The 2012 Australian Prime Ministers XIII team has been announced. They will face off against Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby on September 23rd. This game is not just about giving Papua New Guinea a good hit out, it is also about promoting healthy lifestyles in Papua New Guinea and the players in the side are ambassadors…
The 2012 Super League Dream Team has been announced and its hard not to look at the side and feel that it is a reflection of the plumeting standards of Super League and Rugby League in Great Britain in general. Let’s face it, this lineup wouldn’t be competitive at all in the National Rugby League….
In 1908, Rugby League in Australia and New Zealand was officially born. So too, unfortunately, was the first reported attempt to fix a game. Northerners though were always keen for a punt, however one punter attempted to go one step further to get a win. Wigan were the competition heavyweights for season 1908-09, and rightfully…
The Canberra Raiders have beaten the Cronulla Sharks 34-16 in front of 24,450 at Canberra Stadium. This was a really entertaining game to watch and early on the Raiders had it all over the Sharks. The Sharks love an arm wrestle though and for all the quality posession and field position the Raiders had, the…
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…