HOW TO FILL THE HOLES You cannot control injuries, but you can control the development of your players to cover them IN the last round of 2003 we secured a top-four finish. Late in the last quarter, against Melbourne, discussions quickly turned to who we would take off to save for the first final the […]

NSW Blues coach Ricky Stuart is likely to stay true Blue Andrew Webster The Daily Telegraph COACHING the Blues for a third consecutive series – and not an NRL club – has emerged as the most likely option for Ricky Stuart beyond this year. Despite rampant speculation that he is poised to replace either David […]

Hall of Fame trip down memory Lion BY PAUL ROOS AT the end of the 1986 season Fitzroy players gathered on a tennis court at Wesley College and were told that the club was effectively finished. We were given three options: Fold completely, merge with a Melbourne-based club or relocate to Brisbane as a group. […]

Jarryd Hayne credits NSW coach Ricky Stuart with his resurrection By Paul Crawley The Daily Telegraph JARRYD Hayne has revealed that Ricky Stuart’s faith in him to perform on the Origin stage reignited his stumbling season. In a wide-ranging interview, Hayne also told how being away from Parramatta had helped relieve the pressure on him […]

Gritty triumph fails to mask lack of bite in attack Matthew Burke The Wallabies might have won the series against Wales, and rightly so, but how far have they come since the World Cup? I couldn’t be happier for Australian rugby and I’m certain Robbie Deans is breathing a little easier after winning a tough […]

HORSE SENSE By: PAUL ROOS Former Kangaroo John Longmire learned from the best, but has gone his own way as a senior coach JOHN Longmire has been in the public eye for as long as I can remember. He burst on to the scene as the next big thing from Corowa-Rutherglen. I first met John […]

Bob Fulton backs calls for Andrew ‘Joey’ Johns to join rugby league’s Immortals By Paul Kent, Daily Telegraph RUGBY league Immortal Bob Fulton has declared all that will stop Andrew Johns from being crowned the next Immortal is his off-field history – which should not be considered under established criteria. “The original intention of the […]

IT WAS a brave effort on Wednesday night. It is always when you must deal with the nerves and pressure of being 1-0 down in the series and all your second chances are gone. State of Origin brings such pressure that it is hard to describe what the players go through, and how much emotion […]

Long live the scrum – but with the pause clause sorted out Watching the State of Origin during the week I was bombarded with questions by my non-rugby mates. I felt as if I was being interrogated from all sides about the state of our game. They weren’t having a go per se, they wanted […]

GARY Ablett is entitled to feel a bit disenchanted with the industry that pays him so well. He must be wondering what he has to do to keep the critics satisfied. Gold Coast recruited Ablett in the first place because he was widely considered in the top three players in the competition. My assessment is […]

Premiership coaches Paul Roos and Leigh Matthews dissect modern footy’s hottest tactical trends and the stat that really matters. TEMPO FOOTY THIS has replaced the old-fashioned brawl and is meant to stop an opposition run-on or wind down the clock at the end of a quarter. The objective is to move the ball around by […]

WOULD Queensland be able to sell-out an 84,000 stadium if they had lost six straight series? I doubt it. Even the Maroons most loyal supporter, Chris “Choppy’ Close gave up all hope only a few years ago. “Origin is dead” he reportedly murmured after the Blues annihilated QLD by 56-16 in 2000. So I guess […]