Australia
National Rugby League (NRL) is the top league of professional rugby league football clubs in Australasia. The NRL competition (sometimes referred to as the Telstra Premiership for sponsorship purposes) is contested by 16 teams, 15 based in Australia and one based in New Zealand, and is the Southern Hemisphere's elite rugby league championship.
Broncos vs Panthers
Match scheduled:
Date: 18-06-2010
Time: 09:00 until 11:00
Round #15 - NRL Telstra Premiership 2010
Watch live rugby TV
These new agreements have seen the NRL significantly expand its international television broadcast reach to now include North America, Africa, Italy, the Middle East, PNG and the Asia Pacific region, as well as online subscription services for international supporters. [59].
[edit] Internet
Replays of NRL matches, as well as highlights and NRL-related informational programming are available in Australia from BigPond[57]. Telstra's ISP. Outside of Australia, these programs are sold by Aussie Sport TV.
[edit] Radio coverage
The NRL has several games broadcast live on the radio.
ABC Local Radio has the exclusive rights to all NRL matches in the ACT, Queensland and New South Wales except Monday night games.
Triple M (Sydney) covers the Monday Night game[60] and is broadcast on commercial stations across the country.
[edit] Players
National Rugby League footballers are some of Australasia's most famous athletes, commanding multi-million dollar playing contracts as well as sponsorship deals. Each club in the NRL has a "top squad" of twenty-five players, who are signed under the salary cap, as described above. For the most part, the players who play in NRL matches are sourced from these top squads. Occasionally during a season, however, the need may arise for a club to use players outside these 25, and in this case players are usually sourced from the club's corresponding Toyota Cup side or feeder club (such as the relevant New South Wales Cup or Queensland Cup squad).[61][62][63][64]
The players voted to be the best in each position at the end of the season are honoured at the annual Dally M Awards, with the player of the year awarded the Dally M Medal. The man of the match in the Grand Final is awarded the Clive Churchill Medal.
[edit] Africans in the NRL
There are only a handful of Africans in the NRL. There are South Africans Jarrod Saffy who plays for the St. George Illawarra Dragons, JP Du Plessis and Brian Skosana both signed to the Sydney Roosters[65]. Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs winger Jamal Idris is of Nigerian background[66], Gold Coast Titans backrower Selasi Berdie is of Ghanaian background and is believed to be the first ever player of Ghanaian background to play in the NRL[67], North Queensland Cowboys forward Willie Mason[68], St. George Illawarra Dragons winger Peni Tagive[69] and Penrith Panthers forward Daine Laurie[70] also have African backgrounds[71][72][73]
[edit] Asians in the NRL
There are very few Asian players in the NRL, one of them currently being Gold Coast Titans winger Kevin Gordon who is of Chinese and Filipino background[74] as well as former South Sydney Rabbitohs and Sydney Roosters hooker Craig Wing who is of Filipino background[75] joined Japanese Rugby Union at the end of the 2009 season.[76]
[edit] Europeans in the NRL
There are few European-born players in the National Rugby League, despite the significant number of Australians in Europe's Super League[77]. However, those who do play in the NRL (such as, in recent times, Adrian Morley who is English of Welsh descent[78] and Brian Carney who is Irish[79]) are often stars of the game.[80]
Europeans currently playing in the NRL include England representatives Gareth Ellis who plays for the Wests Tigers[81] and Sam Burgess who has signed with the South Sydney Rabbitohs for 2010[82][83]. Other Europeans include former Wigan Warriors loose forward Mark Flanagan who is playing with the Wests Tigers[70] in 2010, and Scottish international Ian Henderson who is currently playing for the New Zealand Warriors[84]. Ellis won Wests Tigers 'best and fairest' award in his inaugural season.[85]
There are also a huge number of players in the NRL with European backgrounds. some of them Sydney Roosters fullback Anthony Minichiello[86] is an Italian international[87] there are also a lot of other players with Italian backgrounds such as Rocky Trimarchi, Cameron Ciraldo and Anthony Laffranchi[88].
Players with Greek backgrounds include John Skandalis and Iwi Hauraki[89][90], players with Maltese backgrounds include Jarrod Sammut, Shane Shackleton and Danny Galea[91] there are also a lot of other players of European backgrounds in the NRL from such as countries as Ireland and Scotland[92][93].
