Only 11,000 people turned up to watch Penriths season opener against the Canberra Raiders. After an off season full of promises and talk from the club, here we are on opening night, and the crowd figure was terrible. Don’t blame the fans though, if there is one thing following Penrith teaches you its to expect…
Cause and effect. It is something that gets over looked far too often in Rugby League. When you change one thing, it effects other things you possibly don’t want it to effect. Right now in Super League we are seeing how short sighted moves can effect areas of the game many did not expect. Slow…
There are a lot of things about the Rugby League media that I simply hate. I hate it when they are lazy and call player managers to get a cheap “Player XYZ Is Leaving!” headline. I hate it when they come out with “Exclusives” and then you find out they are just quoting widely available…
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…
Over the off season Benji Marshall sat down with former Penrith Panther and now West Tigers defensive coach Royce Simmons and asked him how much it meant to him to be a one club player. Marshall has always been a very mature player, if you know a bit about his background, even away from football,…
Former Great Britain, Wigan and now Wakefield hooker Terry Newton has been banned by the Rugby Football League after testing positive to a banned substance. At this stage there is no word on what the substance was or even if it was performance enhancing or just some other illegal drug, however going by recent bans…
The NRL Indigenous All Stars team has beaten the NRL All Stars 16-12 in front of 26,687 on the Gold Coast. Any worries about how fair dinkum this game was going to be were quickly erased early on in the match with big hits and great play being the order of the night. Usually at…
I’m a fan of most sports, not just Rugby League. In fact outside of a few completely shit house sports like Rugby Union and AFL, I’ll give any sport a go. So news this week that the Newcastle Knights Rugby League club had applied to the courts to have the Newcastle Jets soccer club wound…
Look, we all know I’m better than you, we worked that out a long time ago. What I’m gonna do now however is let you have a taste of my greatness. I’ve set up a Fantasy Rugby League competition on the Fox Sports web site. Why Fox Sports? Well they have a few different things…
Just hours after being cleared by the courts of assaulting a female at a night club, Greg Bird has been called into the Indigenous All Stars team. Having not played in the NRL for about a year and a half now, and having two high profile court cases in which he was on trial (And…
Normally we don’t see the the draw for a major international Rugby League competition until a few weeks before the bloody thing kicks off, however this time around the IRLF (ARL/RFL) have taken time out from meetings in Singapore in high priced hotels to get a draw out early. The 2008 World Cup was a…
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,…
You see, fans, coaches, club officials and the media can talk as much crap as they like about a player. At the end of the day, as long as he can still play football, he will always come out a winner. As the season draws closer and coaches change their mindset from preparation that will…
Remember the other day when I mentioned that the NRL had finally announced the NRL All Stars team after 4 months and 578 stages of voting? Well yeah…..scratch that! Players are now dropping out of both sides with injuries in what is both a worrying sign for the games credibility and a sign of the…
Well the Super League season has just kicked off and I supposed I really should make a few predictions and we’ll see how I’ve done at seasons end. I find Super League season previews very boring, simply because we all know right now who is likely to win the bloody thing! I throw in my…
I find very few things in this game completely outrageous. Maybe its the the way Rugby League throws up a yearly does of atrocities, it numbs you to certain types of news. Every so often though I read about something so ridiculous and I can not believe the lack outrage it causes. The BBC is…
Well it only took three months and 25 stages of voting, but the 2010 NRL All Stars team has finally been announced. Over 50,000 fans took part in the voting process which I think needs to be simplified and streamlined the next time around. The squad includes a players from every NRL team as well…
There is a Golden Rule in Rugby League that states: If you wanna f*cking it up, leave it to a Pom. So goes every single thing the Poms touch when it comes to Rugby League, it is like they have a national commitment to Rugby League disaster. This time around the dirty, soap dodging whingers…
In 2008 the National Rugby League organized a massive Rugby League fans day as Sydney’s Olympic Stadium. It was set out to commemorate the fact that the game would be turning 100 in Australia. Every player from every team was in attendance (Not and easy feat in a one of the worlds most widely spread…
Imagine if you will for a moment that you make a living writing about the game of Rugby League. During the season work is good. There are few sports in the whole world that produce as many stories and as much drama as Rugby League does. There is always a rumour to chase, always a…
If you don’t know whats been happening here is the very quick rundown. Six Huddersfield Giants players were arrested in relation to an alleged rape that occurred in Gosforth, Newcastle (England). All players have been released on bail until March 18th. Now for obvious reasons no person or web site can really say too much…
One day when my three readers get to have actual sex with an actual girl, they will realize that 35 second experience pales into comparison with reading League Freak on Twitter. That’s right, I’m Twittering away and you are missing out! During the day and night you’ll be able to see whats actually on my…
As you may or may not know, there is not an official push to remove the Challenge Cup from a list of protected sporting matches so that it does not have to be shown on free to air TV in the United Kingdom. The Challenge Cup may have its critics, but the fact is it…
Everyone knows I love the concept of an Aboriginal All Stars team taking on an NRL All Stars team. It will make for a great game, it will be a great way to kick off the season and it will celebrate the fact that Rugby League has a higher percentage of Aboriginal players than any…
I always think that going into a season, you can get a feel for what direction a club is heading in by the little subtle things they have been doing over the last few months. Some things are good. For instance, have you heard much from the Melbourne Storm? No. Thats a good thing, more…
At what point do you realize you have had enough? For some people its when they start to feel a bit under the weather. For others, its when they start to slur their words. Some people go even further than that. When they can’t stand up on their own, when they throw up, or when…
Paul Gallen is a real top bloke! For years Gallen has forged a reputation on the field as a grub, and in 2009 he pushed that reputation to new heights through his stupid behavior, on and off the field. It all started well when he was fined $10,000 for a racial slur he made towards…
A Christmas, don’t you just love this time of year? Its stinking hot, beach weather, thunderstorms rolls out of the west from over the Blue Mountains, you put up a Christmas tree and decorate your house. You go into debt buying presents, you send cards to people. I have to say my favorite part is…
Another day, another off field disgrace for Rugby League fans to deal with. This time its Newcastle prop Danny Wicks who has been charged with supply and possession of prohibited drugs. Serious? Well, he’s been refused bail. Even Greg Bird got bail… It just makes you wonder what goes through the head of some of these…