The Rocket

SP I can`t always help but feel with your posts sometimes there is a little bit of schadenfreude towards Rugby League in this country, do you do the same on the fumbleball forums, probably not - there I`ll answer for you.

Yeah got me thinking that maybe I`m just so tuned out of A-League that possibly there has been articles but they just haven`t registered when browsing through the sports` pages headlines. Very concerning for the soccer though that lack of cut through.

I was shocked when I saw on the news the other night that the A-League comp had been running for several weeks, the lack of media coverage is quite astounding, and that`s from someone who reads two papers a day and watched the news on Tv.

The greatest problem for me with the Challenge has that it has seemed to encourage more knock-on calls from the referees, knowing that if they`ve made an error, the captain of the team that the call was made against can challenge it and it will be overturned. It`s so easy now for ref`s to call knock-on for this reason and it`s a blight to the flow of the game. I`m sure it wasn`t designed so ref`s can abrogate responsibility for making definitive knock-on calls. Other than that abuse, I think it can add to the drama and I haven`t minded it.

Basically what you`re saying: “The NRL needs to be looking for athletic, powerful athletes,” said NRL sports agent Chris Orr, whose firm Pacific Sports Management has run rugby league combines in Australia for the past five years and also was engaged by the NFL in 2018 to run the inaugural NFL International Combine, along with attending the NFL combines over the past decade. “I don’t think the NRL would be looking for a spine player, in the same way the NFL pathways aren’t searching for a quarterback. We are looking at wingers, centres, back-rowers and props. “There’s about 14,500 athletes who have trained like professionals for four years in state-of-the-art facilities and played in front of 100,000 people, who have come to the end of their sporting journey. “Any college player being considered needs to be identified immediately, so they can be given rugby league video drills, online education and data on what they need to achieve so they can show off their best selves come next March. ”Orr, who works closely with colleges and NFL clubs, feels top American college footballers could make the transition to the NRL with the right guidance. “What I do know about college American athletes is that if you give them a task and set them goals, they will train their butts off to achieve them, especially if you give them a professional contract as a carrot,” he said. “Imagine if we did it five years in a row, that we brought five or 10 or 15 players at a time. They could filter through all our grades and competitions and you would start to get Americans watching the code. That’s what you need if you want the American audiences to buy in.”

My hope is that the teams will really be up for this given the location and event and we will see an Origin (or Test match ) style game which importantly will be officiated accordingly. i.e. plenty of mad charges into the ruck, met by plenty of big and legal (keep your head Victor) hits. That may pique the interest of a new audience especially that opening ten minutes of the game.

From 1985 to 2023 the population of England has increased by 20 %, have Rugby League crowds increased by a similar amount. I don`t know the spread of that population increase, but given more disadvantaged areas often have higher birth rates may some of the areas in question even actually increased more than the national figure. In fact a quick look at West Yorkshire pop. figures shows a 25 % increase over the same period.

League and its` stars obviously aren`t completely unknown in the U.S. and he does feature rather prominently at the end of that advert they are showing on U.S. Tv. NBA gives Cleary the red carpet treatment SPOTTED: Penrith halfback Nathan Cleary courtside at the NBA match between the Philadelphia 76ers and Boston Celtics on Thursday morning AEDT. Cleary is on holidays in the US and the NBA, we’re told, rolled out the proverbial red carpet for the three-time premiership winner, inviting him to meet some of the players before the match. It speaks to Cleary’s rising popularity that the NBA would give him primo seats for a match between two powerhouse teams. There you go. We got through an entire item about him without mentioning his love interest. Btw, Cleary`s (the sly dog) relationship with boom young Matida soccer star Mary Fowler has been attracting a lot of headlines over here.

Jesus mate, `tracks` are Australian, `trails` are for the Yanks. Kokoda Track. Btw, I could see this type of tourism venture in New Guinea getting a significant boost if they do get an NRL team, especially around ANZAC day time of the year.

Don`t trust them as far as you could throw them, even the clown ftsmmns writing in today`s Herald what almost reads like a white flag: When Peter V’landys met Hamish McLennan: Why rugby union and rugby league should end player raids between the rival codes (smh.com.au) "Does it make sense for both codes to go at each other right now, and steal each other’s players?" They got one of about six they seriously went after, even with their "exciting runway of events" and now they`re saying we don`t want League players anyway and we`ll stop, so should you. Spare me. There`s something rotten in the state of Oz rugby.

Sport Confidential: England rugby star Henry Arundell on NRL radars | The Australian "One of the most exciting young stars in English rugby union has made it known he wants a crack at the NRL – and he could benefit from any potential war chest the game brings in. "English flyer Henry Arundell, who played at the most recent World Cup, is flirting with the prospect of making the move which could be fast-tracked as early as 2024. "Sport Confidential understands that Arundell has come onto the NRL’s radar in recent weeks after parties on behalf of the 21-year-old reached out to a host of clubs to flag the potential switch of codes. "NRL clubs are already seriously interested. It comes as NRL bosses flirt with the prospect of a massive salary cap dispensation to attract players from different codes across the world. Henry Arundell (C) makes a break while playing for Racing 92 in the French Top14. Picture: AFP "Arundell, an outside back, is considered one of England’s best emerging talents. He will be a free agent before the NRL’s June 30 mid-season transfer deadline once his commitments with French rugby side Racing 92 come to an end. "It is understood clubs will step up their pursuit of Arundell once he formally commits to moving to the NRL. Arundell became a free agent when his former side London Irish fell into administration in early June." Even if he`s only using it to drive up the prices for union players I don`t mind, but if he really wants to come over and test himself, well, welcome aboard.

