Canterbury Bulldogs, without a win in 2020, took on the Manly Sea Eagles in the final game of the restart weekend in the NRL.

The venue was the Central Coast Stadium in Gosford, the site of yesterday’s game between the Warriors and the Dragons.

It was a breathless night in the Stadium with both sides relieved that darkness offered some relief from the heat.

With both sides needing a win it should have been a competitive game but one side got on a roll and dominated proceedings.

Two pointless sides were first up on Saturday in the NRL as New Zealand Warriors faced St George Illawarra Dragons at the Central Coast Stadium in Gosford, an hour’s drive north of Sydney.

Much has been written about the personal sacrifices made by the Warriors, who have relocated away from their families and friends to New South Wales, to allow them to compete in the competition despite coronavirus restrictions.

This move has enabled the competition to restart and made them most Australians new ‘second team’.

Both sides needed a win to kick-start their 2020 season after a disappointing opening two pre-Covid-19 games.

The household names of the Sydney Roosters were looking for a first win of the season as they looked to take the points of neighbours, the Rabbitohs, in a tantalising third round match up at the Bankwest Stadium in western Sydney.

There is no love lost between the Roosters and the Rabbitohs and with a shortened season the first meeting of the year between these two sides had a even greater meaning with even more at stake.

A big pre-match talking point was the absence of Roosters star forward Siosiua Taukeiaho after he failed to recover from injury.

The Rabbitohs were without their stand-off Cody Walker who is serving a suspension after his club failed to inform the NRL of his involvement in an off-field incident back in December.

It’s sixty-seven days since rugby league disappeared from our lives, and from our screens, but as the Brisbane Broncos and Paramatta Eels took to the field at a shade before eleven o’clock this morning it signalled a return to some semblance of normality after the horrendous coronavirus pandemic.

Project Apollo had landed.

The game was played behind closed doors, and after much gnashing of teeth, detailed preparation, tests and vaccinations, and a fair bit of bad press and controversy.

There was a reversion to a single referee, no ball boys, and a new ‘six-again’ rule when a defensive side have committed some offenses which would previously have seen a penalty awarded.

But the rugby starved public were, on the whole, delighted about the return and settled down in their armchairs to watch events unfold in the truncated NRL season.

We suspect that Australian Rugby League will be getting some new followers as the NRL swings back into post-Covid action in just ten days time, albeit behind closed doors and under strict health control measures.

In a nation crying out for a return to some semblance of normality, the reintroduction of the full-blooded Aussie league will have old and new British based supporters setting their alarm clocks to help themselves to a feast of club rugby.

When does it all get going, and how early am I going to have to get up?

Many rugby league sides will have breathed a massive sigh of relief as the news broke overnight that the government had set aside a sum of £16 million to safeguard the sport through the Coronavirus pandemic.

 

RFL chairman Ralph Rimmer had been petitioning the government for support since the shutdown in mid-March, and Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said that the government had made the move to ‘protect the entire sport’.

Rugby League looks almost certain to be back in our lives from the 28^th May, just four weeks away, as the NRL have been given the go-ahead to return to action under strict hygiene rules as the Aussie game comes out of enforced hibernation.

There is still some discussion over the duration of the season, in terms of the number of weeks over which it will be played, but it is almost certain to start over the last weekend of May and likely to culminate in a Grand Final on the 25^th October.

 

It’s been thirty-six days since we last saw a ball kicked in Super League, and a whole month since the National Rugby League in Australia padlocked the stadium gates, as the silent killer Coronavirus has gone on an international rampage leaving a trail of death and emotional destruction.

 

With all other sport being put on hold, as responsible people stay at home and cram DVD box sets or get full value out of their Netflix subscriptions, there is a real desire to return to some kind of rugby league action.

 

 

In the interests of national sanity, we look at some of the options being suggested to at least enable a limited return.

The Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC) has announced that it will give AUS$2.

5m ($1.

53; £1.

2m) to every club in the National Rugby League (NRL).

The package, agreed after an emergency meeting on Monday, is intended to shore up the league's 16 clubs in light of financial uncertainty created by the coronavirus outbreak.

With all sport, let alone Rugby League, suspended across the world only the Australians were pushing forward with a full NRL programme albeit behind closed doors.

 

Starved of live domestic action, we took a look at the Sydney Roosters against Manly Sea Eagles as both sides looked for their first win of the season after suffering defeats on their opening games last weekend.

 

A decent win could lift either side into the top five, but in a fledgling league table, a heavy defeat could mean that one of them could end the weekend at the bottom.

With all Rugby League now suspended until the 3^rd of April, after a change to the government’s advice on mass gatherings, there must be some doubt as to whether the sixth round of the Coral Challenge Cup will go ahead on the weekend of the 4^th and 5^th of next month.

