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Steve Mascord has covered rugby league in 15 countries and worked for most media organisations that regularly feature the sport, on both sides of the globe. He started off as an 18-year-old cadet at Australian Associated Press, transferring to the Sydney Morning Herald just in time to go on the last full Kangaroos Tour in 1994. He spent three years at Sydney's Daily Telegraph from 2006 before going freelance at the conclusion of the 2008 World Cup. Steve is the author of the book Touchstones, host of the White Line Fever podcast, partner in international rugby league merchandise start-up Mascord Brownz and proprietor of rugbyleaguehub.com and hotmetalonline.com. He is married to Sarah and spends most of his time in London.
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“I said to them that if they were keeping a particular player, it was either him or me. They said ‘we invested in him…
Is this first grand final in Brisbane, or the second? Is Wayne Bennett shooting for his eighth premiership or his seventh? On Monday, my…
So the Wests Tigers are holding onto Michael Maguire. I’m pleased with that. Coaches are convenient scapegoats and on most of the occasions they…
I don’t know about you but I’m pleased to see the rugby league grand final going back to Brisbane after 24 years. I can…
IF these days it’s all about engagement – I’ve been reading today about the 'outrage economy' – then without a doubt my most successful…
After losing a sudden-death finals series match to Cronulla on a seventh tackle try in 2013, North Queensland coach Neil Henry and captain Johnathan…
As the NRL considers three applications to be the 17th team, I’ve been given cause to contemplate the ‘rise of the club’ in our…
In the wake of reports Jack de Belin was in line to be St George Illawarra’s captain this week, it’s fair to say there…
As I near the end of the writing of my book Two Tribes, about the divided 1997 season, my tiny keyhole view into the…
Transfer gossip - the blood that carries the oxygen to the heart of modern professional sports coverage - bores me to to tears. I…
You’re expecting a rant, I know. When the news broke that Australia and New Zealand had withdrawn from the World Cup, Rugby Football League…
THE rugby league we are left with when Covid is finished with us won’t be the same as the one we had in February…
The last time I was in bed and could hear people celebrating a sporting victory in the street, it was September 24, 1993. That…
The idea that ‘rugby league is dying’ has been rightly ridiculed in recent days as a baseless trope - and yet watching Melbourne excoriate…
It's traditional of this column to start each year with a state of the league address and since this will be the final piece…
Doing an interview the other day, I kind of stumbled across a question that strikes at the heart of what we like about our…
Let's talk about scrutiny in professional sports. Generally speaking, players, coaches and administrators would rather live without it. Fans like scrutiny as long as…
Should Catalans Dragons have signed Israel Folau? Should they have been allowed to sign Israel Folau? This is the water cooler discussion on both…
“Living in England,” the Screaming Jets assured us back in 1992, “I don’t have to act like I’m having fun”. Strangely, the most English…
Is it just me, or are the NRL Nines and All Stars games sneaking up on us quickly and - more worryingly - rather…
I live in the equivalent – you were using Outer Mongolia in the figurative sense I guess. The capital city of the country where the sport was born, where the sport is pretty much invisible. So I have a personal interest in it expanding … because I don’t actually have access to a fulltime professional team in a city of almost 9 million. And it’s a team from Toronto, not the north or Sydney, who seem most interested in bringing it here.
A rugby league postcard from the edge
Obviously an issue for those of us who live in Outer Mongolia, though…
A rugby league postcard from the edge
So what I’m saying is Super League need to be a bit more like the NRL and the NRL need to be a bit more like Super League – show leadership that is independent of media coverage to a greater degree than is currently the case. Good leadership on the part of the Sydney rugby union when Joe Bloggs abuses Sheila at Coogee McDonalds would be to suspend or fine him even if no-one particularly cares. And if the Sydney rugby union podcast was to call them for comment, to say Joe Bloggs has been stood down. I think this Albert Kelly example is helpful in exposing the over-reach in the southern hemisphere and the under-reach in the northern. That’s my point, put another way. Cheers.
If a tree abuses someone at McDonald's and no-one is there to see it...
I think one way is this: he’s gonna do a deal with the Super League clubs – he doesn’t want a share of the TV money. But when the TV money comes in from the US and Canada, he gets the first X million. If the New Zealand Warriors had done a deal like that, they’d be rolling in cash now. He’s not gonna make a profit unless he makes a series of genius moves that set the standards for team owners to follow.
An Easter Monday resurrection for rugby league expansion?
None if it is going to work. You’re right. It’s just better than nothing. In rugby league, we’re used to nothing.
