He had a brain for rugby league, creative, speedy, successful and spent most of his life with a bullet in his chest. He was Duncan Thompson. Thompson was born in Warwick, Queensland on March 14, 1895. He joined the Australian Bank of Commerce in 1911. While at Ipswich he represented Combined Country in 1913 and…
You know, 18kms isn’t very far. That is the distance between Manly and the Sydney Football Stadium. I’m the first to say that the Sydney Football Stadium isn’t the best place to get to if you don’t live in inner Sydney. I have made the journey there many times before to watch NRL games, State…
Bradford Bulls prop Craig Kopczak withdrew from the Bulls squad before the clubs final game of the regular season against the Catalan Dragons. The move was an effort to have his contract terminated with the ailing club and it is thought that next season he will link up with the Huddersfield Giants, a move that…
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…
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…