LORRAINE MARSDEN chats with one of the up and coming stars of Rugby League officialdom, 21-year-old Sarah Bennison. THANK goodness for football. That might be an odd opening line for a feature in a Rugby League magazine but, truth be told, if it hadn’t been for lack of opportunities she faced in the round-ball game, [...]

So that’s 2010 finally done and dusted. The England Academy team managed to blow away the annual hangover of international failure and give us something to smile about by defeating the Australian Schoolboys in their two-Test series. After the senior England team’s Four Nations flop, the Academy success has demonstrated that English players can cut [...]

Wests Tigers superstar five-eighth and New Zealand Test captain Benji Marshall has received one of the game’s greatest accolades in winning the 2010 Rugby League World Golden Boot Award. Now in its 25th year, the prestigious award is presented to the game’s greatest international player. Marshall beat fellow nominees Shaun Kenny Dowall (NZ), Paul Gallen [...]

2012 is the year the Olympics come to London, but ANTHONY REYNOLDS argues it is also the perfect opportunity to revive another great sporting event: Rugby League’s Ashes series. ‘I planned my trip down under this year to take in the first two Ashes tests’ a friend said to me just a few weeks ago. [...]

FEATHERSTONE Rovers’ achievement in topping the Championship this season has deservedly earned accolades across the game. The experienced Daryl Powell has had a significant impact at the club since arriving just under two years ago, and to top what is a hugely competitive division in his second season in charge is a significant achievement. Rovers [...]

This article was first published in Rugby League World – Issue 352. Subscribe to future issues here. WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT, ALFIE? Welsh rugby union legend Gareth Thomas has been interviewed about many things, many times but here, for the first time ever, he talks publicly to a fellow professional player, our resident Super League [...]

THERE can have been few more popular cup triumphs in recent years than Batley Bulldogs’ Northern Rail Cup win on Sunday, outside the town of Widnes of course. The Bulldogs, one of the founder members of the Northern Union over a century ago, had not lifted a major trophy since 1924, when they won the [...]

IS it time for the Rugby Football League to take a more draconian approach to policing the salary cap at Championship level? John Stankevitch, the Rochdale Hornets coach, certainly thinks so. In a revealing interview in this month’s Rugby League World magazine, Stankevitch outlines exactly how Rochdale’s player payments are structured, and claims that rival [...]

The better the game gets, the lower its national media profile sinks. BBC TV’s Rugby League commentator DAVE WOODS looks for ways to reverse this damaging trend. Rugby League is in need of a few big ideas. The sport that stirs our passions is slowly slipping out of the national conscience and we need someone [...]

By GARETH WALKER THERE was one scoreline in Co-operative Championship One last weekend that turned heads across the sport. Nobody wants to see scores like the 132-0 inflicted on Gateshead Thunder by Blackpool on Sunday, especially in the professional game. And while it illustrated the continuing progress made by the Panthers and their highly-rated coach [...]