Since when is playing for the Wallabies a step up in your career if you are a top line NRL player?
‘He said he’d be open to a switch’: Stunning Cleary move headlines Rugby Australia’s NRL hit list
‘Open to a switch’: Shock as ‘mind-blowing’ Cleary move headlines Wallabies’ NRL hit listwww.foxsports.com.au
got the same problem as Charlie,if im not mistakenNRL grant Dragons salary cap dispensation for Cody Ramsey
The NRL has granted St George Illawarra salary cap dispensation for the disease that has denied stricken fullback Cody Ramsey the chance to play this season.
This masthead can reveal the NRL has finalised its review into the Dragons’ request to get Ramsey’s contract removed from this year’s salary cap and have decided to make an exemption for his unique situation.
NRL grant Dragons salary cap dispensation for Cody Ramsey
The NRL has made an exemption following the Dragons’ request to get Ramsey’s contract removed from this year’s salary cap.www.smh.com.au
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Singo’s ‘Leagueathon’ walked so Magic Round could fly
Roy Masters
Sports Columnist
May 6, 2023 — 5.00am
Not much is new in rugby league. Whatever the game’s most recent innovation, it has usually risen from the scrapheap of previously discarded adventures.
Magic Round, which began in 2019 with all the fixtures of a given round being played at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium over three days, recalls another festival of rugby league that was staged in Sydney over 40 years ago.
In 1977 and 1978, all six NSWRL games in one round were played at the SCG over the Anzac weekend, with three double-headers staged the first year and two triple-headers the next. Dubbed a “Leagueathon”, it was the brain child of adman John Singleton and was endorsed by then NSWRL president Kevin Humphreys.
It was memorable for the horrendous traffic jams, the long queues for pies, players arriving late for games and the performance of American crooner Burl Ives.
“We had f--- all in the promotions budget and I had to hire over-the-hill entertainment,” Singo recalls. “[American singer] Burl Ives sang Pearly Shells and then walked off.
“I chased him into the dressing-room and said, ‘Burl, mate, you’ve got to go back out’. But he pointed to his contract, which said he only had to sing at half-time.
‘Over-the-hill entertainment’: Burl Ives with Manly Sea Eagles cap.Credit: Fairfax Media
“I said, ‘No mate, you’ve got to sing for half-time [meaning the duration of it]’. So Burl goes back out and what does he sing? Pearly Shells!”
Singo admits he learned much about marketing from rugby league. “The first year, with the double-headers, you had to pre-book. People had never heard of this before. They had to buy their tickets at Andy Capp grog shops and Where Do You Get it stores. It was good for the sponsors because it drove people to the stores, but people didn’t like to pre-book and be told where they were sitting.
“This was before the days of mobile phones and computers. A different world. But with the triple-headers, they only had to turn up. The first triple-header day, the SCG turned people away at 11am. It was chaos. I’m looking at the crowd, which I thought was 70,000, and thinking, ‘How good is this’?
Crowds pack the SCG for the NSWRL Leagueathon in 1978.Credit: Fairfax Archive
“I’m thinking [as promoter] of the Anzac Day crowd two days later. I’m like the racehorse Ajax, I can’t get beat. [Ajax lost at Rosehill in 1939 at odds of 40-1 on].
“But what I hadn’t considered was Frank Hyde on 2SM telling people about traffic jams back to Burwood. Surprise, surprise! The next day’s crowd was an ordinary one.”
The atmosphere went from rock concert to piano recital. Singo had been whipped by a media sandstorm.
“The publicity was all about the traffic,” he recalls. “Who wants to get caught in a traffic jam?”
Frank Hyde hits the high notes with some songs for the SCG crowd before the inaugural Leagueathon in 1977.Credit: John O’Gready
The official attendance was 44,507 for the first triple-header and 25,004 for the second one, with Singo conceding the announced figures were rubbery. “I reckon the crowd for the Anzac Day was less and the crowd for the first day was more,” he said.
(Clubs were promised a margin above their average home gate, suggesting creative crowd counting pre-dated the Super League war 20 years later).
In this weekend’s Magic Round, the home teams receive compensation to play in Brisbane. As Singo says, “NRL clubs can’t go broke today, they get so much money from head office”.
