V’Lando-Leninist Thought
Waiting for a Payne Haas backflip is not cope
Welcome to The Maroon Observer, a weekly newsletter about rugby league, Queensland and rugby league in Queensland.
The Kyle Laybutt scandal is over
The most read thing on this website was an accounting of the whereabouts of Kyle Laybutt in the early days of 2023. The prime mover of that situation was the Cowboys pursuing their own reserve grade team, possibly even in NSW Cup, to emulate the Panthers for reasons that remain completely unfathomable.
The Cowboys pooled their reserve grade players and future talents at the Townsville Blackhawks at the expense of the Northern Pride and Mackay Cutters. This went so disastrously, and so much faster than even I had predicted, the Cowboys reversed course entirely in 2024, ended their affiliation with the Blackhawks and started sending players to the Pride and Cutters only. Aaron Payne lost his job in Townsville and the Blackhawks aligned with the Rabbitohs for two years.
Now it’s time to make up:
The North Queensland Toyota Cowboys have finalised its Affiliate Club Agreements through the 2028 season.
The Northern Pride and Mackay Cutters remain as Cowboys feeder clubs, while the Townsville Blackhawks return to the fold for the first time since 2023.
As part of the agreements, the Cowboys will send players to all three feeder clubs from its NRL squad to play in the Queensland Cup.
What was the fucking point of all that then? The Cowboys attempted to rend the fabric of rugby league in North Queensland to pursue a really bad idea that had no merits, only to backtrack and restore the status quo of 2015 to 2022. When I bang on about strategic incompetence of management, this is what it looks like. I can only assume glue huffing Cowboys fans that attacked me in 2023 are rushing to get their apologies in.
The Panthers’ model works for the Panthers. There are other models that can work for other clubs. The last three NRL grand finals have been contested by Penrith, Brisbane and Melbourne. Two of those operated on an affiliation basis with Queensland statewide clubs. 15 of the last 20 Origin series have been won by the state with Queensland Cup, instead of pasty ass reserve grade. Prior to the Panthers’ run, the previous decade of grand finals had been won by clubs with affiliation agreements with lower tier clubs. There’s plenty of evidence for those with eyes to see.
The Storm have decided to cut ties with its QCup clubs and go their own way in NSW Cup. I choose to lay the blame for this at the feet of Brett Ralph, who is the subject of the headline “Boss of NRL club that cancelled Welcome to Country linked to lobby group that opposes ritual”, a polite way of calling him a white supremacist, but it could equally be the fault of weepy Matt Tripp, who can no longer rely on Big Dick Dave Donaghy to keep the Storm relevant. Fortunately, not everyone has to toe the line of the mushy brained:
The Brisbane Tigers are officially announcing a landmark affiliation partnership with the Perth Bears, the NRL’s newly appointed 18th team set to commence in the 2027 season.
This historic alliance marks the beginning of a bold new chapter for the Tigers, strengthening the club’s legacy as one of Queensland’s premier development systems and establishing a direct pathway from the state’s southeast to the national stage in the nations southwest.
Perth have set up a similar agreement with North Sydney for obvious reasons but the latter press release reads a little more arms-length than I would have expected. Perhaps that has been tightened up? Bears CEO, Anthony De Ceglie, has also made noise about joining NRLQ, the under 21s comp for Queensland NRL clubs, although I would just as readily believe he has no idea what NRLQ is.
Having affiliations into both state cups is rare but not impossible. The Storm were doing it as recently as last season with North Sydney, Easts and Sunshine Coast. It is an interesting decision, as I would have assumed the Bears would focus exclusively on North Sydney, and restores some confidence that was absent in my mind as recently as September.
However, QCup is not going to be what it was pre-covid (insert Gramsci quote here). For example, in England:
Championship heavyweights London Broncos and Oldham RLFC will lock horns this Sunday in the capital with the talent and strength of the Queensland Cup on full show…
It will also help showcase just how the Q Cup has become an instrumental recruitment pool and development area in recent years for clubs in the UK. Both London and Oldham each boast a stream of talent that cut its teeth in the sunshine state.
The Broncos are coached by Jason Demetriou, a former coach of the Northern Pride. In 2014 and 2015 the Pride won minor premierships, as well as the 2014 grand final and the inaugural NRL State Championship game, with Demetriou at the helm.