The compelling evidence that rugby league is going backwards
Here’s the link http://www.rlwc2017.com/news/england-and-nz-set-play-annual-mid-season-test
NRL: Where Test matches are meaningless and trials on suburban ovals are essential
They don’t have to care. They just have to observe the convention of releasing players for internationals.
NRL: Where Test matches are meaningless and trials on suburban ovals are essential
It’s not an exhibition because as soon as the Anzac Test died, England and New Zealand announced they would play on the Origin weekend for as long as there was an origin weekend. The 2025 World Cup is in the US and Canada. The consortium then bid a million bucks, one tenth of what they are paying for the entire world cup, to host this pre-arranged international. The event was conceived long before the venue. Two sovereign rugby league nations – one in the northern hemisphere – should be able to play an international where they chose during an international window.
NRL: Where Test matches are meaningless and trials on suburban ovals are essential
Soccer clubs do it regularly. The Socceroos fly in one day, play, fly out the next? Yet our tiny sport, which SHOULD be desperate to for the slightest foothold in a new market, is too big and professional to let players go to the international terminal. Please.
NRL: Where Test matches are meaningless and trials on suburban ovals are essential
What makes it an exhibition? We have three other internationals on the same day at Campbelltown. Does the NRL market them as exhibitions? England is where the game was born and New Zealand invented international rugby league. Yet clubs in a third country stop them playing in a fourth country on a weekend where those clubs have no competition. It’s friggin outrageous!
NRL: Where Test matches are meaningless and trials on suburban ovals are essential
Nat, many, many soccer clubs are much bigger businesses than NRL clubs. They realise their own players aren’t theirs during a fifa window. They realise that if you’re a serious sport those players leave on a Monday and can go anywhere in the world during that FIFA window. Yet piss-in-the-ocean rugby league clubs in Australia think they can dictate where internationals are played….
NRL: Where Test matches are meaningless and trials on suburban ovals are essential
Plenty of people in the south of England … people who have no idea what a Castleford or a Leigh are. If you spent any time in London you’d realise why international footy is so important here. Rugby league is utterly invisible except when it’s on, when miraculously 15,000 or 20,000 people will show up to an event in one of the world’s great cities and broadsheet newspapers give it half a page.
NRL: Where Test matches are meaningless and trials on suburban ovals are essential
In any real sense, there is no RLIF because they only get the players once every four years. They have one full time employee in an office below street level in Fitzrovia. The clubs and the national federations don’t want a tangible RLIF so there isn’t one. Forget them.
NRL: Where Test matches are meaningless and trials on suburban ovals are essential
I don’t understand your obsession with club games.
NRL: Where Test matches are meaningless and trials on suburban ovals are essential
I think Jarryd is facing the media today at training.
Did Jarryd Hayne warrant a side-door exit from Sydney Airport?
I would. Honestly. I would not take the side door.
Did Jarryd Hayne warrant a side-door exit from Sydney Airport?
I admit I may over-rely on this churlish line to respond to criticism BUT here is what I believe to be a valid distinction: some weeks I can’t wait to sit down and bash out a comment on something or other and I’m grateful for the platform. The money is not in my head at all. Others, I have to search around for a topic because I don’t really have any ideas. You are aware of lacklustre records being called “contract fillers”? This column was more of a contract filler than a passionate monologue. So it is actually not true that collecting some pocket money is my motivation every week …
Who cares what Eddie Jones thinks?
I am being challenged over my motivation for writing a column. My motivation was that it was the first issue this week that elicited a cogent opinion in me and that if I didn’t write about it I would not get paid. That is the most honest answer I can provide. I don’t know what else to say. That’s the reason I did it. I try to be honest in the columns and honest here. What else CAN I say without being dishonest?
Who cares what Eddie Jones thinks?
Simple. I realise I am in the minority in the way I feel about Australian sports teams. Having spent a lot of time in the UK I realise the opportunities and exposure international competition provides for rugby league there. It’s invisible without it. I don’t cheer for a team or a country but I cheer rugby league against other sports and international competition helps rugby league climb the “competition table” of sports. Appealing to the likes of me won’t help rugby league at all.
Who cares what Eddie Jones thinks?
You might find this interesting http://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2016/06/08/eddie-jones-outdoes-himself-with-sam-burgess-rugby-league-slur/
Who cares what Eddie Jones thinks?
I don’t mind being called un-Australian. Not at all. On the occasions that I feel patriotism, it has rarely has anything to do with sport. I just can’t make the emotional leap towards letting any pride I have in where I’m from put itself on the line for the result of a game. I identify more with those of similar interests than those with the same nationality.
Who cares what Eddie Jones thinks?
I went to Twickenham on Saturday for the Sevens. Great day!
Don't worry about rugby league's big issues - just read the tea leaves