A harsh, cold dose of reality. The 2008 World Cup was supposed to be a turning point for English Rugby League. It was the competition where reality set it and expectations had been reset. The catastrophic performance of the English side, which saw them barely beat Papua New Guinea, thrashed by Australia, and then easily…
So the report is in, and….wait for it….wait for it…. The Melbourne Storm broke the salary cap by a whole lot! The false outrage today has been a bit ridiculous really. We knew the Storm broke the Salary cap. We knew they had broken it by millions of dollars over the course of the last…
When I first heard that Timana Tahu had left the NSW cap for personal reasons, I was a bit confused. When I heard he had left after being upset at something Andrew Johns had said, I thought it was a piss weak move. It them came out that Andrew Johns had made a racist remark…
Samoa will make an application to the Rugby League International Federation to host a World Nines competition in 2012, an area of the international calender that is seen as a bit of a dead spot in the lead in to the 2013 World Cup. Its a nice idea, and it has seen some within the…
Did you see that? Down in the bottom right hand corner. Yeah, down there. No…not there…over a bit. Oh yeah, that’s the spot! In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, this incredible web site just clicked over to register its 1,000,000th hit! Imagine how sick that makes some people! Its been an…
Brett Kimmorley has had a fantastic career. A Premiership winner, a State Of Origin veteran, a Test player, there are very few things Kimmorley has not won over the course of his amazing career. There is one thing though that I’m sure he would change if he got the chance. Newcastle Knights, Hunter Mariners, Melbourne…
Well no doubt by now you have heard the news. Brisbane Broncos winger Israel Folau has decided to sign an incredible $6,000,000 contract to play AFL for the next four years. Good on him, he must be kicking himself! The AFL is desperate to break into Western Sydney and this is the avenue they have…
The idea has been around for longer than most people think. Hell, its been done before, just not in our lifetime. The Australian Rugby League team, the mighty Kangaroos, taking on the Australian rugby union team, you know, the ones that wear a mustard coloured jersey and don’t win much of anything. The concept of…
A lot of the time when a Super League club appoints a head coach, its basically just giving the job to the next guy in line. Many of the coaches in Super League, the English ones, are bloody terrible. Guys that love the sport, they want to continue making a living out of the sport,…
Where there is smoke, there is usually fire. Only 12 months ago, all and sundry would have told you that the Gold Coast Titans were the gold standard of how an NRL team should be set up and run. A brand new stadium was in place. The local community was behind the team. The club…
In the Sydney print media there is basically two different camps. In one corner you have Fairfax, they own the Sydney Morning Herald. In the other corner, you have News Limited. They own the Sydney Daily Telegraph. They have always been at each others throats in a petty game of back and forth snide remarks….
The Melbourne Storm are in the almost impossible situation where by they have to shed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of player contracts, that they are 100% committed to having to pay, in order to be under the salary cap for the start of the 2011 NRL season. The Storm tend to have a…
Darren Lockyer is upset. Darren Lockyer doesn’t like whats going on. Darren Lockyer wants things changed. Darren Lockyer is emo! The Sydney Telegraph is reporting today that Darren Lockyer Thinks The Dragons Deal For Mark Gasnier is unfair. He doesn’t like the fact that the Dragons are looking to sign Gasnier for around $50,000 for the remainder…
You’re probably wondering why I have yet to write anything about the news that Mark Gasnier is looking to get out of French Rugby Union and now wants to come back and play in the NRL with the St George/Illawarra Dragons. Its basically because I don’t care either way. Gasnier left the Dragons mid contract…
The Australian Kangaroos have beaten the World Champions New Zealand Kiwi’s 12-8 in torrential rain at Melbourne’s AAMI Park. It was the first game played at AAMI Park, Melbourne’s brand new rectangular pitched stadium, and the rain thrashed down for the full 80 minutes. The pitch itself must have been incredible to take the battering…
You will probably have noticed that the grumbles are starting to grow about Sam Burgess and his decision to not turn out for England’s mid season Test Match against France. The two other English players taking part in the NRL, Gareth Ellis and Mark Flanagan, both play for the West Tigers and both have made…
You probably noticed I didn’t post the lineups for the City vs Country game that will be played on Friday Night at the same time as the Australia vs New Zealand Test match. I haven’t looked at the lineups in any depth, I don’t know where the game is played (I have a feeling its…
Well Australia face the World Champion New Zealand Kiwi’s this Friday night down in Melbourne. It will be the first event held at Melbourne brand new rectangular stadium that will become the home of the Melbourne Storm. Looking at both lineups, I don’t think either team has gone out to experiment too much. Both teams…
Lets start off by saying, I love the Melbourne Storm. I personally hope they can keep their core together, surround them with minimum wage youngsters and come back in 2011 and win the comp. I think they may at least be forced to lose one of their top players, which is unfortunate. As you look…
They were once one of the NRL’s powerhouse clubs. The team everyone else wanted to be like, and yet over the last decade the Canberra Raiders have found themselves having to make do. Struggling with financial problems and unable to attract big name players, the club looked at taking a different direction. Sure it caused…
Its a little ironic that a sport founded on the basis of an open market for players and compensating players for the time and effort they put into the game not finds itself in a position where it tightly regulates what players are worth and shouts down any attempts for a player to earn as…
In 2010 the Melbourne Storm find themselves $700,000 over the 2010 salary cap and that figure is expected to climb over the next few seasons if the Storm were to keep the side they have. David Gallop has already said he will not accept players taking mass pay cuts to keep the side together as…
When Israel Folau exploded onto the Rugby League scene, you got the feeling that he could be anything. A huge center for the Melbourne Storm, he made a name for himself with his high flying leaps, catching kicks from Cooper Cronk, and being an amazing athlete. Ironically because of salary cap restraints, and a desire…
It was the end. You just had to ask the hacks in the media who were quick to point out that they had nothing to play for, no one cared anyway, and we might as well just forget Melbourne, the second largest city in Australia, and look to Gosford, the…..well, Gosford. A funny thing happened…
A salary caps job is to do two things. First and foremost, its designed to stop clubs spending more than they can afford. When the salary cap has not been in effect in sports, you see clubs falling over chasing dreams they simply can not afford. The second thing a salary cap does is even…
Sometimes it can feel like its a bit of a meat market, and while most players make good, sound decisions, others base their decisions on the wrong factors. I’ve always been a big believer on sticking with something good. When the magic is happening, when everything is going great, don’t leave a club for big…
There is something very special about players who play out their entire career at one club. It feel right. You see them come into first grade as a youngster, follow the highs and lows of their career. You see them reach their peak, playing brilliant football, and then they face the battles that come with…
Obviously the Melbourne Storm are under the pump at the moment and you will find a lot of the good old fashioned Rugby League alarmists talking about the complete demise of the club. That would be great for the game, we could then look to expand the comp in 15 years time and wonder why…
The Melbourne Storm have deceitfully breached the NRL salary cap over a total of five years. They over spent $1.7 million dollars over five years that they filtered through a second set of books that they did not submit to the NRL. As a result, the NRL has stripped the Melbourne Storm of two NRL…
After a much publicized world wide search the Rugby Football League has announced that Steve McNamara is the man to coach England into the next World Cup. Damn….. The Rugby Football League have been comical in the way they have appointed coaches over the last decade. Ask yourself this, if the Great Britain/England team was…