[edit] Indigenous Australians in the NRL
The first Indigenous Australian to play in the precursor to the NRL was New South Wales Rugby League premiership player George Green, who debuted in 1909. Since that time, many high profile indigenous athletes have played in the competition, including standout rugby league test players Arthur Beetson (the first aborigine to captain an Australian national team in any sport) and current Test match representatives Jonathan Thurston and Greg Inglis. A Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission report found that 11% of NRL players in 2006 were of Aboriginal descent,[94] | | publisher = Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission | accessdate = 2007-11-09|format=PDF}} (By way of comparison, only 2.3% of the Australian population identified themselves as Indigenous in the 2006 Australian census.)[95]. A 2009 survey of NRL players showed that 47 players, or 10.9 per cent, in its clubs' full-time squads are indigenous with a slightly higher figure for under-20s competition.[96]
On February 13, 2010 at Skilled Park on the Gold Coast, the NRL will hold an "indigenous all stars" game. It is to be a indigenous Australian verse non-indigenous Australian and New Zealander game of the top players from their respective backgrounds. The Indigenous All-Stars will be a 20 man squad voted by the public. The non-indigenous squad will consist of the Australian and New Zealand national teams captains and vice captains and one player from each of the sixteen NRL clubs.
[edit] Pacific Islanders in the NRL
There are increasing numbers of both New Zealand and Pacific Island born players being selected by clubs. In recent years, Polynesian players have made up 75 per cent of junior representative teams in New South Wales.[97] It has been suggested that by 2011-2012 50% of NRL players could be of Polynesian or Melanesian descent.[98]
[edit] Record statistics (1998+)
| Rank | Player | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Hazem El Masri | 2,418 |
| 2 | Andrew Johns | 2,176 |
| 3 | Jason Taylor | 2,107 |
| 4 |  Daryl Halligan | 2, 034 |
| 5= | Craig Fitzgibbon | 1,604 |
| 5= | Clinton Schifcofske | 1,604 |
| 7 | Matt Orford | 1,500 |
| 8 | Luke Burt[99] | 1,356 |
| 9 | Mat Rogers[99] | 1,304 |
| 10 | Brett Hodgson | 1,289 |
| As of 29 March 2010. | ||
The Brisbane Broncos (1998, 2000 and 2006) have the distinction of winning the most premierships (three) since the creation of the National Rugby League. The Melbourne Storm had also won three premierships until being stripped of two of these premierships in April 2010.[100][101]
The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs hold the record for the most consecutive wins, having won 17 matches in a row between 31 March 2002 and 3 August 2002.[102] However this was the year that they went over the salary cap by over $1.5 million. The Parramatta Eels set the records for the highest score and margin of victory in a 74–4 victory over the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks on 23 August 2003.[103] The most victories achieved within a regular season is 21 (excluding a further 3 wins in the finals series), was held by the Melbourne Storm in 2007.[104] It is unknown as of April 2010 whether Melbourne's team records from the 2006-2010 period will stand, after salary cap breaches were announced as having occurred over this time, resulting in the stripping of the Storm's major and minor premierships in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009.[100][101] (Should this record be stripped of the Storm, the Parramatta Eels would hold the record with 20 wins in 2001. The Storm also won 20 wins in 2006, but this would likewise be in question.)
Since the first National Rugby League season in 1998, a total of six players have topped the scorers list in a season. However, the only player to have won the title more than once is Hazem El Masri, the overall top scorer in the National Rugby League's history, having claimed the title in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2009. Hazem El Masri was leading the top scoring table in 2005 until sidelined through injury. His tally of 342 points in 2004[105] remains the most points scored by an individual in a season. He is also the 2000s' most-served player with 249 games (out of 259)[106]; at a match in 2004 he equaled the record for most successful goals with 35 (a feat which he also nearly matched that year in international tests); he is the third most successful goal-scorer in the NRl with 891 two-pointers to his name (beaten by Jason Taylor with 941 and Andrew Johns with 917); and he is tied fifth on most tries scored with 159.
Nigel Vagana's 154 tries scored across all nine seasons of the National Rugby League[107] makes him the most prolific try scorer in the competition's history ( as Ken Irvine and Steve Menzies, the games actual highest try scorers, played before the creation of the NRL). Nathan Blacklock holds the record for the most tries in a season, with 27 scored in 2001[108] for his team, the St. George Illawarra Dragons.
Terry Campese holds the record for the most points scored in a game with 36 points in a match featuring Canberra vs Panthers Round 22 2008 (Canberra 74 defeated Penrith 12).[109] Only three players have scored five tries in a game; Francis Meli, Jamie Lyon, and Nigel Vagana.[109]
It should be noted, however, that the official records of the NRL do not differentiate between the various top level competitions. For more information on official records, see this page List of NSWRL/ARL/SL/NRL records
