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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

Same as being able to have a few glasses of wine without it turning into a bottle of vodka a day starting when you wake up. Or being able to have a joint without becoming a crack addict. Some people can manage it, others not so much.

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.

Yes, I agree with your sentiment, but I fear that the recent developments in the USA won’t help over here, as social, economic and political trends do tend to get followed as you know.

I personally enjoy small stakes/high odds gambling on sport and feel like I can ringfence it with the rest of my life with weekly gambling limits and other control mechanisms. I use an online account with strict limits and use the various dashboard options to monitor what I’m doing, how long I’m doing it for as well as how much I’m winning or losing. However, I have on a personal level seen it affect at least person very adversely particularly when they saw it as having money making potential which obviously it doesn’t.

I can't remember whether moral pressure or legislation forced them to stop alcohol and tobacco. Probably the latter.

if people want to drink they will get drink somehow - if they want to take drugs they will get them - if they need to gamble they will do it somehow = whether through a smartfone app or sitting round a poker table in a casino or a tap room pub bookie - ban this ban that wont change a thing - when I grew up all the sporting events were sponsored by tobacco companies - never made me feel like taking up smoking and never did

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

They took the game Darwin, was a sell-out

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've put up a blog article on NRL attendances to celebrate the amazing they are so far. https://rugbyl.blogspot.com/2023/04/nrl-attendances-2023-rounds-1-8.html

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.

I don’t think sport in the UK is going to move away from betting companies whatever the moral argument. If you look at the trade winds coming from the USA (usually indicative of trends coming to the UK at a later date) then sadly more and more of their sports broadcasting is incorporating gambling in a pretty active fashion. I wouldn’t be too surprised to see more and more odds graphics and commentary discussions about gambling odds on our sporting events. I would like to be wrong but professional sport has a never ending thirst for boosting income streams that never seems to get quenched.