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With the on-field action taking a back seat during the summer months, the headlines of the rugby league off-season are usually taken up with transfer talk, expansion talk, rule change talk and fixture announcements, all the while mixed in with a splash of player misadventure.
With limited opportunity for international rugby league to be played before next year’s World Cup, the Exiles look set to be brought back from an eight-year hiatus for a mid-year clash with England.
The domestic season in the southern hemisphere might be done and dusted, but we’re only just getting to the business end of what has been a bizarre season in the English Super League.
In Round 3, the NRL boldly introduced changes to how ruck infringements are policed and reduced the number of on-field referees from two to one.
After a weekend of runaway victories last week, Round 6 saw three matches decided by two points or less, the first extra-time finish of the season and a major boil-over. Here’s how it all unfolded.
Round 5 of the English Super League saw four of the six matches decided by 20 points or more, with Leeds, St Helens and Wigan all flexing their muscles, while Warrington and Huddersfield both received a heavy dose of reality.
The World Club Challenge might have taken centre stage, but there was plenty of other rugby league action in the old dart over the weekend.
Round 3 saw heavyweights Wigan and Saints return to form as a couple of upstarts from the early rounds were cut down to size, while the Wolfpack remain at the foot of the ladder. Here’s how the action unfolded.
As the NRL sides toil away over the Aussie summer preseason the English Super League is already back in full swing.
It’s Round 24 of the A-League and with the whirlwind of the finals that is about to descend on the fortuitous top six, a much different prospect for the bottom four beckons.
I’m guessing if Hunt plays a match this season this sets a record for longest time between first grade outings. Larry Corrowa is the only other player I can think of that comes close with 9 years in between drinks
Karmichael Hunt set for shock Broncos return
Seibold coming to the Broncs in ’19 was an awful call on so many levels. Given the dumpster fire that Bennett’s exit from the club was, Walters could’ve been the ideal person to unite the club at the time. His job would’ve been a whole different story – he would’ve inherited a side that finished 2 points off a minor premiership, had a functional (and relatively successful) halves pairing of Milford and Nikorima, and a balance of youth and experienced players who were still putting in – Minor tweaks vs embedded systemic issues the club now faces. Seibold on the other hand could’ve taken Souths even further than prelim final if he had decided to have a second year with a settled squad, and at the very least still probably a first grade coach
Don’t sell your Brisbane Broncos shares just yet
Good call Randy, sad to see they ended their points drought with a win over my Broncos
Seven talking points from NRL Round 4
Can anyone enlighten me on the last time a team notched a duck egg for 3 weeks straight?
Seven talking points from NRL Round 4
I think a lot of sports fans in Oz forget it’s the exception rather than the rule to have such relatively even competition given most of our leagues have a salary cap and finals series to square things up. Having a couple of dominant sides isn’t necessarily as big a deal as certain commentators would like to make out either – if you look at the German Bundesliga for example, Bayern Munich have been champions for 8 seasons straight and are looking likely to make it a 9th, but is still (pre-covid) the best attended football league in the world
Don’t like it? Play better
I don’t have so much of an issue about whether my team (Broncos btw) plays 10 games or 11 games against the top 8 sides, given some of the placings will no doubt change (eg Roosters look fairly likely to go down a few spots this year after losing Keary) and we already have a bit of a leveller already with Origin and salary cap. But the scheduling is pretty questionable, with upcoming games against the Storm, Rabbitohs, Panthers and the Eels over the next 4 weeks, our season could be as good as over by round 7 and could see a real drop off in fan interest (unless we have another coaching crisis to fill the void). I think the NRL’s biggest issue with the draw is transparency, they need some sort of measure to communicate to fans why the draw is as it is and why their team has to play so many games against top/bottom sides
Seriously, who creates the NRL schedule and by what metric do they rank the teams?
Can’t say I get the anti-Wayne vitriol at Newcastle. He took the Dad’s army approach and it actually kind of worked- he’s the only coach to get the Knights to a prelim final in 20 years, end of the day Wayne’s not necessarily the one dottting I’s and crossing T’s on back-ended contracts of ageing players, and he wasn’t the one that lost a mining largesse either. Maybe I’m comparing apples and oranges here but a fairly cash-strapped Cronulla had a huge crisis with ASADA in 2012 and still managed to win a premiership 4 years later and be mostly competitive throughout that time – why couldn’t the Knights manage to do the same?
