Copa

2 of them. Diehard near stadium Australia in Sydney. One other person who I recognised from a photo on here. I saw him at millennium stadium in Cardiff and went up and introduced myself. He remembered me from the forum and we had a quick chat. For the life of me I now forget his username on here!

A 1:0 final score. That’s unusual! https://www.bulldogs.com.au/news/2023/04/29/bulldogs-fall-agonisingly-short-in-harvey-normans-womens-premiership-final/

If I was single I’d go in a heartbeat to play NRL in PNG. (in the real world I’m too old, too athletically unskilled and would never get an offer)

You underestimate how ambitious NRL players and those wanting to crack the NRL are… I know quite a few people who have worked there for years and am across the issues. Look PNG may not be for you, but many people enjoy the challenge and opportunity.

I’ve read it will still be on kayo sports, in addition to 9, and I’ll be watching it there.

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.”

Why wouldn’t many non png players sign up? Any NRL club will have RL players desperate to join. Now some with multiple offers may choose to be based in Australia if the money was close but there’ll still be a stream of super ambitious RL players looking for an opportunity to play in any NRL team that will have them. I suspect they’ll just be in a more extreme version of Canberra’s situation in that it’s hard to attract some players to the NRL’s only inland team and it might be harder again to attract some players to PNG.

An article from 2021 when V’landys says they are looking at options for getting US gambling money .. they’ve been working on this for a while. V’landys is never one to stand still. https://amp.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/nrl-considering-plan-to-cash-in-on-legalised-sports-gambling-in-the-us-20211012-p58zcl.html

That’s great coverage! It’s a shame the women’s soccer World Cup has interfered with smooth NRLW stadium access though…

V’landys is well connected in the gambling industry and i have no doubt this is all connected to trying to get a foot in the door of the US sports gambling industry.

The articles in the media here say it was being developed well before the current situation with union wanting a player or two. Some media, however, will try to build it as a counter attack to get hits.

Looks interesting… (The ARU boss, Hamish McLennan, seems to be desperately trying to get as much controversy and media coverage he can get out of this) https://amp.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/nrl-s-planned-1m-salary-cap-relief-for-clubs-to-raid-argentina-south-africa-and-usa-20230423-p5d2mr.html

In some of the bigger classes there are 100 plus women and around 3 or 4 men. I’m some of the smaller classes I’m the only guy.

I’ve done a few yoga sessions a week for quite a few months now and I’ve not had a back ache since I started. I must admit I had some particularly unreconstructed views about yoga over the decades. My physiotherapist suggested I give it a try so I did. Initially it was significantly harder than I anticipated but I’m slowly becoming more comfortable with it. I’m still experimenting with the different styles of yoga and am slowly settling on particular teachers and techniques. I feel sooooo much better and now regret not starting years ago.

That’s absolutely brilliant!

Wet and rainy here in Canberra. Not looking good for a decent crowd here.

I’d love for gambling sponsorship to be banned here in Australia. Promoting gambling on family television and at family events is appalling.

The entire article at the link indicates they have a lot of ambition. Junior pathways for males and females and increasing levels of professionalism. If they pull this off they’ll be a significant force in rugby league.

That was good to see. The Raiders players stayed on the pitch for ages after FT and even went into the stands. Foxtel seemed to enjoy it as they got to interview a stream of Raiders players as the most of the Broncos had already disappeared.

The camera work in the shadows needs a bit of work. It was really dark at times.

I played high school varsity football in the US and we trained 2 hours a day five days a week after school during season and also had a weights session every day during the school day as one of our “classes”. Some schools trained a lot more than that. We would smash our helmets into other players all the time. There was no concern at all for our brain health.. they didn’t care at all and we were just high school students. While there are some people who will change processes based on the science as it comes through, there are plenty of others who will only change processes under the threat of lawsuits. It will be interesting to see how it all develops within rugby league.

A few days ago one of the other commenters on with him said something along the lines of “have you seen what fans are saying about you online? Looks like quite a few are misspelling your surname too”

It’s helped give us great Fijian wingers…

Not exactly a glamorous name…

An NRL GF would easily sell out in Melbourne or Perth. The last state of origin match in Perth sold out easily.