News that covers Rugby League in Australia.
When an NRL club signs a highly paid player to a long term contract, they are taking a risk. It doesn’t matter who that player is or what they have done in the past, committing so much money to one player and hoping that he is still performing at a high level at the end of that deal is…
The South Sydney Rabbitohs only informed the NRL of assault allegations leveled against Ben Te’o last night, despite having said they knew about the allegations five weeks ago. This news comes as the NRL looks to establish an independent investigation into these allegations via the NRL’s own Integrity Unit. NRL CEO David Smith played a straight bat to reporters…
South Sydney will take no action against back rower Ben Te’o after allegations of domestic violence were made against him by Brisbane woman who will be the subject of a Channel 9 interview later tonight. The incident is alleged to have occurred on Friday the 19th of April after the Australia vs New Zealand test…
Brent Tate looks like he will retire as a North Queensland Cowboys after re-signing with the club through to the end of the 2014 season. With the re-signing of Jonathan Thurston soaking up a huge amount of the Cowboys salary cap space, the club is starting to look at where it can save a bit…
The NRL has announced that it will introduce a 30 second time limit on the formation of scrums in an effort to speed up the game. There will also be a change to the time limit currently applied to line drop outs, with the limit dropped from 40 seconds down to 30 seconds. These changed…
Last night’s game between Manly and Melbourne reignited the debate on whether or not golden point is a good idea. Twitter lit up with arguments saying it’s the most exciting way to decide a winner whilst others were saying it’s nothing but the penalty shoot-out of rugby league. Personally I would much rather it be…
He was a superstar at the Melbourne Storm who moved to the Brisbane Broncos on the first big deal of his career. He was a walk up start to the Queensland and Australian Rugby League teams and he looked to be set to have a record breaking career in the game. The AFL came knocking…
The New Zealand Warriors are a club with a lot of talent. That they sit in 15th place on the NRL ladder with just 2 wins in their 10 games this season is a disgrace. Last night it all culminated in an embarrassing 62-6 loss to the Ivan Cleary coached Penrith Panthers and with former Warriors player…
The National Rugby League will celebrate its annual Women In League round this weekend. On face value it is a great concept. A round of football that allows us all to focus on the contributions women make to Rugby League at all levels of the game. Then there is the fact that someone like Robert…
Benji Marshall has been named on the Wests Tigers bench for Friday nights game against the South Sydney Rabbitohs with Liam Fulton taking his place at five-eigth. It comes at a very interest time in Marshall’s career. At 28 years of age, these should be Benji Marshall’s best years. This should be the time when…
Since being fined and having his contract almost torn up a few weeks ago, Blake Ferguson has come back into the Canberra Raiders side and been in some decent form. One the weekend Ferguson tore the Newcastle Knights apart in a display that saw him dominate the entire outcome of the game. Ferguson broke the…
Rugby League coaches never lose games. Ever. There is always something that gets in the way of a Rugby League coaches perfect plan to take down the opposition. Injuries, suspensions, the terrible schedule, the rep season….there is always some reason why a coach didn’t manage to get the win. Of course, the most obvious reason coaches…
Injury prone and more trouble than he’s worth. It is not exactly the type of description you’d expect to hear about a player who, at his best, is a walk up start for the New South Wales State Of Origin team. At just 22 years of age Josh Dugan finds himself at a cross roads….
Todd Carney has re-signed with the Cronulla Sharks after turning his back on massive offers from the Penrith Panthers and New Zealand Zealand Warriors. It is believed that Carney will put pen to paper on a five year deal that will earn him around $4.5 million. The last 24 hours had been abuzz with speculation…
The whispers are getting louder and louder that Todd Carney is on the verge of leaving the Cronulla Sharks and will be playing for the Penrith Panthers in 2014. I’ve been skeptical that this was going to happen for a while now for two reasons… First of all, I think Carney is happy and settled…
It fair to say that at this point of the season, we know enough about every team in the National Rugby League to be able to make some pretty good educated guesses on where teams will finish the season. When I look back at my 2013 National Rugby League Season Preview, I feel like I…
The Canterbury Bulldogs are supposedly a “club in crisis” so often that when the media throws those three words in their direction, no one bats an eyelid any more. With a thousand stupid rumours doing the rounds and their CEO leaving in August to take up a role with the NRL, the Bulldogs were facing…
Well, well, well….it seems that Captain Chomp has finally returned to grace our football fields once more. The moment James Graham tracked down Billy Slater and went out of his way to bite the champion fullback on the ear is one I don’t think any of us will forget. To see him full of that…
Benji Marshall is at an interesting point in his career. Marshall is one of the greatest players of his era, and yet over the last few season he has found himself playing in a poor side, getting poor results, and it has without question had an effect on his form. Now comes word that Marshall…
These are the facts… An independent report was commissioned by the Cronulla Sharks into the alleged use of supplements and peptides in 2011. One of the many conclusions that this report came to was that there was the possibility that there may be a connection between the use of certain peptides and the acceleration of the condition of disease…
Canterbury Bulldogs CEO Todd Greenberg will leave his post at the Belmore based club today and take up a with role the NRL which is being described as Deputy Chief Executive of the NRL. Greenberg is expected to work under NRL CEO David Smith and will probably become the public face of the game. NRL CEO David…
With the City vs Country game now behind us we all turn our attention to the State Of Origin series. New South Wales has lost 7 series in a row. Despite talk of building a winning team we still come into the State Of Origin series with a lot of big questions hanging over the…
When Phil Gould took over the running of the Penrith Panthers Rugby League club he set about the task of rebuilding the club from the ground up. After nearly a decade of poor management the Panthers were a basket case at every single level. Gould looked to bring in a new coach and training staff,…
English born Melbourne Storm five-eighth Gareth Widdop has signed a four year deal to join the St George/Illawarra Dragons from 2014. The deal is said to be for around $500,000 per season. This is the first big name signing the Dragons have made in years. It is also a very brave move by Widdop who…
For over a decade Rugby League in Australia found itself living on a tight budget. The aftermath of the Super League War actually saw salaries shrink considerably. This was followed up by under funding after the game signed off on poor broadcasting deals, and it created a situation in which teams were spending the least amount of…
It is very rare that a terrible coach can manage to win a Premiership. It does happen from time to time (Hello Michael Hagan) but for the most part, the best coaches normally share the spoils. With the NRL salary cap strictly policed and teams not recruiting youngsters from all over the place, the biggest…
Rugby League Week is reporting that Sam Tomkins could find himself playing for the New Zealand Warriors next season. It would be an incredible move for the young Wigan fullback, a brave move. The New Zealand Warriors have the salary cap space to spend to get Tomkins. They also have a coach in place that…
St George/Illawarra Dragons half Jamie Soward has signed a four year contract with the Penrith Panthers started from 2014. I think this is a very good signing for the Panthers. Soward has a fantastic kicking game. He will bring a cool head and Premiership winning experience to the Panthers halves. It has become clear in…
This week we have seen a media backlash against the game in regards to access to players and coaches. In some ways it is understandable. I’ve talked before about the almost paranoid stance the game takes to the media at times, mostly driven by coaches. A lot has been written about Darius Boyd over this…
I can not wait for this weekends clash between the only two undefeated team in the NRL, the South Sydney Rabbitohs and the Melbourne Storm. These are the two teams I tipped to make the Grand Final. So far this season, they both seem to be set to make yet another of my predictions come…