How Darius Boyd broke the Broncos
Fun round 2 fact – the 2 QLD based fixtures outdrew the 6 NSW based fixtures. Given the shoddy weather and that Sydney fans are hesitant at the best of times about attending live footy maybe the NRL could have looked at dropping ticket prices for the weekend to get a few more fans through the gate
Eight talking points from NRL Round 2
Crow I know you’re hurting like a lot of us Broncos fans are but it’s a bit of a stretch to pin the loss of Fifita on Boyd. Many a player has signed with the Broncos for unders because of the success that staying there would bring, but Fifita saw the club for the basket case it was and took the money elsewhere – good luck to him. Same with Boyd – the club took the risk of offering him a four year contract when he turned 30 and he took it and again good luck to him – and he definitely wasn’t the only overpaid underperforming player in their ranks last year. As for Friday’s loss, I doubt Fifita would have made much difference to the result – you can have as many hard running forwards as you like (and the Broncs already have quite a few on their books) but if you can’t do the basics like complete your sets then you haven’t got much hope
How Darius Boyd broke the Broncos
Good question, as an ex Wallabies captain he’s probably up there with Messenger in giving rugby league the credibility it needed to get up and running. Point about leading a kangaroo tour is an interesting one, if we assess Cam’s career his international career adds relatively little to his immortal claim, but for guys like McKivatt and Halloway they’re potentially playing more Kangaroo fixtures than club matches in some seasons, how much more weight to do you then place on rep achievements over club career for the time period?
The next rugby league Immortal
Arthur Halloway would have to go pretty close for the next immortal, 7 premierships as a player, 8 as coach, had a 15 year rep career and went on the first Kangaroos tour. Had a playing weight of 63 kilos and known for playing a match after losing a finger in a work accident on the morning of the game
The next rugby league Immortal
Cheers Matth, amazing story, so he had a bit of a track record then. “most of the rear-guard had fingered the ball during smart, short passing gallops” – I think I remember that one from your BRL series, classic line
A look back as rugby league looks ahead to a post-pandemic world
Thanks KenW, gotta love that about about rugby league, not many other sports go for the mid-season rule tweak
A look back as rugby league looks ahead to a post-pandemic world
Thanks Paul, I’d love to find that one out myself, there’s definitely got to be a good story behind it
A look back as rugby league looks ahead to a post-pandemic world
Thanks Tony, some of the lines from back then were brilliant, another one I read but didn’t have room for was the Balmain secretary describing his side as having ‘good knowledge of the game and avoirdupois’- apparently he meant a big forward pack
A look back as rugby league looks ahead to a post-pandemic world
I think you hit the nail on the head about being endeared to the battler – I mainly started following league when the Crushers came along
A look back as rugby league looks ahead to a post-pandemic world
Have to agree with your point on inside outside centers, watched a replay of origin 1 ’94 recently and the sight of the Pearl and Big Mal combining on the same side of the pitch warmed the heart
Remembering the 1986 Kangaroos
Didn’t say that it wasn’t, only trade off is that the game is turning its back on an opportunity to spread its wings
The 17th NRL team? There’s only one answer
Interesting to see how insular expansion in both the NRL and Super League has become. After a few decades of spreading the wings of the game by adding teams in expansion territories such as Melbourne, Auckland, Perth, Townsville, Toronto and Southern France, the ESL has just added yet another team on the M62 with Leigh Centurions, while the NRL is looking to add to its safe territory of SE Qld. Not saying it’s a good or bad thing, but an interesting development in rugby league expansion. Curiously the junior partner, the ESL with arguably more at stake copped some criticism for taking the safer vanilla option to swap Toronto for Leigh, whereas the NRL’s decision seems to get a lot of backing because it looks a safe bet to generate more TV coin
The 17th NRL team? There’s only one answer
John I vaguely remembered this story too, his name was Kerry Gibson, he played lower grades for Wests in the 80s but never cracked first grade before heading over to England where he played for Runcorn
The forgotten players: Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks
Have to agree Gray-Hand and I’d also argue ongoing attitude issues stemming from the coaching mess in ’18/19 played a major part too. The wheels were already well and truly falling off throughout 2019 with a number of thumping defeats where they just didn’t turn up switched on to play. There’s too much talent there on paper for them to be competing for successive spoons and outside of recruiting Cam Smith I don’t see the Broncos turning these things around much just by going on a signing spree, which simply isn’t in the club’s DNA anyway
The Broncos have one hand on the 2021 wooden spoon
Absolutely, Corrowa’s one try in two games for the Coast gave him a very handy strike rate 😛
Karmichael Hunt set for shock Broncos return