London also have seven players who have featured in the Q Cup in recent seasons. Papua New Guineans Morea Morea, Roberth Mathias, Alex Max, Finley Glare, Epel Kapinias and Gairo Voro all spent time with the PNG Hunters, while forward Jeremiah Simbiken was on the books for both Redcliffe and the Norths Devils…
The Roughyeds have two Englishmen who have had spells in Queensland - Riley Dean spending time with the Mackay Cutters and Tom Nisbett, having a stint with the Townsville Blackhawks.
Then there is Oldham’s Aussie contingent - Cole Geyer and Ewan Moore both joined the club at the end of last year from the Burleigh Bears, who took out last year’s Queensland Cup, while forward Jaron Purcell spent the past three campaigns with Redcliffe.
Oldham’s first-team coach Alan Kilshaw knows the Queensland Cup well, having spent several seasons down under as an assistant coach with the Mackay Cutters.
The labour market disruptions that I’ve been banging on about for 12 months now are showing their impacts at the state level. Expect to see more of that over the coming years with bigger NRL squad sizes, more teams and English clubs pilfering our pockets. There have never been more jobs in professional rugby league.
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One of the services offered by The Maroon Observer collection of newsletters, and perhaps its most appreciated, is an interpretation of the news. Here is what I offer:
Experience watching people make good and bad strategic and tactical decisions
Shown sufficient self-reflection to understand the consequences of my own (relatively low stakes) professional decision making
Good memory
An innate dislike of being treated like a moron that is equally powerful as my need to post to be seen as smart, and
I never have (and never will) worked for media or in sport
This resume means that I can strip back the hyperbole to a set of facts, look at other evidence, and then reframe the story, usually in a way that can be embarrassing to someone trying to cover their ass but in a way that is potentially more truthful and free from concerns about causing offence or losing access. This is opinion, and should not be confused for journalism, because the latter would require me to talk to people and defer to a house style that would not allow me to insert my very real but ethically sourced biases into the text.
It is not to everyone’s taste, because you have to find it, because you have to read it, because it can be complicated, because I am acerbic and because, sometimes, it is important but boring. Overall though, I think it is worth your time, because it takes much of my time, so please consider subscribing.
The Youths are at it again
I completely misread this one:
The much-hyped introduction of an under-21s National Pathways Competition has been delayed in a blow to the hopes of reviving a countrywide league for the game’s best up-and-coming talent.
The under-21s proposal was seen as a way by the NRL to revive the defunct National Youth Competition, which was run as an under-20s format…
Code Sports understands plans for the revival of a fully-fledged national competition have been shelved for 2026 in favour of two separate competitions - Jersey Flegg (under-21s) in NSW and the NRLQ in Queensland…
[W]ell-placed sources say a 17-team national competition for 2026 is dead and buried and unlikely to be revisited during the current broadcast cycle, which ends in 2027.
I had taken NRLQ to be a one-season wonder, a duct taped bridge to get some game time ahead of NRLY coming in this year. It looks more like NRLQ is going to be around for a little longer.
The main sticking points on both National Reserve Grade and the return of a National Youth Comp are - wait for it - the player CBA and the broadcast deal. The lack of broadcast dollars to cover the cost of running either comp, which would be mostly incurred by the clubs, has been a persistent question I’ve had of both ideas over the years. I assumed the NRL would just ignore it and do something stupid. It turns out that money is important after all and you can’t just threaten to run people over with your car.
The next broadcast deal will trigger a renegotiation of the CBA. The players will want to wet their beaks in the rivers of gold flowing through Moore Park if the deal gets the expected uplift. NYC and NRG are only going to be on the agenda if the broadcasters have the appetite to produce and televise the games for potential audiences that aren’t going to be that big. There’s a scheduling consideration to reduce potential broadcast costs by staging multi-header gamedays but the audience will be increasingly split between NRLM, NRLW, NRLY and NRL2 as there is only so many hours of the weekend and only so much attention to go around. Diminishing returns will very much apply.
