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 Rugby Football League are very serious about winning the 2013 World Cup. So serious that they are looking to become pioneers. They are looking to go to extremes to get that winning edge. They are willing to go to all ends of the Earth to make sure they are the best prepared team bar…
Do you remember the Australian Rugby Championship? Chances are you don’t. Basically it was a club competition the ARU set up in the hope that they could establish a third tier of Rugby Union in Australia that wasn’t a decaying relic that the various club competition dotted around isolated areas of the country have turned…
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…
One of the things that has been bugging me about the new web site that it was so difficult for members to add an avatar to the web site. Well, I just fixed that! If you log into the site on your PC and go up to the top right hand corner where it says…
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…
When the Australian Rugby League Commission announced it had signed a billion dollar broadcasting deal I reckon the happiest person in Australia was Israel Folau. When Faolau was offered well over a million dollars to play AFL he simply had to take the money. It was around three time more than he could have hoped to have received in Rugby…
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…
The Warrington Wolves have defeated the Leeds Rhinos 35-18 at Wembley Stadium to claim the 2012 Challenge Cup Final.The game will probably be remembered for an incredible change in the weather in the first half. Kicking off in sunshine, part way through the first have of the match a massive thunderstorm passed over the ground…
Comparisons between players of the past with those currently playing the game have been an oft discussed topic. But ultimately it is near impossible to know certifiably just how good players would have performed under the current rules, against different opposition and the tactics of the modern game. Player weight variances would be of the…
A words of advice kids. If every you find yourself in a position where by you have the financial clout to sponsor a football stadium and use its naming rights to promote various companies that you own, don’t buy the naming rights to a stadium that doesn’t have a major sporting team as its number…
There are a number of pertinent issues in Rugby League in Australia today that are the result of over a decade of self-interest by the NRL. A lot of these can be quickly and easily rectified through the implementation of a smarter draw. What the NRL needs to do is look back at what the…
Sonny Bill Williams has revealed that he already regrets his decision to return to Rugby League and if he had his time over again, he would never have agreed to join the Sydney Roosters three years ago and would stay in Rugby Union. As it stands right now Williams has a stint in Japanese Rugby…
G’day from Scotland! Whilst it is summer here, I’ve seen the four seasons over the past hour, and have just had my fix of Australian news, especially all things RL. And what a massive couple of days it has been! When it rains, it pours. When ol’ Huey decides to dump it on theARLC/NRL, grab…
Well the new web site is up and running and there are small changes that have been made that let me make the site a bit more interactive than it used to be. One of the things I can do now is add your tweets directly to posts that I make. So if there is…
UFC 151 has been cancelled after defending Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones refused to fight replacement opponent Chael Sonnen following an injury to Jones original opponent, Dan Henderson. The decision to cancel the entire even it a huge one for the UFC and one that would not have taken lightly. However, this is a unique…
Luke Lewis has revealed that he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer earlier this month. Lewis had neck surgery to remove his cancerous thyroid and is currently undergoing further treatment in an effort to recover. Lewis’ ordeal is a little reminiscent of Adam Ritson’s many years ago. A scan on an injury he picked up during a match showed up the thyroid abnormality…
When you call yourself The King Of Rugby League you need to be able to back it up with an online presence that is worthy of such a royal title. After a lot of hard work and dedication, I now present you with the new and improved version of LeagueFreak.com So what is different you say? First…
The deal has been done and the budget is now set, so where does Rugby League go from here? For well over a decade Rugby League in Australia was just trying to survive. It wasn’t that the game wasn’t growing, it simply come down to the fact that clubs at first were spending way beyond…
The Australian Rugby League Commission has today announced that the broadcasting rights for Rugby League in Australia have been retained by Channel 9 and Fox Sports Australia. The deal will run over five years and is worth $1.025 billion dollars. $100 million dollars of that is advertising on Channel 9 and Fox Sports. This deal…
Ben Hornby has announced that he will retire at seasons end in a move that will hopefully allow the Dragons to go into a fully fledged rebuilding mode. In recent seasons I think Hornby has been a liability to the Dragons on the field. Playing in the halves, he lacked creativity, his kicking game was…