Thank goodness that’s over! The off-season can be dispiriting at the best of times, but when the reputation of the sport is being dragged through the mud with unsavoury revelations about players’ behaviour or backroom misdemeanours (or both, in the case of Gleeson-gate), it’s harder to remind yourself why you love the game when you [...]

Several rule changes were introduced to the game on Boxing Day. The number of interchanges permitted during a game drop from 12 to 10 (down to 8 in Super League Academy); a player who comes into contact with a corner flag during general play, whilst in possession of the ball, will no longer be deemed [...]

London Broncos – Issue 370 – Download as PDF As Quins rebrand and London Broncos are reborn, Michael O’Hare meets the capital club’s chief executive Gus Mackay. This interview was first carried out in 2010, well before Gus Mackay joined the Broncos as chief executive officer in January 2011 Which is a bit odd I [...]

The ending may have been familiar, as England succumbed to an Australian team led for the last time by Darren Lockyer, but their progress towards the Four Nations final ignited a passion for international Rugby League that we have not seen in this country for quite some time. It was genuinely thrilling to witness, while [...]

Australia’s Four Nations Final man of the match Johnathan Thurston has been named as the winner of the 2011 Golden Boot, which is awarded annually to the game’s greatest international player by Rugby League World Magazine. Thurston edged the award by the narrowest of margins over 2007 winner Cameron Smith in a vote involving five [...]

Three England players and three Aussies make it onto the 2011 Golden Boot shortlist. Sam Tomkins, Ryan Hall and James Graham lead the way for England in the nominations for the 2011 Golden Boot, awarded each year by Rugby League World magazine to the world’s best player. Australian legend Darren Lockyer, set to make his [...]

There’s a danger that the thrills and spills served up by the final two Super League play-off games this season between Warrington and Leeds, and Saints and Wigan, might gloss over the weaknesses in the current top eight system that were all too apparent just a few days earlier. After all, for the first time [...]

Why does Rugby League always struggle to sell out its major events? The lead up to the Carnegie Challenge Cup final at Wembley was full of panic stories about unsold ticket allocations despite the game being contested by two of our biggest clubs, Wigan and Leeds. I’ve argued before in this column that an obsession [...]

He won a joint record 46 Great Britain caps and an OBE. Now, 20 years on from his greatest performances, Garry Schofield scoops the Golden Boot. The 25-year history of Rugby League’s Golden Boot throws up so many intriguing tales, not least the winner that never was. To cut a long story short, Adidas in [...]

It’s not exactly a JFK moment: ‘where were you when Crusaders withdrew their Super League licence application,’ but the Rugby League world (M62 branch) has been consumed by talk of little else since that bizarre piece of theatre starring a funereal Richard Lewis was broadcast live on Sky Sports News on Tuesday 26th July. It’s [...]