It`s a funny old world, there is something of the gangster in V`landys, fitting that his first job in the racing industry was when he was chosen as a largely unknown to clean up Harold Park Raceway (something he did very successfully), a track brought to its` knees through race fixing and organised crime, the main individual involved being famous/infamous SP bookie and organised crime figure George Freeman. Dearly departed George was my cousin. And you talk about not missing, when Freeman was shot in the head and survived in 1979 my father said to me at the time the bloke that did that won`t last 5 days, turns out he lasted two, murdered personally by George`s associate Lenny MacPherson two days after the event. You better not miss.

Worth repeating this, because this is exactly what this is all about, not promoting Rugby League, not expanding the player pool. After their negotiations with private equity collapsed - the firm involved withdrew their offer - the aru have been forced to take out a $60m dollar loan to survive, with profits from the up-coming British and Lions tour and hosting the union world cup being used to repay the loan, money I might add that was going to be used to future proof the code. Now the NRL know that the aru being a top-heavy organisation, failure by the wallabies in these up-coming two events could mean failure for the code as a whole, due to its` precarious financial position. Hence, and I suggest being done in cahoots with multi-billionaire Roosters supremo Nick Politis, this sudden interest in wallaby for dinner. Yes, so despite headlines being about attracting the best sports people from other codes, this is really aimed squarely at the midships of an already listing Australian rugby union.

Your beat before you start mate.

Tbh mate I don`t think it could get any wider in NZ this year, spending that money on scholarships and pathways would probably be a lot more productive.

Tell that to our miners, farmers, biotech sector, some of the biggest and most profitable efficient companies in the world. This is the beauty of free trade and the efficient allocation of resources (not cutting yourself from your neighbours helps) countries can specialise what they do best at. We also happen to be pretty good at sport and running sporting organisations. Do you really think that V`landys and the NRL are sitting around wringing their hands fretting that they are going to make fools of themselves. Priceless. Think Las Vegas.

This salary cap exemption stuff has been bought up due to the Roosters making a play for one of the few Aussie union players who are actually world class. NRL 2024: Sydney Roosters to meet with rising Wallabies star Mark Nawaqanitawase (smh.com.au) Tension between the Sydney Roosters and Rugby Australia is set to explode with the NRL powerhouse club to meet with Wallabies rising star Mark Nawaqanitawase next week in a potential move that will send shockwaves through the 15-man game. Nawaqanitawase, who has drawn comparisons with a young Israel Folau, has caught the eye of the Roosters as they look to bolster their back line in preparation for Suaalii’s departure and Daniel Tupou’s likely retirement at the end of 2024. Nawaqanitawase, who is off contract with the NSW Waratahs at the end of 2024, is scheduled to meet with Roosters coach Trent Robinson and club supremo Nick Politis next week. The other good bit for me: Rugby Australia chief executive Phil Waugh was unaware of the meeting with the Roosters when contacted on Friday but said the 15-man game was very keen to retain the flying winger. Oblivious, what a bloody numpty .In an interview with this masthead in May, Nawaqanitawase said he wanted a long-term deal with RA but the code was not willing to extend his deal beyond 2024. That decision may now come back to bite them. Bones of their ######.

I just find it hard to imagine that there would be any benefit from letting the game in England going too far down the gurgler, but when and how would they step in.

I remember that Super rugby used to be able to sell their rights into Europe for about $40m AUS, that was up until about two broadcast deals ago when they collapsed in value significantly, probably coinciding with South Africa`s withdrawal and the decline of the Australian teams, but still revelatory regarding their potential value.

Taking over and running Rugby League or replacing Rugby League with NFL ?

NRL 2023: Las Vegas-bound NRL holds talks with $31 billion United States gambling behemoth FanDuel about live streaming rugby league matches (smh.com.au) "V’landys has just returned from a trip to the US, where he accompanied Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to the White House and met United States President Joe Biden. Shortly after the gala dinner, V’landys told this masthead: “We worked out that if all this goes to plan, it has the potential to generate hundreds of millions for rugby league. Not tens of millions – hundreds of millions." Massive if certainly, but if the NRL do pull this off and we do see the amounts of money that V`landys is talking about flowing into the game where do you think European Rugby League fits into the scheme of things. Comments like this seem to get a lot of traction @geordie saint "The NH, particularly England and the RFL, need to realise the NRL don’t want or need England to be successful." I`m not so certain, they (the NRL) might just want to make their own fortress impenetrable first.

The Chinese Gov`t push loyalty to the state and the Chinese communist party in their nation`s school curriculum. In P.N.G., it will be loyalty to the NRL.

Well written, but you would have to think that touring as their national team to the other side of the world, something often the preserve of union teams would increase the prestige and profile of the Samoan national Rugby League, likewise any touring national team for that matter. HST, the Tongan tour was hardly inspirational though both on and off the field, shame to write the concept off so quickly though, but I do see your point.

Great picture mate, no wonder V`landys said he was pinching himself, I don`t think I`ve ever seen a picture where he is the one actually doing the listening, he looks a little starstruck to me, like Biden or not (and I like him) that`s in the presence of real power.

Makes you wonder whether the Mal was outfoxed by Maguire here and the Aussies played their final last week. Aussies ambushed in Hamilton.