International RL Blog

In general. RU people are very self confident if not arrogant and continually talk themselves and their game up despite seemingly obvious reality. It could be argued that this arrogance was the main cause of the 1895 split and the resulting chip on the shoulder of RL people who continually accentuate the negative and talk our game down. We need to be more confident, to think bigger and sell ourselves to the world This was demonstrated last weekend when Fiji defeated PNG 26-12 in yet another low key, unpublicised international. France showed us how it should be done when another good crowd of 10000+ saw France beat Scotland 46-10 in Perpignan. The potential is massive if only France could be competitive again against the top nations. It's a great pity that both Lebanon and Jamaica couldn't be included in the RL World Cup 2013 because we need some variety and exposure to new markets. The qualifying rounds were an undoubted success though and should be encouraged and e...

After their laughably inept attempt at expansion it is time for the RFL to redeem themselves and start creating some excitement  on  the field of play. In the not too distant future we have the best RL players in the world coming to the UK and playing high profile international matches at top quality stadiums. Surely we can't cock this up Not very long ago, European teams used to regularly beat Australia and NZ by out thinking them. More recently we have been content to contain by picking the same old same old players, often out of form, carrying injuries, out of position, with a track record of failure and the results have been plain to see. We need to be bold and pick some young, hungry, unpredictable players who will take the game to their opponents. We desperately need a player (or players) who will stand up to be counted and are willing to make a name for themselves. I can remember a soccer player called Gerry Armstrong who was n...