NRG and NYC are unlikely to be major factors over the next 18 months of negotiations, as there are much bigger issues at play. If the Chieves don’t get ready in time for kickoff 2028, the number of NRLM games will be up for debate, never mind the lower grades. But it does show the potential flexibility in what the future offering might look like and that things you might think are fixed in stone, like how many NRL competitions there are, are surprisingly negotiable.
The QRL has a little more breathing room to operate. Moreso NRG than NYC, but either would be threats to the state body’s competitions and now that is, at the very least, delayed. As noted in the QRL’s annual report, 2025 was the first year of a three year funding deal with the ARLC. We’ve seen more public-facing collaboration between QRL and ARLC on matters of policy since that was agreed.
The QRL still has to represent the grassroots of league in this state, and balance the needs of the statewide clubs against the wishes of the NRL clubs. The utility of the statewide clubs to the Q4 NRL clubs is a key part of giving QCup, QDub and other statewide comps a sense of purpose.
This arrangement is currently subject to a review by the QRL and club stakeholders. While I would’ve assumed in my trademark cynical and pessimistic fashion that the fix was in for a solution that benefits vertical integration of the NRL clubs at the expense of the statewide clubs, we’ll have to wait and see what actually comes out.
Intermission
The world game
In an unsurprising turn of events, Australia swept The Ashes. England managed to put up a total of 18 points across three games that the Kangaroos never looked like losing or even bothering to wake up for. The Ashes will return in 2028 or 2029, depending on who’s confused reporting you believe, but the record of the English in this series is verging on Queensland, circa the dying days of the interstate series.
Claiming victories over disinterested and disorganised Samoan and Tongan teams at home is one thing, but England have to come to the southern hemisphere for the World Cup and we all remember their last sojourn south of the equator.
Somehow, it’s always someone else’s fault that English rugby league is rarely competitive. With the London Broncos’ Kumuls-based flavour, PNG have offered to play a mid-season match against England for which there is apparently no room in the calendar, despite England’s best players desperately needing game time together.
Also, Shaun Wane got sacked.
Meanwhile, the Pacific Championships goes from strength to strength. The colour, the spectacle, the football and the TV product were miles ahead of The Ashes in every respect. The best piece written in the entire offseason was Nick Campton’s Pacific, pride, and pancakes with Papa’s father-in-law. Indeed, the future of rugby league in Australia, NZ and the Pacific is here – and it’s brown and the future is extremely bright for this part of the game.
Now that the NRL has worked out there are brown people of the kind that the future of rugby league will be built around in the Southeast, Samoa versus Tonga attracted nearly 45,000 people to Suncorp and it sounded like they all had fun despite the storm delay. The final saw New Zealand defeat Samoa, 36-14, in front of 28,000 mostly Samoan fans at Commbank Stadium. Samoa led at halftime but completely blew up in the second half, conceding 30 points in 40 minutes.
This sets us up surprisingly well for the 2026 World Cup. The relocation of the tournament from France to somewhere that can actually organise a piss-up in a brewery was sensible, if still disappointing. The reduction in the number of teams removes a significant degree of colour and cosmopolitanism (the men’s WC is the Pacific Championships plus England, Lebanon and a hopeless France) from the tournament and has resulted in a format that is best described as extremely confusing:
AAP has been told the men’s format will allow for Group A to have four teams in it, including the world’s two top-ranked sides in Australia and New Zealand.
The two highest finishers in that group will advance to the last four.
Group B and Group C will then comprise of three teams each. In a unique format, teams will play sides from the opposite group rather than their own.
The two top sides from the six in Groups B and Group C combined will then reach the semi-finals.
Whatever the format, there will be relatively limited jepoardy and the main question is whether England will be in or out by the semi-finals. The tournament will be shown on Seven who have already started cross-promoting it during the cricket. What a refreshing breath of fresh air it is to have a broadcaster that gives a toss.
For the future, the IRL has backtracked on its plan to split out of the RLWC into individual men’s, women’s and wheelchair tournaments:
IRL Chair Troy Grant said: “Through the ITT process [in 2023], which attracted significant interest, we did not believe that represented the proper value for each of those genres as standalone competitions.
“The IRL was also overwhelmed with feedback from members, players and administrators, who felt that we have a unique forum where the three genres of our game are played together.
