Category: Rugby League

Rugby League News

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Bright lights of Las Vegas cannot dim the dark clouds over Super League

A showcase in Nevada and a new season imminent, but only the clubs with rich benefactors are likely to thrive in 2025

The new Super League season begins next week with a growing level of excitement around rugby league’s premier competition. Wigan Warriors face Leigh Leopards in a mouthwatering derby as they look to emulate last year’s quadruple, before the sport heads to Las Vegas next month for an historic fixture between Wigan and Warrington.

Crowds are up, interest is growing and the sport has every reason to be optimistic. But skim beneath the surface and these are fascinating times on a financial level, prompting plenty of intrigue about how things look at boardroom level.

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Jillaroos coach Brad Donald resigns ahead of historic rugby league Test in Las Vegas

  • Jess Skinner to take charge for international against England
  • Olivia Kernick and Keeley Davis return to Australia squad

Brad Donald has resigned as Jillaroos coach, with his replacement making an immediate statement ahead of the upcoming Test against England in Las Vegas.

AAP reported last month that Donald’s job was under threat as the NRL finalised an investigation into a disparaging comment allegedly made in front of players.

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Challenge Cup romance returns but has RFL’s revamp backfired?

New format was supposed to send Super League teams to lower-league grounds but things haven’t quite gone to plan

It is officially the start of the new Super League season this weekend, but not quite as you may remember it. The road to Old Trafford begins next Thursday when the reigning champions, Wigan, take on Leigh in a mouthwatering local derby. But before then, all 12 top-flight clubs enter a revamped and remodelled Challenge Cup much earlier than usual.

In recent years, Super League clubs have entered as late as round six. This year, they come into the competition at round three after the Rugby Football League decided to try to pump some magic into the cup’s earlier rounds by guaranteeing all Super League sides would be drawn away at lower-league opposition. However, it hasn’t quite gone to plan.

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Rugby’s concussion trial moves a step closer to reality after high court progress

  • Judge confident of issuing directions for trial this year
  • Class action contains 386 union players, 177 from league

The class action being brought by hundreds of former rugby union and league players over the devastating effects of repetitive head injuries has taken a significant step forward at the high court in London.

Four years after the Guardian first reported that a group of eight former union players, including the World Cup winner Steve Thompson, had been diagnosed with neurological problems which they claimed were caused by their playing careers, the presiding judge, senior master of the king’s bench division Jeremy Cook has set out a roadmap for the landmark case.

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Broncos’ Ezra Mam expected to be suspended for nine games by NRL

  • Player sent breach notice for bringing game into disrepute
  • Mam was fined for drug driving and driving without a licence

Brisbane star Ezra Mam is set for a nine-game suspension after being sent a breach notice by the NRL for bringing the game and the Broncos into disrepute.

Mam, 22, was fined $850 for drug driving and driving without a licence when he appeared on 16 December in Brisbane Magistrates Court. He was disqualified from driving for nine months and issued with an infringement notice for failing to have proper control of a vehicle.

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From rugby league to the NFL: rookie loving each day despite Patriots’ woe

Jotham Russell switched from Tweed Heads Seagulls to the Pats’ practice squad and dreams of making the grade

By Gavin Willacy for No Helmets Required

Desperate to find breakthrough international stars, NFL talent scouts seem to have found two avenues well worth pursuing. Of the athletes in the league’s International Player Pathway (IPP) in 2024 and 2025, the latter group was announced last week, around half were rugby players of both codes from Australia or athletes with Nigerian heritage. In Jotham Russell, the NFL have both.

A year ago, Russell was pursuing his rugby league career at Tweed Heads Seagulls in Queensland’s Hastings Deering Colts competition. Identified as a potential NFL player, by January he was at trials for the IPP program at the IMG Academy in Florida. The Australian with Nigerian heritage survived the Rookie Camp in May and pre-season to sign for New England Patriots’ practice squad, watching an NFL game from the sidelines for the first time when the Pats lost to Jacksonville at Wembley in October. It has been a bewildering whirlwind.

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The curious case of South Sudanese streets named after Australian rugby league greats | Kieran Pender

Darren Lockyer Road, Mal Meninga Drive, Arthur Beetson Way… either the game has really taken off in Juba, or someone’s having a laugh. We launched an investigation to find out

I was on the hunt for Darren Lockyer Road, in Juba, the capital of South Sudan.

