Some rare but always welcome news from that distant and isolated Rugby League land that is South Africa. Over the weekend the Final of the Rhino Cup was played, also the next round of the Lord Derby Cup in France was played with some good results in there. Lebanon’s representative season has started with a solid result for the Presidents XIII and there is some rumour mill today as well as a couple comments on the two organisation in the USA.
The South African domestic season has come to an end with the Tuks Bulls defeating the Ermelo Tomahawks by 42-22. In a press release from the South African Rugby League they had this to say:
Tuks Rugby League kept the record straight by winning again the national South African Rugby League Club Championship (The Rhino Cup) 44-22 against Ermelo Thomahawks this past weekend in Vanderbijlpark.
Rugby League consist of play where no line-outs, rucks are used, therefore less “stoppage” during play. The offensive team gets six tackles whereby the ball gets “hooked” backwards for the next play thus resulting in a much faster attacking/running code of play. The code suites the running type of player with quick thinking and group-action attitude.
Both the teams did their best to outsmart the other in fast running and good hard group-tackling game. As a rural squad the Thomahawks did not allowed Tuks to dominate the play at all times. Tuks application of a RL game plan in both offensive- and defensive- plays resulted in better completion therefore keeping the score board running.
In the first half Tuks started the game with quick successive tries but the Thomahawks made sure this is not going to be a “one-man show”. At half time Tuks were just in front with the score at 22-16.
Tuks’ fitness started having benefits in the second half by completing the score board with another 4 tries. The Thomahawks could only score another 1 try to complete their score.
Deon Kraëmer (Tuks RL captain) made sure that the title for “Player-of-the-series” will be his by scoring 2 tries through quick attacks on the opposition’s try line.
First year players Hans du Plessis & Christo (Seep) Louw made their mark in Rugby League by scoring each their first try in a SARL Rhino Cup Final. JP Nell, Jean Coetzer, Rupert Wells and Franco (Frank the Tank) Vermeulen complete the the rest of the scoring squad with a try each. At stand-off- Pieter V/d Nest was successful with 5 out of 8 attempts to the sticks.
Stats:
Tuks RL: 8 tries with 5 conversions. Thomahawks: 4 tries with 3 conversions
“Dawie the Rhino” will therefore “grace” for another year in Pretoria making sure maintenance staff at Tuks can go and sleep well on “maintenance” that will be done well!
The Tuks RL-players will now compete for provincial colors where after national selection will be up for grabs. The national squad, “The Rhino” will then travel to America (October/November) to qualify for the 2013 Rugby League World Cup. SA Students will also be gearing up to compete at the 2013 Student World Cup.
Tuks RL are now in the process of setting up a process to get the attention of sponsorships to assist in a UK-tour for the club in October-November 2011.
For any enquiries about local Rugby League- contact Fanie @ +27 83 677 2111.
Kind regards,
Fanie Bredenhann
It also seems that the local news paper is picking up on the sport by at least having an article in the paper about it. Small it may be, but it shows that at least the sport is getting some recognition.
In France the next round Lord Derby Cup was played out. This is France’s annual knock out competition like the Challenge Cup in England. Its been played since 1933 and is one of the sports oldest continually running tournaments. Results were: Albi 28-16 Lyon-Villeurbanne, Avignion 44-02 Villeneuve, Baho 14-54 Pia, Carpentras 16-46 UTC, Toulouse JJ 00-58 Limoux, Carcassonne 12-24 Lezignan, La Reole 06-66 Montpellier and Entraigues 22-26 St Gaudens/Toulouse.
In Lebanon the first of the representative games has been played. In years gone by the Presidents XIII has always got a bit of a raw end of the stick and tended to get pasted a bit by the Liban Espoir. They have lost on average by 29 points and the closest they ever game was by 21. But this year a new selection process was brought in by the Lebanon Rugby League Federation and the talent has been spread out between three teams a bit more evenly. The Presidents XIII has come up against the Federation XIII over the weekend and it showed that the new criteria is working, with a hard fought game Both teams threw everything into it and at half time the Presidents team was up only 10-4. They finally clicked and were able to really take the game in the second half eventually winning 32-14.
You can read the match report here.
| Team | P | W | D | L | B | PD | Pt | |
| 1 | Presidents XIII | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 28 | 2 |
| 2 | Liban Espoir | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 3 | Federation XIII | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | -28 | 0 |
No this is not any remarks on the whole split, as you may all know, David Niu and the AMNRL or Star Group still have not come out and said anything officially. So I will still hold out any comment on that side. But I do feel there are some remarks on both sides that can be made… well maybe a comparison of sorts or something. Basically every week, well almost everyday I go on the AMNRL and USARL websites.
The AMNRL website, as has been for years now is effectively non existent and still remains that way. What is curious now though I have noticed that it automatically directs to the We Are Rugby website. Now this is where things get murky as this seems to suggest that WAR and the Star Group who own them are indeed involved in the direct running of the AMNRL. It can’t be a good thing for sponsorship deals for the AMNRL if there is no site and it goes to a site that may well be a rival one for them. Its not a ‘Rugby League’ or ‘AMNRL’ specific site and to find any news on the AMNRL means sifting through the news site. Fantastic statistics for WAR and Star Group, poor for the AMNRL where when it comes to sponsorship on through the web numbers mean everything. The longer http://www.amnrl.com is no running I can only see more and more damage being done.
Having said that the USARL website is not much better. One of their big points as I understand it was the fact that there was no website for sponsors and fans of the sport in the USA and around the world to go to and reference. You would think that after the split the one thing you would go and do is make sure that you get a great website up and running … bzzzzzz … apparently not. Its not much better than the AMNRL site. It does have a couple of ‘articles’ on there but nothing has been updated or changed in nearly a month. Again if the USARL are looking for sponsors and to direct them to a site they need to fix this up big time otherwise they aren’t any better than the AMNRL site that they had the issues with.
Maybe we all should go to Centrebet and stick a fifty on to see who get their site up and running first? It makes me wonder as I know from my own experience with this site how easy it can be to set up and update and maintain a site. Once you have the layout, you only need about 30 mins a day to keep things current. you can youse LiveWriter or WordPress to write stories and articles and they can get published from anywhere in the world to the site. So I say to both c’mon people, get cracking and get the info out there and the sites done!
The rumour mill this time comes courtesy of the Germans. I am hearing that to coincide with this weeks Rugby League European Federation AGM in Frankfurt, Rugby League Deutschland will also be having theirs, and there will be a changing of the guard with one of the senior members on the board stepping down. A new president will be voted in and its expected to be a German running RLD from now on. I should have some more on this next week.
Speaking of the RLEF and their AGM, its also expected that this years internationals and venues will also be announced. We all wait in anticipation as there should be some great match up this year especially with a World Cup Qualification tournament in Europe this year.
A disappointing rumour from the USA with apparently the AMNRL pulling support for the Denver Wolverines team. As it turns out I may have been right with some of my earlier comments that some of the WAMNRL teams would struggle to get teams up and ready for this years season. Not meaning they would fold, but the training, recruiting and promotion process needed at least another year. This according to some was not good enough for the AMNRL and they pulled support. It upset some as they were staunch AMNRL supporters too. I hear that they are now talking with the USARL about possibilities to eventually join them.
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