“That allows us a unique opportunity to bring the rugby league family together by keeping the three World Cups as the one event.
Splitting the tournaments into three would require a great deal more optimism about the financial capacity of the World Cup to cover expenses than the last two editions have shown. If 2026 cannot deliver a return, it might be time to give up altogether.
Miscellaneous women’s business
The timing of the women’s season is such that the NRLW will roll directly into the World Cup, as it does with the men’s season. This nice bit of scheduling is not something enjoyed by the AFLW, which struggles to find a slot in the calendar.
One of the biggest challenges the AFLW is facing is end-of-year “footy fatigue”, according to diehard fans and those within the industry.
This year in its 10th season, crowds have sunk to an average of around 2,500 per game, down from 2,660 during the home-and-away season last year…
“It’s being played at a ridiculous time of the year … once AFL is done, even the biggest AFLW fans have footy fatigue,” Ms Hodges told ABC Sport.
This year, the AFLW season extended to 12 rounds over 12 weeks, including a four-week overlay with the men’s finals.
The AFLW was initially a pre-season competition before the AFL switched it to the post-season. Nobody seems happy with either outcome. It seems beyond the AFL to play the men’s and women’s competitions concurrently. That might mean admitting that the NRL got something right in the women’s sport space after the AFL took the initiative to invent women’s sport in 2017.
As it stands, the NRLW’s major scheduling issue is a lack of club play before Origin. I think it is reasonable to expect that will be solved as the NRLW is lengthened and starts earlier in the year. As the Perth Bears’ constitution makes clear, every NRL club is going to have a women’s team sooner or later, which will run to at least an 18 week regular season once the NRLW Chiefs are up and running sometime in the late 2030s.
It makes a lot more sense to run the NRLW season as it is currently scheduled, rather than as a pre-season competition, with a break before Origin, or a break after Origin but before the internationals (which then roll into the club season?). Running as a post-season competition creates a conflict with the current international window and has the same fan fatigue issues the AFLW faces. While the audiences will be split with concurrent competitions, as long as people are paying a subscription to watch a NRL-branded product, that should not concern either the broadcasters or the NRL. Plus then there’s the option of playing in France.
In other news, the NRL are finally taking Magic Round to a regional town: Wagga Wagga. The wishes of the dumbest NRL fans have finally been granted. Tickets will surely sell out immediately. Motel prices are ready to skyrocket. All it took was the NSW government paying for it. Quelle surprise.
The BMD Premiership (QDub) draw was released with the Hostplus Cup draw and there was a noticeable omission. Both the Redcliffe Dolphins and the Townsville Blackhawks were due to enter teams for the 2026 season but, due to a lack of available players in their systems, have deferred their entries. Both are expected to join in 2027, although that seems more likely for the Blackhawks than the Dolphins.
Also, Maddie Studdon is a stalker. It is a situation I would like to make light of, because I do not and have never liked Studdon as a player and now we have evidence she is deficient as a person, but will refrain. Instead, here is a palate cleanser from Robbie O’Davis’ daughter, Dior:
“Hopefully they’ll have the daddy-daughter eligibility rule,” she confirms. “But if I have to put a Blues jersey on, I’ll obviously wear a Queensland jersey underneath.
“I’m not touching a Blues jersey!”
“Daddy-daughter eligibility” is very cute. O’Davis plays in the Sea Eagles system.
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Read theory
Maybe someone checked and found Global Round had been trademarked, so now we just get random internationally staged club games depending on who’s willing to pay?
The NRL is looking to expand on its American footprint;
* Miami has emerged as another US market to capitalise on the NRL’s glamour premiership kick-off in Las Vegas;
* The NRL is considering taking a premiership fixture to England;
* The NRL is planning a third NRL game overseas in 2027, with a fourth potentially in 2028; and
* Cashed-up Middle Eastern delegates have made overtures to the NRL keen to road test rugby league in a region dominated by soccer.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, in the aftermath of the first World War, wrote Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. To borrow from Wikipedia, one of the central tenets of the book is:
For capitalism to generate greater profits than the home market can yield, the merging of banks and industrial cartels produces finance capitalism, and the exportation and investment of capital to countries with undeveloped and underdeveloped economies.
