International RL Blog

"At Last" was a famous song by Etta James very much associated with the civil rights movement and was used as part Barak Obama first inauguration. Beyonce famously sang a cover version at Glastonbury. While the start of the 2012 Rugby League season can't can't claim the same historical significance as Obama's inauguration and no player has legs like Beyonce we are seeing a welcome innovation. AT LAST an effort is being made to market rugby league The Bradley Wiggins and Sam Tomkins clip produced by SKY was fantastic. CLICK HERE to see it AND the Rugby League of Extraordinary People footage was shown during the FA Cup games on ITV  

England/GB have not won a major international RL tournament for forty one years but after their performance against NZ on Saturday who knows For once the English players lived up to their potential and reproduced club form. They have improved week by week and showed confidence, aggression, control and discipline. The bounce of the ball admittedly went their way and for once they got a fair shout off the referee. If they can continue this against Australia maybe just maybe Everybody was magnificent but I would single out Ben Westwood for his 100% commitment and effort. NZ played with spirit as you would expect but the partisan Hull crowd made a big contribution and acted as an eighteenth man. Another neutral referee did a good job, NZ can have few if any complain and coach Stephen Kearney accepted the defeat with dignity. It bothers me that somebody like Gareth Carvel who had a great season for Warrington but has not played for five weeks must've found it very di...

I'm still unhappy with the "Exiles" name and would prefer "ANZAC XIII" or even "Other Nationalities. I don't like the "International Origin" title either because it most definitely is not an "International" or an "Origin" match. Despite these reservations, I thought the International Origin Match was reasonably entertaining although it seemed quite shallow and false but a reasonable crowd meant that it could be judged as a success. As always happens in internationals, the play the balls were much slower than normal and I don't understand why this should be so. It produced a close scoreline and an exciting match but all the players involved are used to playing SL interpretations and this should have continued. The Exile Dad Army were more committed than I expected and gave England the tough game they were looking for although the defeat will not impress our Australian and NZ opponents who will field much stronger (an...