Issue 51

Queensland’s winning the 2023 State of Origin Series lost some of its gloss with the 3^rd game defeat in Sydney but full credit to Billy Slater, the coaching staff, and the players for two mighty victories in Games I and II. If an Australian team was selected now there would be at least 14 Queenslanders in a 22-man touring team but, you wait for it, by October State of Origin form will be forgotten and Sydney club form will decide the issue so if your NRL club is not in the Top-8 book your holidays now.

Billy Slater, Josh Hannay and Cameron Smith have developed a great culture in this young Queensland team and with several of the older guys probably doing a ‘Josh Papalii’ in the next 12 months and retiring from representative rugby league there are opportunities galore.

For the sake of rugby league at grass-roots level I’d like to see Andrew Abdo and his Australian Rugby League Commission make a call on the connection between the NRL clubs and the Queensland-wide Host Plus Cups. This dependency on the NRL for funding makes prisoners of the local clubs which creates an atmosphere of uncertainty at all levels below the NRL and that’s not a strong position to be in.

The game belongs to the people, not the shareholders of Channel 9 and Fox League so push the dollars into regional rugby league. It’s simple.

Read online copy here.

Regards,

Tony Price