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Best of luck to him.. https://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-league/65301067.amp Isaac Nokes: The rugby league 'Geordie' chasing NRL dreams in Australia …….. "It had always been my aim, I've never really watched Super League growing up," Nokes told BBC Sport. "Super League was on satellite television and we didn't have that. "There was a streaming website which had all the NRL on, the games and the talk shows. So I just fell in love with all that.”

This is an interesting article on the geopolitics that might make a once outlandish idea genuinely feasible... https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/why-rugby-league-can-bring-peace-to-the-pacific-20230426-p5d3ht China's expansive Belt & Road initiative, buying influence and barely-hidden military reach through civilian infrastructure projects, needs to be countered by Australia if it is to have confidence in its sea route security. The soft power of an NRL team would be a very cheap way of countering this in PNGs case.

A PNG team can work and would be a good addition to the NRL. But it has to PNG only - not a generic ‘Pacific’ team. Otherwise it fall into the trap of trying to be all things to all people (and end up being not much) PNG has twice as many people as New Zealand. It doesn’t need to share a club with other Pacific nations

They will need to be competitive with almost exclusive locals, because you won’t be getting many (if any) non PNG players signing up. Do you think PNG can have a competitive home grown NRL side with a squad deep enough to go a full season? I’m not so sure. Then there’s the matter of finding them a capable head coach who will move there. Best thing for them, the Aus government and the NRL is to create another second tier league for PNG Hunters, Tonga, Samoa, Fiji Silktails, Warriors reserves and NZII. Maybe look to a third NZ side for a 24 round season. Then you have NSWRL, QRL and PRL all feeding into NRL.

Perth next and then NZ and then 20th spot can go to ...I'm not sure.

I agree, but $40m/season Government subsidy might be hard to ignore, and would be a drop in the ocean from a Govt. foreign policy perspective. They spend more than that a day on submarines, for the same strategic purpose. Stranger things have happened.

That's your complex not mine

A really good episode of WRC Highlights on ITV4 just now. The whole event of last weekend was excellently covered with the sad death of Craig Breen. Now I have channel stumbled upon "Painting Birds with Jim and Nancy Moir" on Sky Arts, definitely something I can just sit and watch without intending to.

I hadn't seen this before, but if someone's going to unexpectedly sing a tribute to you at the end of a long day, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles and Smokey Robinson are a decent trio.