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. […]
Category Archives: The Column
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 […]