This incongruous road nomenclature, half a world away from Queensland in Australia, where the rugby league great is a household name, first came to my attention via a tweet. Not just any tweet – an official government tweet.

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Ellie Kildunne: ‘Women’s rugby is on the rise. The level has really gone up’

Harlequins and England back is one of the world’s elite and is in demand across different leagues and codes

By Gavin Willacy for No Helmets Required

Ellie Kildunne wants to be considered the best rugby player in the world and could take a step towards that accolade on Sunday by being crowned women’s 15s player of the year. The England full-back is shortlisted at World Rugby’s swanky event in Monaco, hours after taking her Harlequins side to Saracens for a London derby.

Having won every game with England this year, and played sevens in the Olympics for Great Britain, Kildunne says she may need to test her versatility in the best 13-a-side competition on earth: Australia’s National Rugby League Women’s Premiership.

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Smartball has revolutionised data in rugby and refereeing could be next | Gavin Willacy

New technology can tell how much a kick is swirling but not whether a pass is forward or a try has been scored – yet

By Gavin Willacy for No Helmets Required

While Twickenham debated why England can’t hold on to a lead at home and whether the southern hemisphere is pulling away from the north in rugby union now as well as league, those watching the Autumn Nations Series on TV saw a new toy being played with.

Viewers as well as match officials, broadcasters and coaches could now see exactly how much spin was on a pass, how high a kick went and how much it was spiralling. But however impressive the smartball technology, two of rugby’s thorniest questions – did that pass go forward? And did the player ground the ball for a try? – remain unsolved.

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Mark Aston row grows as rugby league faces potential coaching revolt

  • Sheffield Eagles coach suspended until April 2026
  • Punished for ‘flouting rules’ over player head injuries

The Rugby Football League is ­facing a potential revolt after a number of high-profile professional rugby league coaches signed a letter calling for the Sheffield coach, Mark Aston, to be allowed an independent appeal against his 18-month ban for a breach of head injury protocol.

Aston, who has been involved with the Eagles for almost 40 years as player and coach and was man of the match in their 1998 Challenge Cup final win against Wigan, has been told he will be suspended until April 2026 after a tribunal determined he “deliberately flouted the rules” on head injuries earlier this year.

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‘I couldn’t be bullied’: Danny Cipriani joins criticism of Eddie Jones’s style

  • Cipriani feels he was dropped for standing up to coach
  • Former fly-half returns for cross-code MND charity match

Danny Cipriani has become the latest former England star to weigh in with criticism of Eddie Jones, insisting he felt the Australian refused to select him at Test level because he “couldn’t be bullied” by Jones.

Cipriani will return to a rugby field this weekend when he takes part in the inaugural 745 Game, a cross-code hybrid match featuring some of rugby union’s and league’s biggest names to raise money for those living with motor neurone disease. The event, which will be held at Headingley, was devised by Rob Burrow and Ed Slater before Burrow died earlier this year.

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Ruthless Kangaroos hold off Tonga to win men’s Pacific Championships final

  • Australia claim Pacific Cup with 20-14 victory at CommBank Stadium
  • Tom Trbojevic runs in two tries in front of mostly pro-Tongan crowd

Australia have shown a ruthless edge to rise above the sea of red and hold off Tonga in a 20-14 Pacific Cup final win.

In front of a 28,728-strong pro-Tongan crowd at CommBank Stadium on Sunday, the Kangaroos made amends for last year’s final where they suffered the biggest defeat in their history at the hands of New Zealand. Led by an impressive showing from five-eighth Tom Dearden and a two-try haul from Tom Trbojevic, Mal Meninga’s Kangaroos showed a calmness and maturity to capitalise off Tonga’s errors and seal victory.

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Australia’s Jillaroos thrash New Zealand to win women’s Pacific Championship final

  • Australia beat New Zealand 24-4 to clinch Pacific Cup
  • Jillaroos avenge defeat to Kiwi Ferns in last year’s decider

Australia have reasserted their status as the heavyweights of international women’s rugby league, thrashing New Zealand 24-4 in the Pacific Cup final as revenge for last year’s decider.

The pressure was on the Jillaroos this Pacific Championships following that shock loss to the Kiwi Ferns in the 2023 final, and some controversial selection calls since.

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