Prior to travelling to Paris as part of Sheffield Eagles’ squad for the first match of the Super League era, Keith Senior had barely known life beyond Yorkshire. Then aged 19, the centre’s most exotic trips up to that point had been family holidays to the east coast of the county. But rugby league switching to a summer season and the chance to earn a living as a full-time professional
NRL clubs are agitating for a major overhaul of the way rugby league in Australia is structured when the game emerges from the coronavirus crisis, using the English Premier League as a template for a new landscape in which they would have much more power. The clubs will be briefed on Monday morning by the NRL following a meeting of the ARL Commission, with pay cuts for players and executives
As we mark 25 seasons since Super League’s big kick-off on March 29, 1996, we take a look at what some of the players who played in that very first match between Paris Saint-Germain and Sheffield Eagles are doing 25 years on… The name that springs to mind when anybody recalls that opening night at Charlety Stadium is that of Frederic Banquet. The man at the centre of the first-ever
Tune into our new show Fox League Live on Channel 502 at 7am and 3pm every day. The gap between the best and the rest will only become greater after the coronavirus pandemic unless the NRL adopts a 12-team model, Andrew Johns has warned. The rugby league Immortal said the shutdown may force the NRL to reassess the competition, claiming the “strong will get stronger” if all 16 teams were
As 18 AFL senior coaches bade long, uncertain goodbyes to their players this week one coach asked the group of unemployed footballers sitting in front of him to suggest ways that they would cope with the empty weeks and potentially months that lay ahead. "Practise gratitude," said one. "Others are worse off." If only the sort of leadership demonstrated in that short comment had been demonstrated publicly by the players
The organisers of the 2021 Rugby League World Cup are to give 20,021 tickets to health and social care workers to recognise their efforts in fighting the coronvavirus pandemic. Chief executive Jon Dutton made the announcement at an online press conference held at the same time as Thursday evening’s nationwide applause for the NHS staff. Organisers have been forced to draw up a new timeline for the rest of 2020
Lewis Hatton is set to swap the front row of a rugby league pack for the frontline of the coronavirus battle. The Swinton Lions forward is in the final year of his nurse training and is one of thousands set to be fast-tracked into hospitals in coming weeks. The 23-year-old this week opted into the government’s scheme to help the NHS deal with the pandemic and is now waiting to
‘There’s a lot of frustration… it’s something that’s very real’: George Kruis fears he has played his last England game after coronavirus pandemic scuppered Saracens lock’s plans of bowing out after Six Nations George Kruis may have played his last Six Nations game for England The Saracens lock is due to announce his future in the next 10 days A possible move abroad means this year’s tournament could have been
Tune into our new show Fox League Live on Channel 502 at 7am and 3pm every day. NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg believes NRL teams propped up by their respective leagues clubs will be the hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis. That list includes some of the code’s most storied franchises, led by Parramatta and Canterbury, as well as Penrith and Wests Tigers. Watch Foxtel in an instant. Catch up
NRL players will reportedly be asked to cop a mammoth 87 per cent pay cut while the competition is in lockdown due to the coronavirus outbreak. ARLC Chairman Peter V’landys said the 2020 premiership’s postponement is “probably the biggest financial crisis the game will face in its history”, and the NRL have frantically begun the arduous task of cutting costs. The competition is not likely to recommence until June at
