Mark Gasnier has announced that he will retire at the end of the 2011 season and get on with life after football. Gasnier told the media today that he knew going into this season that it would be his last. This is Mark Gasniers first full season of Rugby League, having returned by a stint…
The NRL’s push to have a National Youth Competition for Under 20’s players has seen some very good, well prepared players come into the NRL ranks over the last few years and show they are ready for first grade right from the get go. These young players get a chance to play representative football, but…
Tim Sheens gave them every chance, but he knew, it was time for change. The West Tigers won the 2005 NRL Grand Final with a young team. Most of that team still forms the core of the current West Tigers lineup today. In the years following that Premiership win, the Tigers have had one major…
The NRL’s push to have a National Youth Competition for Under 20’s players has seen some very good, well prepared players come into the NRL ranks over the last few years and show they are ready for first grade right from the get go. These young players get a chance to play representative football, but…
They are looking to enter the NRL and provide Brisbane with a second NRL team, but the expected announcement today that they want to name that team the “Brisbane Bombers” is ignorant and short sighted. It will never be allowed to happen, and rightfully so. There is an AFL team called the Essendon Bombers. That’s…
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…
Think of this as a conspiracy theory that has a lot of pieces that fit very neatly into place… I wrote yesterday about Mal Meninga’s Ignorant Rant against everyone and everything from New South Wales. His article titled Queensland’s triumph a victory over the dirty rats of Origin was full of venom, and its got him in a lot…
You have to wonder what planet Mal Meninga is living on. Fresh off of winning a record sixth straight State Of Origin series at Queensland coach, Meninga went on a bizarre rant in his newspaper column titled Queensland’s triumph a victory over the dirty rats of Origin It was nothing short of a tirade directed at…
The Wigan Warriors forged their way to last seasons Super League title by pushing for every single edge they could possibly get over their opponents. Under the coaching of Michael Maguire they lifted their training standards, worked hard on their defense technique, and it payed off in his first season at the club with a…
The NRL’s next broadcasting deal will see a huge leap in the amount of money the game makes. By at least 2015, we will have an 18 team competition (With the addition of Perth and most likely a second Brisbane team). The deal after that, which will run between 2018 and 2023, will see further…
Queensland has wrapped up its 6th straight State Of Origin series win with a 34-24 win over New South Wales. Lets face it, the scoreline flattered New South Wales. I’ve never seen an opening half an hour to any Origin match like the one I saw in this game. Things just went Queenslands way. The…
On Sky Sports Radio this morning Peter Peters has revealed that there is unrest among the Penrith Panthers playing group. Players are said to be unhappy with the way Steve Georgallis was overlooked for the Panthers coaching position, with Ivan Cleary signed to coach the Panthers from the beginning of next season. This isn’t the…
Earlier this year the Gold Coast Titans announced that they had signed their coach, John Cartwright, to a five year contract extension that would see him coach the team until some time just after the ice caps have melted and we all live in under water cities. It was a move that raised a lot…
The New Zealand Warriors have called a press conference for Wednesday where it is expected that they will announce that Ivan Cleary will leave the club at the end of the 2011 season and take up the vacant coaching role at the Penrith Panthers next year. When people asked me who I wanted to coach…
Phil Gould was named the Penrith Panthers “general manager” with much fanfare a number of weeks ago. Soon after his appointment, Matthew Elliott was told he would no be the clubs coach beyond this season and the clubs CEO decided to “retire”. Then things went quiet… That all changed yesterday when Gould must have decided…
The second game of the 2011 State Of Origin series will be a game that I remember for a very long time. It is everything I love about sport. Witnessing a champion side face off against a team full of desire. An amazing contest. Reaching that point in the game when, both teams had proven…
Better late then never huh? So I didn’t want to comment on the “International Origin” game until I’d actually seen it. If you were scanning Twitter during the match, you will have seen how much fun I had with the match. In fact I tweeted so much, I got blocked as they were a limit…
We have passion! We’ve got the passion! Its about emotion! I’m passionate and emotional! The greatest sporting performances I have seen in my lifetime all come from cold, emotionless performances in which there was no wasted energy on emotion until the contest was well and truly over. I tend to think the New South Wales…
There is something about playing for your state or your nation that you so special. The pride, the passion, the drama, the excitement….you just can’t manufacture that. Oh wait, you can it seems! Welcome to International Origin ladies and gentlemen, the Rugby Football Leagues latest bastard creation to try and save its slow decay to…
Rugby League is a funny sport in that, it is controlled by just a few countries, and yet there is a will to have it become a true international democracy, even though there is no way in hell that will ever happen! In the past, many in England have felt that the international schedule is…
There is a lot of talk today about the Cronulla Sharks, with some wanting them axed from the competition. The first team I ever remember supporting was the Cronulla Sharks. My first favorite player was a young bloke they called “ET”. My first jersey, as a four year old, was a little Sharks jersey. I’m…
So there was a rumour doing the rounds recently that one West Tigers player was doing the sexy time thing with another players girlfriend. When it got back to the West Tigers players, apparently they had a bit of a laugh about it. However, as days passed, things started to grate on them, and as…
As I write this, Willie Mason is getting ready to play the first Rugby Union game of his life. The previous conversion record for a Rugby League players to switch codes, play a game and walk into a Rugby Union representative team had been held by Iestyn Harris at 11 days. Mason has walked straight into the…
As Queensland crossed for their first try of the opening State Of Origin game after just five minutes, it was easy to worry that New South Wales were going to be on the wrong end of a big scoreline. Considering that for the next 20 minutes of the match, Queensland dominated possession and field position,…
In 1999 the head of the ARU, John O’Neill said he would propose that the IRB give the ARU all the profits from its upcoming World Cup competition. This money would then be used to allow the ARU to “Buy Rugby League” in Australia. It was at a time of great upheaval in the game…
I’ve waited to write this article until both New South Wales and Queensland had announced their State Of Origin lineups. I think its funny that we still see NSW selecting their team ahead of QLD. I guess it comes back to the fact that the administrators of our game have been just about non existent…
I’ve written so many article about the changed that need to be made within the game of Rugby League in Great Britain. If you want to read them, go looking through the site archives. What if you started to think outside the box though? What if you stopped thinking about the basics, and went after…
The Sun newspaper in the UK today has exposed a betting scandal that for me just smacks of being the consequence of the RFL’s soft stance against betting in the past. The Sun article, written by Geoff Sweet, is an absolute beauty and is a must read. It exposes the lackadaisical attitude players within the game have…
English second rower Gareth Hock has been serving a two year drug suspension for cocaine use. Yesterday, Wigan announced that coming out of that two year suspension, they had signed Hock to a five year contract. What a disgraceful, embarrassing day, not only for Wigan Rugby League club, but for Rugby League in Great Britain…
Rugby League in Australia is about to secure a broadcasting deal that will see it earn more than $1 billion dollars over the five years of the contract. The NRL salary cap will rise by an incredible $2.7 million dollars. Two new teams will enter the competition and first grade squads will rise to 30…