UPDATE: The Rugby Football League have made the following announcement: The Rugby Football League can confirm that Widnes Vikings and Wigan Warriors have reached an agreement to play their Betfred Super League round two fixture tonight (Friday, February 24) at the Select Security Stadium in Widnes. The clubs have agreed that this will become a…
It should have been a proud moment for Castleford Tigers players and supporters to celebrate the club reaching the Challenge Cup final after defeating the Widnes Vikings 28-6. Instead it turned into a disgraceful scene that Rugby League should be thoroughly embarrassed about. After the full time siren, and as Castoeford players thanks their supporters,…
This was always going to happen… Last year at an NRL CEO’s meeting concerns were raised that the upcoming dramatic rise that was about to occur in the salary cap would see the player market skewed and teams mismanaging their salary cap. There wasn’t much the NRL could do about this although they did look…
Right now there is a lot of talk about restructuring the Super League and Championship competitions. Some of the idea’s on the table seem alright. Others are completely ridiculous and should not even be up for consideration. The problem with all of the options being put up for discussion right now is that they do…
The problem a lot of Super League teams are faced with is spending more money than they make. That is the simplistic answer to the financial issues dogging the likes of Salford, Castleford and Hull KR. The salary cap sits at £1.65m. That means that clubs can spend up to that limit on wages and…
It is an issue that fires up a lot of fans and one I think is pretty clear cut. What happens when a clubs finds itself in a perilous financial situation and is fighting for its life. Should a governing body step in and take control of the situation, or should they stand back and let things…
The Rugby Football League’s licencing system has come under fire recently after the financial collapse of the Bradford Bulls showed it up for what it really was. The grading of clubs in such black and white terms was completely ridiculous. Putting clubs into different categories was always going to lead to problems simply because so…
The Bradford Bulls will stay in Super League in 2013 but me “monitored”, what ever that means. Probably would have been handy if they were “monitored” in the lead up to them going into administration, but hey, what do I know! This decision will rub a lot of people up the wrong way but it…
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,…
The rumours being made up in Rugby League at the moment are beyond ridiculous. Being on Twitter, you see them every day. You have to wonder where they come from becomes 95% of them make no sense at all to anyone involved in the rumour! One of my personal favorites was that Darren Lockyer was…
The Widnes Vikings will participate in Super League again from 2012 and as you can imagine, their fans are ecstatic about the prospect of being in the top flights again. Recently we have seen players, commentators and fans pushing for Super League to raise revenues and the salary cap. Just about everyone within British Rugby…
News that the Wakefield Wildcats need £500,000 by the end of January to ensure the survival of the club was confronting, and yet not a shock to Rugby League community. Over the last few years we have seen clubs at every level of the game in such financial peril that many have not survived. Where…
George Riley of the BBC has revealed that the Rugby Football League is likely to strip a Super League license from one of the clubs currently in the top flight and hand it to a Championship club when the next set of licences are handed out. This news will come a a bombshell to a…
And the winners are the Celtic Crusaders and the Salford City Reds. As you can imagine there have been all sorts of reactions but this is pretty much what I expected to happen. The Crusaders are the first Welsh Super League club and have had a major amount of support by the RFL to get…
This pretty much sums up Super League this move… The Huddersfield Giants have signed St George/Illawarra Tampons coach Nathan Brown to a three year deal. Brown, who’s long reign at the St George/Illawarra has been nothing short of a tragic mess, has shown nothing at all to suggest that he would be a good coach…
Well its just a matter of going from one farce to another when it comes to English Rugby League. This week came news that Hull FC had fielded an ineligible player in their last two Challenge Cup Ties. Forward Jamie Thackery signed with Hull FC, from Leeds on March the 27th, two weeks after the…
With the announcement that Super League would be moving towards a franchise system and scrapping Promotion and Relegation, we have seen a number of lower grade teams in the UK making a big song and dance about why they deserve to be in the final Super League lineup. Among those were the Widnes Vikings. You’d…