A little show and tell presentation
2026 World Cup comes back to Australia, Dean Ritchie tells us what he did on his holidays and the race for the NRL North
Welcome to The Maroon Observer, a newsletter about rugby league, Queensland and rugby league in Queensland.
Around the grounds
We are starting to get to that point in the season where my patience is running low but the amount of time I need to commit is as high as any other other time thanks to the NRLW and spinning up a spin-off Broncos newsletter (keep an eye on your inboxes). Thoughts are turning to plans for 2025 and novelties like Datawrapper presage a future where, for the first time in nearly a decade of doing this, my graphs won’t look like shit.
All of which is to say that we may see more abstract round reviews, rather than more normal, legible takes from here until the end of 2024.
(you want to be in the top-left, then top-right, then bottom-left, then bottom-right)
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Thank you for your service
Dean Ritchie provided us with a little show and tell presentation about what he did on holiday. It is very funny:
How about we drop the stereotype around PNG. You know how it goes – the Aussie superiority complex.
The myths, disrespect and misinformation around PNG’s NRL bid are astounding and sad.
Is it arrogance or a small mindedness from those thinking rugby league should only be played on Australia’s east coast?
PNG has social and economic challenges most Australians will, fortunately, never have to confront but that doesn’t give us the right to mock and ridicule our northern neighbours.
Australia’s high commissioner to Papua New Guinea John Feakes said PNG’s maligned international reputation was “disappointing, unfortunate and askew.”
I just spent four fascinating days in Port Moresby and Goroko among people who are united by rugby league. For some, it’s all that they have.
PNG rugby league has it all – players, passion and money. The PNG bid appears ready to be formally approved by both Governments as early as next month so it’s time to reveal the truth about PNG.
What we all needed in this time of political uncertainty and climate change was a small-minded old man with no life experience to go to a country for four days and come back and harangue us all for having entirely reasonable reservations about the PNG bid. After all, this is what journalism, speaking truth to power, looks like:
Based on the subsequent “interview” published, Ritchie is in no way embarrassed by the quality of his output or the fact that he so clearly living in James Marape’s pocket.
Ritchie’s what-I-did-over-the-summer essay takes the form of six “myths” with a blank denial that the myth could be a concern to anyone who isn’t a pathetic loser, followed by an explanation that doesn’t quite hold water. For example:
MYTH: PNG DOESN’T HAVE THE MONEY
TRUTH: It’s ill-informed bulls**t. PNG will be among the richest clubs in the NRL, alongside the Brisbane Broncos. The Australian Government’s $600m investment is only part of the financial conglomerate and business plan PNG will build.
Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape hosted a dinner last weekend where he asked the top-end-of-town to donate to PNG’s bid – and they will. I’m not talking peanuts here. Yes, the lower class in PNG is poor but the high-flyers are wealthy, exceptionally wealthy.
And PNG rugby league has an influential supporter in its bid chairman, Wapu Sonk, managing director of Kumul Petroleum. This isn’t a Sydney team restricted by suburban boundaries. This is an entire country.
My italics there. As long as rapacious multi-national companies (and a potentially kleptocratic government) can continue to extract the wealth and resources of the people of Papua New Guinea, we won’t need to worry about the longevity of an NRL team based there. Good to know! I feel great that tax-payer funds are being used to prop up this venture!!!
The other myths:
Visiting NRL teams won’t be safe (“Opposition teams will be safe and secure, provided some rogue idiot doesn’t wander off into the darkness at night.”)
Imported players will feel threatened? (“They will live in secure accommodation and told when and where they can go during their down time. Buses would take kids to school and Port Moresby General Hospital is the largest hospital in PNG.”)
It’s a waste of government money (“And remember half the $60m a year payment will be split among PNG and other Pacific nations to propagate rugby league development. Ever wondered how and why the Pacific nations have become such a force over the past ten years?”)
A struggling economic country cannot possibly succeed in professional sport (“It shouldn’t be an issue. Let the PNG Government eradicate its social issues. That’s not for a rugby league to fix.”)
PNG doesn’t have the players to compete in the NRL (“I watched a 12-team, two-day NRL bid carnival in Goroka last weekend involving 240 players and the standard was unbelievably high. They just need a little more finesse and that will come with time and expert coaching.”)
I wish I was making up any of these quotes but I am simply not that good at comedy. Still, somehow, I remain unconvinced that these “myths” aren’t huge roadblocks.
Anyway, if you wanted to know why the feds were shitting themselves about the Chinese, this is a brief foreign policy scene-setter written by a real journalist without centring the story around Australia.
