International RL Blog

The SL play-offs are under way and and should be the pinnacle of the UK domestic season. Unfortunately, three out of the four matches played so far have been one-sided non-events in front of relatively poor crowds, with one in particular spoiled by inconsistent refereeing. An obvious contrast can be made with the NRL play-offs which have been wonderful.     Since the SL Grand Final was initiated, only five teams have taken part including the big four of Bradford, Leeds, St Helens and Wigan plus Hull. Three of these teams are still in contention despite the salary cap and licencing regulations which says very little about progress being made. All neutral supporters should cheer for Warrington & Catalans It has recently been announced that Jack Reed of the Brisbane Broncos and Chris Heighrington of West Tigers will play for England in the upcoming Four Nations along with Gareth Widdup of Melbourne Storm. They are good players and I don't blame Steve McNamara ...

Canada 18  USA  16     Markham, Ontario Canada RL received a big boost when the Wolverines secured a stunning, first-ever win over the USA in their Colonial Cup clash in Toronto. Canada, for whom Matt Gleed was outstanding until forced off with injury, triumphed 18-16 in front of an ecstatic crowd, in a match televised on national television as part of the second annual Sports Day in Canada. It was their first success over their neighbours since matches started between them in 1993. The decisive penalty for the hosts was kicked by 20 year old Harlequins second rower Louis Robinson after Canada led 12-6 at halftime and they eventually outscored the visitors by four tries to three. Louis Tulio, Michael Garvey and Ian Elliott crossed for the Tomahawks, Garvey converting two of the tries. For Canada, Danny Tupou and Robin Legault were their try-scorers. CLICK HERE  for more info

RL has been sanitised to the point where at times it is difficult to recognise it as the same tough game played just a few years ago. Let's face facts and be realistic, RL is a contact sport and tempers are bound to become frayed at times but by and large it is honest which is more than other bigger sports (e.g. soccer) can say. I do not condone fighting or bad behaviour but unfortunately we have let media organisations (SKY and News Corp preaching to us?) impose their inconsistent standards upon us and our sport has lost some of it's character. Those same media organisations (certainly in the UK) now ignore us because we are obviously not interesting enough

Hull FC coach Richard Agar will be leaving his post at the end of the season and this could potentially be embarrassing for the club as they are just coming into a run of form. According to their SL license application Hull FC are top four team and they are certainly a  big club who should be doing better than scraping into the play-offs. Their new owner will have big expectations and will expect players performances on the field of play to at least match the performance of their administrators although appointing serial loser Shaun MacRae is not a good start It must be a massive cause for concern at the RFL that Featherstone Rovers (a good RL team) can comprehensively beat SL elect side Widnes (good at paperwork) twice in recent weeks. As was widely predicted, Toulouse have resigned from the RL Championship and rejoined the French Elite.     This makes sense and they are rejoining a competition which could and should be at least equal in stature to the RL C...