Rugby league in Ireland

Rugby league is a team sport played in Ireland on an 'All-Ireland' basis.

History

In May 1934 Wigan beat Warrington 32-19 in an exhibition match in Dublin. Twenty years later, in May 1954, Warrington were again defeated by Halifax in both Belfast (34-15) and Dublin (23-11).

Several Irish rugby union players have crossed the Irish Sea to play in British Championship, most notably Irish forwards Robin Thompson, in the 1950s, and Ken Goodall a decade later.

The first club side to actually play in Ireland, Dublin Blues, were not formed until 1989. They consisted mostly of rugby union players who wanted to test themselves in the other code. The Blues competed against touring teams from Britain and surprised many of the touring sides with the quality of their play, scoring many memorable victories over British amateur opposition.

In early 1995 the Rugby Football League development arm financed the position of a Development Officer for Ireland, providing a boost to the development of the game. This laid the basis for the formation of the national Ireland side, which played its first ever game on St Patrick's Day 1995, in Washington DC, defeating the USA 24-22.

Competitive matches were established between teams in Leinster and Ulster: Schoolboy matches were played between Dublin and Belfast schools, Open Age Clubs competed against each other in the All-Ireland Challenge Cup. Teams included Belfast Wildcats and Bangor Vikings from Ulster.

Governing body and competitions

The governing body is Rugby League Ireland (RLI), though the Rugby Football League (whose remit covers the United Kingdom, and therefore partially overlaps with the RLI) provide funding and support for the game in Ireland.

Having experimented with a dual conference set up for several seasons, whereby teams from Munster and Leinster played in provincial conferences with the top teams going on to compete for the national title, the RLI changed to an All Ireland competition for the 2006 competition so as to guarantee more games for all teams and avoid repetition in the schedules as had been experienced in previous years, with Dublin based sides facing eath other as many as three times in the one season.

For 2007 the league has reverted to a conference style competition for fifteen teams, five in the top division, and ten in the second division, themeselves spit into two geographical conferences of five teams. One of these ten lower teams, Carlow Crusaders B, is from the same club as its namesake in the top division, so in total 15 teams will represent 14 clubs in the 2007 league.

The creation of a Rugby League club in the province of Ulster, the Portadown Panthers, has further increased the scope of the domestic competition and has led to hopes of the spread of the game in the north of the country. This left the western province of Connacht as the only unrepresented region of Ireland in the Rugby League Ireland competition.

Despite the creation of Portadown, early expectations of RLI success in Ulster were dampened when Portadown were severely beaten in their first and only game of the 2006 season by the North Dublin Eagles, 24-66.Portadown, apparently embarrassed after this defeat, left the remainder of Rugby League Ireland season, leving some other clubs in Ireland without games. However, it appears that Portadown have returned for the 2007 season.

Hopes for a Connacht based Galway side appear to have been fulfilled, as the Galway Tribesmen have replaced the departing Waterford Vikings in the league for 2007.

Media

There are two weekly rugby league newspapers in the UK Rugby Leaguer & League Express and [http://www.league-weekly.com/ League Weekly] and two monthly magazines, Rugby League World and Thirteen Magazine. Most of their content covers the sport in Britain, Australia and New Zealand but Irish rugby league is also covered. These publications are usually only available by subscription in Ireland.

A rugby union publication called Emerald Rugby covers rugby league in Ireland each month.

BBC Sport own the rights to broadcast a highlights package called the Super League Show which was first broadcast in Northern Ireland in 2008. Prior to this it had only been broadcast in the North of England.cite web | url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_league/7238707.stm | title=Super League Show to get repeat | publisher=BBC Sport | author= | date=2008-02-11 | accessdate=2008-02-11] . Rugby League Raw is not broadcast in Northern Ireland despite the BBC owning the rights to do so. The BBC covers the Challenge Cup from the rounds in which the top clubs enter.

BBC Radio Five Live and BBC Five Live Sports Extra carry commentary from a selection of Super League matches each week,.

Sky has the rights to show live Super League games; one or two live matches are broadcast often fronted by Mike Stephenson and Eddie Hemmings. Sky also hold the rights to show the Rugby League Tri-Nations live, whilst highlights are shown on BBC Sport. Australia's National Rugby League and State of Origin were shown until 2005-06 season when Setanta Sports outbid Sky for the rights.

Setanta Sports Ireland broadcasted highlights of the 2005 and 2006 pre-season Dublin challenge matches, and the 2005 European Nations Cup, on its Sports Weekly and Sports Monthly programmes.

Manchester based Channel M show some National League and amateur rugby on their Code XIII programme.

The national team

There are in fact two Ireland teams: the full "Ireland" side is dominated by players of Irish ancestry from Super League and the NRL, whilst the "Irish Wolfhounds" side is made up of players from the domestic Irish competition.

Until recently the Great Britain team were known as 'Great Britain and Ireland' and Irish players were able to play for them. Brian Carney (rugby footballer) is a rare example of a player who played in the Irish league and then gained a professional contract with Super League club Wigan Warriors, he went on to play for Great Britain and Ireland.

ee also

*Rugby League Ireland
*Ireland national rugby league team
*Great Britain national rugby league team

References

External links

* [http://www.rli.ie/ Rugby League Ireland]
* [http://www.rli.ie/history.html Irish History]