Magic Round is a sell-out, but traffic won’t be a problem, with the 52,000-seat Suncorp Stadium next to a railway station.
Wests and Balmain battle it out in the 1978 Leagueathon.Credit: John O’Gready
However, Singo’s Leagueathon did have a legacy. “The triple-header worked,” he says. “The same grocery stores and grog shops where you had to buy tickets the previous year came back in. It was the first time the game had been sponsored by these people.”
Asked what innovations he would like to see in Brisbane, Singo said, “A promotion match for a million dollars between Newtown and North Sydney,” a reference to the Jets, where he was once president, and the Bears, another relegated that is still club dear to many.
Back in 1977-78, the players were living at home during the Leagueathon. This weekend, all 16 NRL teams are being housed at two hotels, a symbol of the increasing collegiality between NRL players at rival clubs.
Today, opposing players walk from the field together, with the losers often smiling at private jokes with their rivals. The sight of players joking with their opponents after losses is an aspect of the modern game that grates on the players from the original Leagueathon days.
Wests and Balmain are now a merged entity, but in the 1978 Leagueathon they went head-to-head, with the Tigers’ Larry Corowa scoring three tries against my Magpies side.
The rivalry back then came to mind when Singo asked me if I remembered Ives’ half-time entertainment.
“Didn’t see him,” I said. “I was too busy using the break to work out how to stop Larry Corowa.”
Interesting to see Dennis Bendall in that photo, sad end to such a talent.
I vividly remember that game. Corowa was unstoppable and brilliant. As a Magpies supporter all you could do was applaud and hope he pulled a hammy.
What a wonderful player Bendall was. Very sad.
Wonder if we could get a Siberian Tiger in this arvo up the Stains end....
Oh, I thought everyone knew they cheated. Whoops.
- Breaking
Referees’ union weighs up legal action against Warriors’ sponsor
ByAdam Pengilly
May 8, 2023 — 2.57pm
The NRL’s referees’ union is considering taking legal action against the chief executive of the New Zealand Warriors’ major sponsor who sent a tweet which accused whistleblowers of “cheating”.
The Professional Rugby League Match Officials, which represents the game’s elite referees, has sought legal advice on whether they can launch defamation proceedings against One New Zealand boss Jason Paris.
NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo was furious with the social media messages from Paris, who blasted officials after the Warriors’ loss to the Panthers during Magic Round on Saturday.
And on Monday, PRLMO boss Matt Cecchin said his organisation had spoken to lawyers about their position.
“It’s not called for and the comments are appalling,” Cecchin said. “It does nothing to help and improve officials within our game, or any officials really. That’s why we’ll do whatever we can to ensure comments like this are stamped out of our game, and stamped out of any game for any officials.
“Any sort of mention of the word bias, be it conscious or unconscious, is just unacceptable. It hurts our game at every level.
“We feel strong enough to seek legal opinion and based on the information we’ll pursue whatever means necessary to ensure that it’s seen as a deterrent for anyone who thinks about making any such comments around bias.”
Paris spoke on multiple New Zealand media platforms on Monday after his rant, and took to Twitter again to back down from his accusation of cheating.
“My comments were made in the heat of the moment as a passionate fan,” Paris tweeted. “However, I do believe that there is unconscious bias happening every week against the Warriors & it needs to be addressed. All we want is consistency, but we are not getting it.”
The Warriors had two players - Jackson Ford and Demitric Sifakula - sent to the sin-bin against the Panthers as the two-time defending champions scrapped their way to an 18-6 win.
“Officials make mistakes like players do in every game,” Cecchin said. “We learn from those, but the comments taken offence to here do nothing to improve the standard of officiating. Make comments about mistakes is one thing, but suggesting bias or cheating is just not acceptable.
“We feel the comments made by this person don’t reflect 99 per cent of people that know anything about, or follow rugby league. That’s why they’re so out of the norm it’s not funny. We’re doing this to protect past officials, present officials and emerging officials.
Referees’ union weighs up legal action against Warriors’ sponsor
NRL referees have reacted angrily to comments posted on social media by the chief executive of One NZ, Jason Paris, accusing officials of bias against the Warriors.
If only the Warriors' sponsor was around to fix Darcy Lawler for his shocker in '63.
