I didn’t offer anything particularly insightful about the North Queensland Cowboys in my season preview. For me, it seemed like all the pieces were there for them to be successful but they refused to win enough games to get out of the cellar. The team was shackled by playing former greats instead of the talented… Read More A Shallow Dive into the 2020 North Queensland Cowboys
At the start of the year, before the coronavirus pandemic and indeed time itself, I wrote The Bulldogs are behind, way behind… the Bulldogs either need significant development out of their relatively young squad or to land some signatures. Neither seem likely, especially as the club is likely to still be paying freight on players… Read More A Shallow Dive into the 2020 Canterbury Bulldogs
It wasn’t a particularly pleasant year to be a Broncos fan. I think the only upside of the experience of the club winning its first ever wooden spoon, before the likes of Manly, Wests Tigers or St George Illawarra, is that we can put to bed the idea that Sydney rugby league rivalries matter in… Read More A Shallow Dive into the 2020 Brisbane Broncos
In their infinite wisdom, the NRL introduced rule changes over the second off-season. The two major changes were to reduce from two referees to one and the six again set reset introduced for ruck infringements. In the froth over the six again, going back to one referee has almost been an afterthought but has likely… Read More The gimmicks will continue until flow improves
Just before kick-off of the Bulldogs-Dragons spoon bowl on Monday, the Warriors dropped a big press release. Contained within is an important story with a lot of implications for rugby league, so let’s go through them. For the Broncos It wasn’t that long ago that the Broncos had six feeder clubs in the Queensland Cup.… Read More The Warrior Dolphins
Take half an hour and watch this. The interesting thing about the debate is what’s missing. There’s no discussion about the purpose or meaning of Super League. There’s a large pile of cash on the table. The bigger clubs and RFL have plainly decided to accept this because they need the money more than anything… Read More Super League 2.0 is not coming
The 1956-66 St George Dragons are often cited as the greatest rugby league dynasty of all time, especially if the author of the statement is of a particular age. Unlike most received wisdom in rugby league, this seems to be hold up pretty well from whichever angle you examine it. But what of other teams… Read More The Dynasties of Rugby League
The overwhelming majority of fans get their NRL fix through the TV. An average round will attract 124,000 in the stands but 3.6 million, thirty times as many, will tune in via subscription (PTV) or free-to-air (FTA) television. TV ratings are an under-explored and critically important part of the modern game. Ratings should be a,… Read More Everything you ever wanted to know about NRL TV ratings but were afraid to ask
Did you know the world is in the grip of a pandemic? I’m not sure how you could have missed it, given that it’s all I’ve been thinking about for the past week. The vibe, right here and now on 17 March 2020, is absolutely unprecedented in my lifetime. The only two parallels I can… Read More Rugby league in the time of coronavirus
I was always vaguely aware of the Queensland Cup growing up, but only really took an actual interest in it when I started this site a couple of years ago. I became a Souths Logan fan, because that’s where I lived most of my life, and started going to games. Since then, I’ve toyed with… Read More A deep dive in to the 2020 Queensland Cup
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