How many games is too many?
An addendum to last week’s note about the season format, people - cranks, perhaps, and certainly hacks - have cited the relatively short length of the NFL season as an example the NRL could follow, seemingly unaware, and for the benefit of those who don’t follow the sport, that the NFL recently extended the regular season from 16 to 17 games and is now looking at 18.
College football’s season is similarly lengthening under the same pressure, that is the desire of stakeholders to accumulate more money from broadcasters by churning out as much content as possible. MLB went from 140 games to 162 in its 60s heyday when demand for baseball was insaitiable. Even though that’s way too much baseball for anyone, then but especially now when I find it hard to believe all that many people are watching any given Tigers-White Sox afternoon game, the money will ensure there’s never any contraction.
Peter V’landys has spoken of a possible blueprint to fix State of Origin’s problematic scheduling, ease the punishing workload on NRL stars and fix the integrity of the NRL draw…
Clubs would play each other once over 19 rounds; reducing the workload on players by five games from the current 24 matches.
The competition would either break mid-season for a stand-alone State of Origin series, or it would be played after the grand final.
A regular international series would be played in October.
Ahead of negotiations for the next broadcast deal, the Controlling Body is throwing out a few lures to see what bites they get for different ideas, focus group testing their ideas in the media with lots of maybes and possibilities, instead of having a clear plan to which they could adhere.
If nothing else, News hacks just copying and pasting the bullet points out of the email they receive from Abdo or V’Landys is a much more efficient way of conveying useful information.
To get to the thrust of this fishing expedition: what actually is the point of expansion if you’re not going to increase the amount of broadcast inventory and revenue? Does it help keep a lid on rising labour costs? How else do you make the club grant go further? Are women expected to deliver improved broadcast value or will the NRLW provide too much content to fit into the schedule? Do they really believe, against all odds, in Growing the Game?
To be clear, I support a shorter club season to make room for other stuff and expansion for growing the game purposes but I just don’t see how it stacks up without the clubs losing out financially, which they will never agree to and V’Landys will never stand up to them, so what is the point of this?
World Cup in Australia
As goes the 2032 Olympics and the seemingly abandoned 2026 Commonwealth Games, in the event of no one else wanting to host an international sporting event, try and give it to Australia:
Australia will host the men's, women's and wheelchair World Cups in October and November 2026, with games also in Papua New Guinea.
Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC) chairman Peter V'landys said it will be the most "culturally diverse World Cup ever staged" and will help "cement rugby league as the number one sport in the Pacific".
Firstly, I’m not unhappy about this because I’ll be able to go and see some cool footy in 2026. Will the NSW government stump up some cash to have games in Sydney or will it be left to Queensland to host the final again?
Secondly, I’m kind of unhappy about this because the tournament is absolute bare bones with just ten men’s teams. I don’t think this is worth relitigating but I just don’t care about having an allegedly elite standard or blowouts in the group stages because that’s what the finals are for. Also, Australia lost 30-0 to New Zealand last year in front of 15 people with very few resulting calls for the Kangaroos to be excluded from future tournaments.
I also don’t understand by what measure you would assess the cultural diversity of this or past World Cups or why I would care whether rugby league is the number one sport in the Pacific but then I don’t get paid the big bucks. Or any bucks at all for that matter.
Thirdly, I am ambivalent about the tournament’s capacity to make any money, on which the IRL is reliant for its survival. If Peter V’Landys is good at one thing, it is gutting all of the costs out of something and running on a shoe string. While 2026 may prove to be profitable, especially if rugby league’s attendance boom continues, the presentation of the World Cup will also have V’Landys’ sweaty, cheapo fingerprints all over it, which is unpleasant to contemplate.
Exclusive: Troy Grant has changed his decision to depart and will stay on as chairman of International Rugby League (IRL).
In August 2023 it was reported that Grant was set to quit the IRL, after citing pressure combining his own full-time work with that of his IRL as the reason he was moving on.
I don’t really have strong feelings about this either, except that Grant seems to exist as a puppet for the southern hemisphere, especially the NRL clubs, the negative consequences of which I’ve written about at length and ad nauseum. Still, whether the entire sport of rugby league should integrated under the banner of the NRL/ARLC I will leave to others to debate the merits of, as it’s something I’ve gone back and forth on several times.
Intermission
It may not have been the best weekend for the Cowboys (W) or the Dolphins but it was a banner weekend for halves copping a ball to the face.
