First season NFL players are known as Rookies in their first season, and they've turned professional.

Over 1000 applied worldwide, 200 were chosen to attend trials in Australia and NZ, 28 rookies were then chosen from 200 trialists.

The NRL rookie ended up being way more popular then channel 9 thought it would be. Will be interesting too see if it just as popular next year.

I read an interview with one of the rookies who said they had a masseuse visit them every two days. Had coaches review video with the players every day.

Said they were treated like professional players. Not sure a version here would be like that.

If it done cheap then no point.

London Broncos did their "Prop Idol" contest way back in 2003 ! https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2003/ ... richardrae

London Broncos did their "Prop Idol" contest way back in 2003 ! https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2003/ ... richardrae

A british rugby league version is a total no go.

Exactly the same concept..........but for premier league football would be a massive goer.

So, the majority of the clubs must have given him 3 points to enable him to come first yet, only 2 clubs wanted him???
Didn't understand that.

Remember sky did one for football few years back and it flopped miserably

From what I remember the production and vision of the show was pretty poor.

Just watching the final on catch up now. Fair play to sky, had no idea they were showing it live.

I was confused. I thought they said he got a choice of all the clubs, so he got to choose of the 16. Not they say oh yes we'll have him then he chooses who's left.

I'd also like to know if more of them would have taken Jordan or Chris.

The clubs basically vote for who they think should win but no who they want. Clubs must have decided before they arrived they wasn't interested.

Remember the clubs will have seen all the video tapes/stats and not just the 9 weeks of TV. Plus I have no doubt the clubs would have had scouts watching this players in there A grade competition after filming ended

They had 1000 applications last year. I am guessing they will have lots more for season 2.

In regards to a UK version it would need the super league to put money behind it. The NRL would have put money behind this and not just channel 9.

Like I said few weeks ago, I wouldn't be surprised to see rugby union do something like this before super league.

If I was a super league I would definitely invite Chris Hyde over for a trial

Interested to see how the NRL rookie has rated on sky

Really enjoyed the programme overall but this live final went 10mph for over an hour then 100mph for the last 10 min. Hate it when they do that.

A few commercial breaks wouldn't have gone amiss either

There's no reason the next season couldn't be a joint UK/Aus/NZ event.
You could have UK trials and NZ trials and have the finalists meet in Sydney for a 12 week camp.
The first series had 2 guys from the UK and 4 or 5 from NZ. There is no reason it couldn't be 10 guys from the UK.

like the idea but we all know the NRL wouldnt do a joint competition with super league clubs.

I do think questions will be asked on how only two clubs wanted the winner.

Lou Goodwin comes from Canberra's catchment area and has already been training with the Mounties (Canberra's reserve grade side). He was never going anywhere else. I don't know why the Titans bothered.

Enjoyed this. The shame was that in each episode, there really was usually an element of suspense about who was going to be cut. But Lou Goodwin has been the certain winner since about four episodes ago. You could tell by the way Freddie Fittler spoke about him. Couple that with his dad being an ex-pro, and the fact that he'd already been a junior at St George who left of his own accord, rather than because he wasn't good enough, and the rest were making up the numbers from the start. I guess that's why the TV producers kept him very much out of the spotlight for the first episodes - to create the sense of a real competition.

I agree that there are advantages to having it restricted to those who've never been on the books of a pro club, but the problem in Australia is that their talent development pathway is such that all likely players get spotted. It wasn't a coincidence that in the final we discovered that all three of the finalists had been juniors at NRL clubs. In the UK, that'd work better, because RL clubs get to see only a fraction of the possible talent available.

More importantly, though, if they're going to decide that 28 is too old (!!!), then they need to restrict the age of the competitors before they start. Otherwise, what was the point of leading Chris Hyde on?

Finally, I was also a bit bemused about how the majority of clubs must have voted for Goodwin, but only two were willing to sign him. That's a huge flaw in the concept. The clubs have to be willing to play along, even if they think they'll never use the recruit as anything but a squad filler till the contract runs out. I assumed that the contract doesn't count on their salary cap, and they're under no obligation to play the recruit if they don't want to. The NRL could surely incentivise them to be a bit less churlish about it all. There should be a rule that whoever they vote for as their top choice, they will automatically be offering a contract to if chosen.

Or just invite the SL clubs to be there at the end as well. Because all three of those guys would be better than the current wings/second rows/hookers of at least one or two SL clubs!

Anyone else find it funny how they literally shoved the contract in the winners face and said sign it now.

Least let the guy have his legal team read the terms. Lol