Source :- THE AGE NEWS
Rugby league’s debut at the new covered stadium in Christchurch was a sparkler, the Warriors’ game against the Cowboys selling out faster than any fixture in the Kiwi franchise’s existence.
The Warriors’ crowds are already up by a reported 62 per cent on pre-Covid levels.
Next year, they make another audacious claim on rugby union territory with an Anzac Round match at Eden Park.
It used to be impossible to imagine league challenging union in New Zealand, but having conclusively won the battle of the rugby codes in Australia, the NRL’s ambitions are stretching east and west.
The collapse of the Moana Pasifika Super Rugby franchise and the introduction of the PNG Chiefs will, the NRL hopes, turn the entire South Pacific into a rugby league nursery. And who’s to say that this isn’t a game of momentum?
A Christchurch-based team is tipped to be the NRL’s 20th. Looking west, the Perth Bears are aiming to harvest South African talent, which lies just this side of fanciful – but then so did overhauling union in New Zealand until recently.
To keep this argument real, let’s accept that the FIFA World Cup puts claims by either rugby code to be “global” into, um, perspective (it embarrasses them both).
But the NRL has a targeted strategy to win the Southern Hemisphere, and it would be hard to argue with the smiling Wahs faces streaming out ecstatically to spread the rugby league gospel into the south island after an impressive win on Sunday.
Good things in small packages
When it came to participation, union used to be able to offer positions for every size and shape of human – unlike league which drew from a narrower spectrum of body types.
But union’s trend to gigantism limits that argument – the international game now allows for pretty much every body as long as it’s over 100kg, and forward battles increasingly resemble sumo with studs.
At the same time, the current NRL trend towards zippy little fullbacks is eye-catching. The Warriors’ Taine Tuaupiki, the Titans’ Keano Kini, Melbourne’s Sua Fa’alogo, the Dolphins’ Trai Fuller, Souths’ Jye Gray, and the Tigers’ Jahream Bula have ended the bias toward large-bodied fullbacks.
Sometimes it can look like Chihuahas have been set loose against Labrador defences. With speed of the essence, each weekend we are seeing good little men beating good big men.
Fozball flop
Kieran Foran’s face was growing its first coaching wrinkles as it contorted with frustration while watching Manly return to their pre-Fozball ways on Saturday night.
The panicked decision-making in their golden-point loss was more like Fizzball.
Canterbury were not much better, but they’ve begun to win games they ought to have lost, always encouraging for morale, so maybe there is still hope for their 2026.
Raiders will come good … next year
Sometimes a rising young team needs an off year to deal with heartbreak.
Penrith in 2019 and, over the fence, the Sydney Swans in 2025 are examples. That’s the best spin on the 2026 Canberra Raiders: they’re still getting over the 2025 finals.
On Sunday, their season more or less ended in the mayhem of scoring three tries in the first 16 minutes yet still getting tonked by the Storm.
But with Ethan Strange, Kaeo Weekes, Xavier Savage, Hudson Young and plenty more, the Raiders are too good not to get back into premiership contention in 2027. I hope so. I just don’t know how much more Ricky Stuart can take.
Blues play the blame game
When they say New South Wales doesn’t “get Origin”, Exhibit A is the reaction since their loss in Melbourne last week. Laurie Daley: hopeless. Nathan Cleary: can’t get it done. Brian To’o: must go. Kotoni Staggs, Tolu Koula: cooked. Latrell Mitchell: Messiah. Tom Trbojevic: Messiah. Api Koroisau: Messiah.
Note a common thread? Whether scapegoats or great hopes, New South Wales are continually looking for individuals to blame or to fix a version of rugby league that is, much more than club football, a team game.
By contrast, it’s impossible to put a finger on why Cameron Munster is the best Origin player of his
generation; he and the others just flit past in a Maroon blur.
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Malcolm Knox is a journalist, author and columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald.
