The Rugby League Blogger

 Hello and welcome back to my blog. Today I have an interview with a man that needs no introduction; it is Huddersfield and Super League legend, Jermaine McGillvary. In a professional career spanning 15 years (to date), the great winger has made over 370 professional appearances. The bulk of them have come for Huddersfield, who he has made about 280 appearances for. He has also made 25 appearances for various England and Great Britain teams, as well as 1 game last year for the Combined Nations. Despite retiring from international rugby league last week, he is still going strong in domestic RL. He earned player of the match in the Challenge Cup Semi Final victory over Hull KR and also scored a try in the second half of Huddersfield's narrow defeat to Wigan in this years final of the Challenge Cup. In 2008 and 2009, Jerry also spent time on loan at Batley and Barrow. It is at the former club where he is joint record holder for most tries in a game with 5, against Whitehaven on May 24...

 Hull FC had started the year somewhat decently, sitting in 5th place at the end of May, which is respectable for a Hull side who were expected to struggle this year. However, when playing Wakefield Trinity a few weeks ago, Jake Connor picked up an injury, resulting in Brett Hodgson to make the decision to take off the former England international. Hull FC and their head coach Brett Hodgson confirmed last week that their star fullback would be out for "a minimum of 10-12 weeks." This should see Connor return for the last few weeks of the regular season or the play offs should Hull get there. This brings us on to Hull's first problem. Jake Connor donning the famous black and white jersey Hull have almost entirely built there team around Connor. So far this season, the fullback has tallied an impressive 26 try assists. This accounts for a total of around 60% of Hull's tries this season. Therefore, it is understandable as to why Hull fans were worried from the evening of...

 Hello and welcome back to my blog. Today's blog is all about the Midlands Hurricanes. Who are they? How is their season going? Where are they based? What are their goals? All that will be discussed today. I have also interviewed the founder and owner of the Hurricanes, Alan Robinson. He is also the owner of the Coventry Bears and played rugby semi professionally in both France and England in the past so he has a lot of knowledge about the 13-man code. Things we discussed will be mentioned throughout the blog. Without further ado, let's get into it. Firstly, who are they? Well, the Hurricanes are an elite level rugby league club who currently play in League One. They are one of two new expansionist League 1 sides this season, joined by Cornwall. Essentially the Hurricanes are a rebranded Coventry Bears, who they directly replaced in League One. The Coventry Bears name continues to be used in amateur, academy and junior levels of rugby league, highlighting the close link between...

 Hello and welcome back to my blog. Today, we are discussing of the structure of Super League. I did not plan to do this originally, however, on Tuesday Super League signed a 12-year deal with IMG. They aim to restructure Super League and generally aid the growth of the competition. There's no doubt that this is a major deal for rugby league in the UK. 12 years is also a very long time, and considerably longer than the majority of deals. For example, TV and media deals are often short term or year on year and is something that IMG will now be in control of. It's a brilliant deal and no doubt they'll do a good job.Nevertheless, here are my views. A quick thing to start, I don't want Super League to become exactly like the NRL. SL is different and exciting in it's own rights. There's also a much different culture over here and I don't think changing English RL completely to the NRL's format is conducive, however successful it is. I talk about Americanisati...

 Hello and welcome back to my blog. Usually I tend to do interviews, however, today I will be doing something a little bit different. I will be previewing, predicting and generally just talking about the Challenge Cup Semi Finals. Long term this is more the sort of content I want to do on my blog, so please comment and let me know what you think. I have done something similar before when I discussed players that represented both the Army and the Navy (check it out if you haven't already!). Before we begin though, I do want to say that next Thursday on my next blog, I will have an interview with a former man of steel winner. Nevertheless, that is next week so let's get in to this week's blog! The Challenge Cup semi-finals are a fabled event each year and one that all teams aim for. Without wanting to sound too obvious, the winner of both games will progress to the final and get the chance and opportunity to pick up silverware that season. This year both games are set to be a...

 Hello and welcome back to my blog. Yesterday, I brought you my interview with Huddersfield's Matty English. Today, I bring you my interview with Weller Hauraki. The former New Zealand international spent the majority of his career in Super League, enjoying spells with 6 different Super League clubs. However, he started his career in the NRL, playing 32 games for the Parramatta Eels between 2007-2009. He had a successful spell at Crusaders (now London Broncos) in 2010, in which he scored 11 tries in 28 games. He signed for Leeds as a result. He scored in his debut, a 32-18 victory over Hull FC. He moved to Castleford Tigers in 2013, and was a key part of a feared pack and, in 2014, the run to the Challenge Cup final. He then spent 4 years at Salford although in 2018, he was loaned out to the Widnes Vikings. He spent 2 years at East Hull at Hull Kingston Rovers, where he spent some time as captain of the club before calling time on his illustrious career in February 2021. Hauraki pl...

 Hello and welcome back to my blog. It has been a while but I have another big interview today to return with- Huddersfield Giants prop forward Matty English. English, who is aptly nicknamed the "polar bear", made his debut for the England Knights in 2019. Matty also represented England at academy level, when they toured Australia. He is one of the best products ever of Huddersfield's youth system playing over 70 games for Huddersfield since his debut in 2017. The 24 year old Englishman has also played 5 games on loan for the Dewsbury Rams. In September of last year, he signed a new deal with his hometown club, extending his stay at the club until the end of the 2023 season. I recently sat down with him to ask him a few questions. I think it's fair to say Huddersfield are exceeding expectations this year. What do you put that down to and is there more pressure as a result? I think we would put it down to how hard we worked in the preseason as a group. There really wer...