But the draw had taken place with the remaining eight Super  League clubs being thrown into the mix to join the sides which progressed through the fifth round at the weekend.

Both teams came into the match off narrow losses in round 6 - with Saints’ loss to Huddersfield the most surprising.

But who would bounce back the strongest?

It was the hosts looked impressive in the first 10 minutes and opened the scoring on 11 minutes.

Pressing the Saints line, they moved the ball left to right while less than 10m out.

When it reached centre Peter Mata’utia he crashed forward and over the line.

Despite the attentions of three tacklers who turned him onto his back, he reached over his head and grounded the ball.

Danny Richardson converted against his former team and the Tigers opened a 6-0 lead.

While the rest of the sporting world ground to a coronavirus induced halt, Rugby League put on a brave (some may say foolhardy) face and decided to push ahead with the weekends’ programme.

In a repeat of last season’s play-off, Salford Red Devils took on the Wigan Warriors with two league points on offer.

Jackson Hastings returned to the side where he was named as Man of Steel last season, hoping get a win against the side he helped to take to the Grand Final in 2019.

But the Warriors were without their usual kicker as Zak Hardaker was rested after picking up a knock.

Flower and Partington were also banned after last weeks win against Hull KR.

The Warriors have a great record at the AJ Bell Stadium and knew that a win would guarantee that they would finish the round at the top of the table, but Ian Watson’s side were desperate for a win to put some breathing space between themselves and the relegation spot.

Last weeks one point winners were thrown together as Hull FC played hosts to the Warrington Wolves in the seventh round of Super League 2020.

Third place was up for grabs, should either side secure a large enough margin of victory, but realistically the side to take the spoils would end the night in fourth spot, tucked in behind the Castleford Tigers.

Both sides have had indifferent starts to the season and tonight was a night when a win could kick start something decent, while a loss would start to see a gap opening up to the top sides.

The magic of the Challenge Cup threw together two Super League sides as the Huddersfield Giants took on the Toronto Wolfpack at the John Smith’s Stadium, despite the Canadian side coming out of the hat first.

Toronto were without Sonny-Bill Williams but coach McDermott did give first games of the season to Darcy Lussick and Chase Stanley as they were welcomed back from injury.

The Giants recalled Suaia Matagi but were without Ukuma Ta’ai and Gaskell.

The Giants, with home advantage, and against a side who’d yet to register a win in 2020, were massive favourites with the bookies to make progress into the next round.

Two sides in desperate need of a two point win met in the late round five kick off as the Bradford Bulls took on the Sheffield Eagles at the Tetley’s Stadium in Dewsbury.

With both sides on two points a big enough win would lift either up into seventh place in a congested Championship table but the home side were odds-on with the bookies to pick up the valuable two points as both sides look to kick-start a season which has so far been filled mostly with disappointment.

It was John Kear against Mark Aston as the two old warhorse coaches, and good friends, went head to head yet again.

Two days, and three start times, separated the round five games in the Betfred Championship.

Batley had the daunting trip to Toulouse to take on the undefeated Olympique XIII side, while Leigh and Featherstone had to defend their one hundred percent records against Swinton and Halifax respectively.

Widnes had a home game against Whitehaven, while the London Broncos went to pointless York looking for another two points in their quest to bounce back into Super League.

Dewsbury were at Oldham, while the final game of the round was between the Bradford Bulls and the Sheffield Eagles as both sides looked to improve on their only win of the season.

Going two points clear at the top of Super League was the reward for a Wigan Warriors win as they faced a struggling Hull KR at the DW Stadium on a chilly afternoon in Wigan.

A win for the Robins may not change their league position but crucially it would lift them four points clear of the Toronto Wolfpack and closer to safety from the relegation spot.

The two sides last met in August 2019 when the Warriors registered a 36-18 win at the DW building on a 52-10 win that they had recorded a month earlier.

It had been a much closer game between the two sides in June when just a single point separated the two sides.

Wigan were the strong pre-game favourites to register another win.

Warrington welcomed Castleford to the Halliwell Jones Stadium knowing they needed something different after being nilled at Leeds in last week’s Round Five game.

Steve Price’s team went back to basics, and it paid off in a low scoring, but tense, arm-wrestle of a game.

Defences were on top in the opening session, but the hosts were the team applying the early pressure for the first 10 minutes or more.

Leeds marched to the top of Super League when they played host to Toronto Wolfpack – and did it with style, and some swagger.

Richie Myler filled in at fullback like a natural, while bringing a half’s ball playing awareness to role; Rhyse Martin notched up a 100% 11 out of 11 goals, all conversions; Luke Gale scored two tries, and had a hand in a number of others to record 1,500 career points in 300 games.

And Toronto? Well they came, they scored two tries and converted converted them,  but overall - and especially in defence – they looked too much like a Championship side playing a Super League team on fire.