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Catalans triumph: Rugby league takes another tentative couple of steps forward

27th August, 2018
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Would abolishing the salary cap help recently successful teams like the Catalans Dragons? (Photo by Christopher Lee/Getty Images)
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27th August, 2018
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Because I don’t support an NRL club, my favourite days at the rugby league tend to be the games in which the sport seems to have taken a step forward.

After the Kiwis won the 2005 Tri-Nations, ending a 27-year run of Australia winning everything on offer in 13-a-side matches, I partied long into the night and even tried kava for the first time.

The 2008 World Cup final seemed to prove that win had not been a fluke and I regard being there as a great honour, as it was to witness that amazing Tonga-England RLWC semi last year and be at Toronto Wolfpack’s first ever home game.

John Bateman fends Konrad Hurrell during the Rugby League World Cup.

(Photo: Fiona Goodall/Getty Images)

And seeing rugby league goalposts standing tall on a famous NFL stadium in June was something to behold for a trainspotter like me.

And I got the same vibe on Saturday, sitting in the stands as a spectator at Wembley as Catalans lifted the Challenge Cup with a very tense 20-14 win over Warrington.

The crowd was the smallest for a Cup final since the war; but interestingly, an Aussie friend who knows little about the English game said to be afterwards: “Wow, they got 50,000!”

Objectively, how many would you expect a rugby league game between a team from Greater Manchester and another from the south of France to attract in London?

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Be that as it may, the game needs to do better and I’m reasonably sure it will, as discussed in last week’s column.

The point I want to make is that things are moving forward in rugby league – and in a direction which which we ‘league lefties’ should find agreeable. The more upset the traditionalists get, often the better things are.

While Catalans’ victory will be good for the game in its southern France strongholds, it was still a fair way down the front page of national sports paper L’Equipe on Saturday night. It’s not going to make a huge difference nationally.

Catalans lift the Challenge Cup (Photo by Christopher Lee/Getty Images)

But what it is, is a blow to the like of former Salford owner Marwan Koukash who claimed on Twitter before the match that Catalans “bring nothing to “our rugby league”.

Your rugby league is now their rugby league Marwan. The Challenge Cup has left Yorkshire and Lancashire for only the second time since 1895.

With every couple of steps forward, there will be a step back – especially for a sport that still struggles to engage “the big end of town”.

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Denver Test promoter Jason Moore seems to be having trouble paying his bills – and this must call into question his involvement in the 2025 World Cup in North America.

That, in turn, must cast doubt over the tournament being held there at all – although a World Cup for US$10 million when you get to keep all the TV money is bargain basement in anyone’s language and there’s a lot of rich people in North America.

Likewise, the sluggishness around organising this Tonga-Australia Test is frustrating.

Remember the NRL’s big complain about Denver was that it was supposedly “last minute”? Ha!

In the next couple of years we can expect to see Toronto in Super League, Catalans become more of a force, Tonga continue its rise and the NRL have their own shot at the North American market.

Rugby league is still a pimple on the bum of world sport. But the sport spent decades shrinking. It’s only when the heartlands began to feel the squeeze that it began to scan the horizon once more.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Invention is always a good thing.

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