Club loyalties will be temporarily shelved as a record-equalling eight players from one rugby league club prepare to meet in the deciderWhen Australia and Samoa walk onto the Old Trafford pitch this weekend with both the Paul Barrière Trophy and rugby league greatness on the line, there is unlikely to be a prouder cadre than the Penrith Panthers front office. After claiming back-to-back NRL premierships and sending a record 19 players to the World Cup, a magnificent year for the Panthers will be capped when eight of their players likely square off in the decider. Among those eight will be a remarkable five members of the Penrith backline that defeated Parramatta in the NRL grand final – not inclusive of...
Without minnows’ exposure to elite sides like Australia a more level global playing field will never be achievedEveryone loves seeing a bully put on their backside. Crowds adore the mouse that roars or a minnow that swallows a whale. International sport is built on such David v Goliath dramas. It’s the victory of heart over head, the triumph of the fight in the dog, not the dog in the fight – a reminder that the favourite is a misnomer and it’s the dark horse we’re often drawn to.Hence why the handful of upsets in the 2021 Rugby League World Cup so far have been more satisfying than the shellackings and spiflications that are usually the norm at this event. It’s...
Australia and New Zealand pulling out of the World Cup under the smokescreen of Covid concerns betrays the self-interest of southern hemisphere powerbrokersIt has been the overused catch-cry of the Rugby League Twitterati of late that the game is dead or, at the very least, breathing its last. It is typically nothing more than a look-at-me moan that shows little understanding of the sport’s history in either Australia or the UK.There is one element of the game, though, that is very much at a crossroads following Australia and New Zealand’s decision to pull out of the Rugby League World Cup later this year, for this is the culmination of a long-held disinterest-bordering-on-contempt Australian rugby league has held for the international...
Decision to pull out reflects administrators’ shortsighted prioritisation of the NRL but hope could lie in a revolt by playersFor anyone with even a brief knowledge of rugby league’s recent history, the only surprise about the announcement that Australia and New Zealand have backed out of this autumn’s World Cup is that none of this is even a surprise any more.Rugby league is a sport that makes constitutional crisis its modus operandi, and the long-held belief at the Rugby Football League that their counterparts in the southern hemisphere hold the international game in utter contempt became a brazen reality when confirmation came that the Kangaroos and Kiwis would not be travelling to these shores. Related: Fears rise over Super League...
The national side needs to play more often if it is to become a force comparable to Australia when the tournament takes place on home soil in four yearsHistorically in English rugby league there are no shortage of instances of chest‑beating and confidence that brighter times lie ahead following defeat by Australia – but this time, despite losing a World Cup final, it was hard not to feel genuinely encouraged.There is nothing too satisfying in being plucky losers again. But as the players head home from a gruelling six weeks and the end of a season which, for some, began last December, there is a golden opportunity for the game in England to build on a performance which shows the...