VALE TONY BRANSON
VALE TONY BRANSON From all accounts, Tony Branson was a quiet country lad, who felt uncomfortable with all the media and public attention that came with being a rugby league […]
Category Archives: The Column
VALE FRANK MYLER
VALE FRANK MYLER Frank Myler made his first team debut for Widnes when he was just 16, in 1955. Fifteen years later he captained the Great Britain Lions rugby league […]
REV HEAD MICK
Former Test rugby league winger, Michael Hancock was a ‘rev head’ in his younger days at Stanthorpe, where he said there wasn’t much to do as a teenager. In an […]
ORIGIN FOOTBALL AT CROSSROADS
COMMENT by Steve Ricketts, former Chief Rugby League Writer, The Courier-Mail Good luck to rugby league administrators next year, as they try to promote State of Origin as ‘The Best […]
WELL DONE ROOSTERS
Take a bow Trent Robinson. If every coach was like the Sydney Roosters’ boss, maybe our game would be known, and played, more widely. Robinson took his NRL championship winning […]
SIGN OF THINGS TO COME
What a time for a sports journalist to take a holiday! It was September, 2000; the Sydney Olympics were being held, and my editor told me to go on leave! […]
MORNINGTON ISLAND CONVOY
‘Eliza Fraser’ will never go down as one of the best movies made in Australia. The 1976 bawdy adventure didn’t have a massive budget, but involved quite a large logistical […]
WHAT NOW FOR FRINGE PLAYERS?
They were unsettling times for fringe players – the period leading up to the start of the inaugural NRL season in 1998. The Australian Rugby League and Super League were […]
DID BIG MAL PLAY 500 GAMES?
Melbourne Storm skipper, Cameron Smith already holds the record for most appearances in first grade, and, if he plays another two seasons as planned, his tally will be hard to […]
PACK YOUR BAGS GATOR
It’s not often you get to tell a young man he has just been selected for Australia. But I had that honor in 1983 when second rower, Wally Fullerton Smith […]
MAL NOT IMPRESSED BY BITING CLAIMS
Thank heavens the worldwide web was in its infancy in 1992, otherwise the accompanying photograph of me with Great Britain rugby league coach, Mal Reilly, might never have been taken. […]
TOURING WITH ‘PINK’
HAVING bought Rugby League Week every week since the first edition in 1970 (when I was still at school), it was a great thrill to be able to cover the […]
COMMENT: WE SHOULD HAVE PAID THE MANAGERS
Player-managers – I didn’t have a great deal to do with them during my 32 years as a rugby league writer. I certainly didn’t rely on them as much as […]
COMMENT: Weight divisions, Titans pre-season
By Steve Ricketts – Former Chief Rugby League Writer, The Courier-Mail. It was reassuring to see that The Courier-Mail’s Mike Colman was on the ‘same page’ as me, in relation to […]
BOXING DAY RIVALRIES
While many Australians were looking forward to the first ball to be bowled in the Boxing Day Cricket Test, rugby league fans in England were looking for a fix, after […]
AUSTRALIAN SCHOOLBOYS BROUGHT BACK TO EARTH
COMMENT By Steve Ricketts, former chief rugby league writer, The Courier-Mail. Australia’s schoolboy rugby league players have lost some of their aura in the professional age. The academy system in […]
GORDON SMITH – A WEST COAST TREASURE
Gordon Smith is probably an unlikely ‘favorite player’, but he ranks highly on my list of overseas’ stars who impressed me when I was a rugby league journalist with the […]
AGGRESSION OR THUGGERY?
It’s hard to decide what I found the more heart breaking? Ron Clarke’s failure to win an Olympic Gold Medal, or Australia’s abject failure on the 1969-70 cricket tour of […]
COMMENT: TIME TO FORGE A NEW IDENTITY
COMMENT By Steve Ricketts, former chief rugby league writer, The Courier-Mail. TIME TO FORGE A NEW IDENTITY AS a young player at the Canberra Raiders, Anthony Siebold liked a good […]
I WAS BRANDED A SCAB
As a Life Member of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), I look back on this episode in my career with some embarrassment. In 1972, barely 12 months after […]