Upcoming Slate
NRLM - Tigers vs Cowboys in Pootown, Thursday 8pm
While this is a one-star game, and those are rare, let’s bank some easy wins this weekend. It doesn’t come any easier than the extremely fragile first grade men’s team, currently on target for the spoon, of the worst rugby league club in the country (currently last in every major competition they participate in). Also, North Queensland will want to win this, and maybe try some cool shit along the way, to prep for finals. Tip: Cowboys
NRLW - Titans vs Tigers at C-Bus Super, Saturday 12.45pm
The Titans looked fantastic in the first round, probably the best of the bunch. If that’s what they can do with round 1 rust, I’d be terrified if for the rest of the competition. The Tigers got belted by the Raiders and will not be able to withstand the physical assault nor the attacking skill of Gold Coast, which is a strange sentence to type. Tip: Titans
NRLM - Titans vs Broncos at C-Bus Super, Saturday 3pm
The only NRLM game featuring Queensland teams not being played in prime time is also the only derby, and the one that the broadcasters seemingly value the least, the SEQ Derby. The Classic has extra juice in the parochial context, on which I elaborate below, but is almost meaningless in the broader national context. Running down the team sheets, the Broncos should be able to win this in theory but in practice, they are in tail spin mode and will lose more than they win from here on and they need a 5-0 run to have a shot at finals. Tip: Titans
(Tips 29 / 64)
Watch Guide
Notes
NRLW set to explode even as league follows conservative path to growth. My feel is that the NRL still needing kid gloves to grow the NRLW is out-of-date. The Australian public has been firmly sold on the concept of women’s sport. The two Matildas’ WC finals games last year where two of the most watched things - not just women’s sport, not just sport, anything - ever. The task ahead is about habit-forming. That is, the fans are happy to engage but it’s now about getting them into the habit of going to and tuning in to women’s games week-in, week-out, the way they have to men’s games for the last however many decades, and ultimately treating the women’s teams the same as the men’s. That may prove a lot easier if the NRLW is presented like the NRLM and scheduled accordingly. While this will lower ratings for individual games by splitting the audience, there is a higher principle of equity that I, and perhaps no one else outside the subscribers of this newsletter, demand some consideration be given.
Dolphins: Fuller upgrades and extends to 2026 and Wallace granted early release. Good moves on both parts.
Former Broncos NRLW star Toni Hunt opens up on ongoing cancer battle ahead of final round of Try July. Bit late but nice to see the NRLW players doing their bit, especially Emily Bass who had several prepared celebrations.
Can’t help but think that there’s other things the NRL could spend its time and energy on than reaching out to Tom Brady to provide commentary on a sport he knows nothing about and won’t move the needle for either audience. Can’t wait for the entire sport’s infrastructure to disappear into the Vegas maw.
Interesting to see, on this surprisingly nice-looking pie chart, Queensland relatively under-represented related to New South Wales, given our repesctive populations and relative propensity for Getting Origin. Maybe Easts Tigers have a point? Bring on the Brisbane Bengals. Then again, northern Aotearoa only has one club, so maybe it’s time to merge into a Queensland super-club? We could call them the Queensland Reds and have a koala-based logo.
Nickelware
The race for the NRL North (or XXXX Derby, if you are a heathen) is compelling, especially if you consider there’s a non-zero chance of all four teams missing the finals, a decent chance it’s at least three and an almost certainty it’s at least two. This could be the consolation prize par excellence.
Because I’ve always sorted this table by divisional wins first, then losses, then non-divisional results, the Titans leap to the top of the standings, even if their divisional winning percentage is technically lower than the Broncos’. With only three derbies left to play, all of which will feature the Broncos, the title race is very much up for grabs.
A Titans win at C-Bus on Saturday will give them an almost insurmountable lead of 4-2. The Broncos could remain in the hunt with wins over the Cowboys and Dolphins, as laughable as that seems right now, and would need to rely on having a superior ex-Queensland NRL record to retain the NRL North title.
Surprisingly, since their entry to the competition in 2007, the Titans outright won the most Queensland derby games (regular season only) in 2012, 2020 and 2021 and were equal in 2008 with the Broncos (3 each) and in 2014 (all three had two wins). The Broncos had outright wins in 2009, 2010, 2013, 2015, 2019 and 2023 and, much later than you’d expect, the Cowboys only in 2018 and 2022.
A Titans loss followed by two Broncos losses would see everyone finish on a flat 3-3 and a four-way tie of mediocrity seems like an appropriate coda to this Queensland year in the NRL.
