management has been in negotiations with the Canterbury Bulldogs to make a return to the NRL as soon as May this year. You will remember fondly that Gower, after years of off field stupidity, had gotten fed up with the resulting attention that he got for being such a…
The Leeds Rhinos are pushing ahead with legal action over Iestyn Harris’ move to the Bradford Bulls in 2004. Harris was contracted to the Leeds Rhinos when he decided to switch to rugby union. When Harris decided to switch back to Rugby League again, Leeds felt they had a contract in place with him that…
Anyone that had read my opinions in recent years knows I am 100% behind the Franchise system that Super League will have in place from 2009. Promotion and Relegation does not work and that can be seen in the financial position of a number of National League clubs who have gone broke trying to gain promotion. However,…
Does three decades of losing make people crazy? Can you bring up a generation of sports fans that are so ill informed that they don’t realize what they are seeing is the death of their own game? After decades of being on the wrong end of beatings at International level, the British game has taken a stand and…
The second last placed club in Super League, Hull KR have made a decision that shows everything that is wrong with the British game. The club has put in a massive offer for Australian Test player Matt King. The deal is subject to them avoiding relegation this season and just shows the mindset of British clubs…
If you had any doubt about the pathetic managment at the Penrith Panthers by now then this will hopefully set you straight. After a terrible 54-14 loss to the New Zealand Warriors talk that Craig Gower was finally going to walk out on the club and head over to play rugby union in Europe came to light….
In an ironic move by the New Zealand Rugby League considering the name of the Test is the ANZAC Test, the NZRL has said that the 2008 game will be their last mid season test against Australia because they are unable to compete with the World Champions in the fixture. Despite the fact the game draws big…
“I like being competitive and I like to have the ball in my hands,” Tahu said at the time.” That would probably be the most stressful thing; the game’s close and you want to do something and you can’t even get the ball because they’re very structured. Being a centre or winger, you touch the…
New Sydney Roosters coach Chris Anderson made the ridiculous suggestion this week that he has been astonished by the lack of skill modern day players have. Anderson said that since taking over the Roosters he has found the club full of players that lack skill, with some players unable to do basics such as pass…
The drawn out saga over where Lote Tuqiri will be up playing may finally be resolved by next week as South Sydney prepared to table an offer on the same day the australian rugby union has set a deadline for the former League winger to sign a contract offer they have made him. In the…