Almanac Rugby League

The Almanac Rugby League Crew

If you’d like to publish a rugby league story on The Footy Almanac website, please contact Ian Hauser.

 

If you’d like to join the Footy Almanac’s rugby league email list to receive our regular
Thursday updates during the season and occasional updates in the off-season, contact John Harms in the first instance.

 

The Footy Almanac’s coverage of rugby league features a team of four regular columnists:

Ian Hauser provides a round by round preview/review and comments on specific players/incidents.
Matt O’Hanlon (Prop by the Sea) offers a quirky take of the week’s happenings on and off the field.
Mark Shannon (The Prospector) comments on various issues in the code, both historical and current.
Russel Hansen (Rabbit in the Vineyard) gives a specific take on South Sydney’s progress.

as well as numerous other occasional contributors.

Our collection of articles appears below. The first article was published in 2010.

 

Almanac Rugby League – A Day for Darren

September 6, 2011 by 2 Comments

Tickets for this match sold out weeks beforehand, in fact well before I was asked to review it for the Almanac. So I watched on the big screen in the lounge after an earlier sumptuous lunch. With pen and paper poised and radio on hand to get comments from ABC Grandstand, I was up for [Read more]

Almanac Rugby League – Free of the rubbish and smiling

September 5, 2011 by 1 Comment

I love rugby league. A few years ago, I was asked by a neighbour whether I had watched the Bledisloe Cup. I explained that I had not, because it clashed with 13th placed Penrith playing 14th placed North Queensland in the mud, in front of 5,000 people. He still thinks I was joking. And so, [Read more]

Almanac Rugby League – Weyman sets the Dragon’s tone

September 5, 2011 by Leave a Comment

What proved to me that Wayne Bennett is a coaching genius was the signing of Michael Weyman when he headed to the Dragons in 2009. For the record, I was aware of Bennett’s record of success with the Broncos (being a Dragons fan in 1992 and 1993, it’s impossible not to). But it was only [Read more]

Almanac Rugby League – The battle for the wooden spoon

September 4, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The excitement last week of Parramatta’s extra-time loss fuelled the Golden Girl’s fire to make it to Skilled Park for the final match of the season for the Eels and Titans. The fact that it was also the final of the Wooden Spoon- a dreaded consequence of a poor season – made it an appealing [Read more]

Almanac Rugby League – A noble rugby league tradition

September 4, 2011 by 5 Comments

For good or ill, I am an optimist, so despite another disappointing season from Canterbury and a reliance on either a Friday night draw between South Sydney and Newcastle or a Rabbitohs win followed by a mammoth Bulldogs win, I still thought there was hope for Canterbury. Mathematical chance, I believe they call it. That [Read more]

Almanac Rugby League – Finals Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

September 4, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Come back to 1995 with me for a moment. The ARL expanded their competition by introducing four new teams – the Western Reds, the South Queensland Crushers (featuring the incomparable St John Ellis), the Auckland (subsequently New Zealand) Warriors and the North Queensland Cowboys. With my early childhood years split between Mackay and Brisbane, I [Read more]

Almanac Rugby League – Hope is a glorious thing

September 1, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Strangely a game with no sense of ‘The Grudge’. This on the most hate-fuelled, bloodthirsty, full-mooned weekends in recent memory, some say in a decade, strangely with this match post ‘Battle of Brookie’ the only game without a ‘Let’s get it on’. As usual, New Zealand were referred to as the ‘Dark Horse’ of the [Read more]

Almanac Rugby League – Bumper Farrell and a deep Dragons dislike

August 30, 2011 by Leave a Comment

On a day better suited to surfing than Rugby League, St George Illawarra faced the foreign invasion from New Zealand, in a Warriors side keen to improve their chances of hosting a home semi-final. The Dragons had a mission of their own: to snap a five game losing streak which had seen them fall from [Read more]

Almanac Rugby League – A Potted Rugby League Memoir Part II

August 30, 2011 by 2 Comments

A POTTED PERSONAL MEMOIR (part 2) Returning to Queensland in 1984, it seemed like there was something different in the air when it came to rugby league. It didn’t take long to figure it out – State of Origin! I was familiar with the concept because the Australian Rules fraternity in the southern States had [Read more]

Almanac Rugby League – A day of answers

August 30, 2011 by 1 Comment

  Travelling to Suncorp Stadium to the watch the Broncos and Rabbitohs on Sunday, I am blissfully content to be taking in what promises to be an entertaining fixture. I am in one of those truly liberated states where I actually have an open mind about the result and am just looking forward to the [Read more]