For Lenin, and Peter V’Landys, the saturation of domestic markets with NRL means that future growth relies on engaging in imperialism, the conquest of foreign territories whose resources can be stolen for the benefit of the capital. This is the logical conclusion of capitalism. Marx and Engels though that capitalism was a very necessary step in the transition of civilisation from feudalism to socialism, and then on to commuism.
Synthesising this together into some praxis, V’Lando-Leninist Thought sees Global Round, or something similar, as a stepping stone for the NRL to employ imperialism on its way to rugby league communism. It may not be Fully Automated Luxury Communism but it is probably more realistic.
From the (Tweed) river to the (Coral) sea
Cool:
Under the new legislation, public use of the controversial phrases "globalise the intifada" and "from the river to the sea" to cause menace, harassment or offence will be banned, with a maximum penalty of two years in prison…
Mr Crisafulli said the anti-hate laws were part of a suite of measures following the Bondi attack.
The Queensland government has rejected calls for the state to sign up to the federal government’s national gun buyback scheme.
Funny how free speech goes out the window when it is expedient to conservative governments but Queensland government to introduce new gun control laws criticised as ‘weakest in Australia’ is fine. Presumably these laws will be used to justify future QPS violence against protesters, as in Sydney this week or as per Joh’s Queensland, while doing very little to prevent mass shootings. The 70s are back.
Signatures
News has kindly put together a signing tracker (although it does not seem to be live) of QCup signings. The most notable are:
the un-retirement of Matt Parcell to join the Western Clydesdales
the return of Rodrick Tai from Warrington to Central Queensland
Judah Rimbu from Castleford/PNG to Easts Tigers
Kalolo Saitaua returning to Norths
Nat McGavin to Sunshine Coast
Wiremu Greig to Townsville
The club taking the biggest swings in last year’s market were Ipswich and that got the Jets off the mat and into the finals. The Tigers, under new coach Jim Lenihan (formerly of Burleigh and the Titans), have been active this offseason in an effort to get back to the top of the league.
Notes
I am waiting to see if there is an all-time backflip out of Payne Haas before comitting thoughts to text, which I will then include in the Pony Picayune season preview. Here are some snapshots of where I’m at. Also, Adam Reynolds retiring at the end of the year is barely news, let alone a bombshell.
The QRL dropped their 2025 annual report. Funding arrangements with the ARLC are locked in ($28.5m), although the same quantum as 2024 ($27.8m). Statewide club grants are up substantially from $8.2m to $9.3m. The statewide comps cost $5.6m to run. 40k tuned in for the QCup grand final. There are as many participants in the Central division (24.6k) as South East (28.9k), which are nearly double the North (15.1k). The overall profit was $10,819, which is a prefect amount of profit for community infrastructure. Please take note, Controlling Body.
Rugby League Eye Test: How well do lower grade stats predict NRL performance?
New Zealand government signs $5 million deal to bring State of Origin across the ditch. This hasn’t been confirmed officially as far as I can tell but we’ll talk more about it later.
Olympics: Queensland government dismisses concerns about Fitzroy River as 2032 Brisbane Olympics venue. Just bite the bullet, admit it wasn’t very smart to begin with and move it.
Rockhampton Girls Grammar School is also proud to announce the appointment of Tahnee Norris as our new Head of Boarding (also Capras women’s head coach)
Nathan Cross appointed Harvey Norman Maroons head coach and Orchids to appoint new coach for RLWC26 after parting ways with Norris
Former Canberra Raiders star Sam Williams to coach Northern Pride
QRL Northern set to overhaul recruitment with new player points cap to end club dynasties
An annual subscription on Qplus.tv will cost you $55 this year, up from $50 last year.
Sydney hospitality group Norths Collective is looking to offload two Far North Coast sporting clubs to cap losses and pay down debt of about $30 million. “Only two of Norths Collective's six clubs are profitable, including the massive Seagulls Club in Tweed Heads West, which it has operated since 1998.”
Antony Green: The Coalition Split and the Re-emergence of One Nation
NFLPA monitoring electromagnetic field situation at Super Bowl stadium due to player concerns (just in case you were wondering, electromagnetism is real but it doesn’t do what these people think it does)