National Rugby League (NRL) is the top league of professional rugby league football clubs in Australasia. The NRL competition (sometimes referred to as the Telstra Premiership for sponsorship purposes) is contested by 16 teams, 15 based in Australia and one based in New Zealand, and is the Southern Hemisphere's elite rugby league championship.
Newcastle Knights vs Parramatta Eels
Match scheduled:
Date: 21-06-2010
Time: 9:00 until 11:00
Round #15 - NRL Telstra Premiership 2010
Watch live rugby TV
The map below indicates the locations of teams currently competing in the National Rugby League competition. The inset is of greater Sydney.
The following sixteen clubs are competing in the National Rugby League during the 2010 NRL season. All but five of them (the Sharks, Cowboys, Warriors, Titans, merged Dragons) have won premierships.
A total of twenty-three clubs have played in the National Rugby League since its first season in 1998. For a list of all clubs past and present see National Rugby League Teams. For a complete list of all teams no longer competing in the NRL see here
Eleven clubs have been members of the National Rugby League for every season since its inception in 1998. This group includes Brisbane, Bulldogs, Canberra, Cronulla, Melbourne, New Zealand, Newcastle, North Queensland, Parramatta, Penrith and Roosters.
[edit] Foundation clubs
Two current NRL teams have existed since the 1908 foundation of the NSWRL, the predecessor of the NRL. These teams are the South Sydney Rabbitohs and the Sydney Roosters (founded as 'Eastern Suburbs'). The Wests Tigers team resulted from a merger between the Western Suburbs Magpies and the Balmain Tigers, both of which were foundation clubs which played in the first grade competition between 1908 and 1999. Despite fielding a join-venture team in the NRL, Western Suburbs and Balmain remain independent clubs and field their o
wn teams in lower-level competitions.
The North Sydney Bears were also a foundation club of the NSWRL in 1908 though are currently playing in the NSW Cup instead of the top level of Rugby League. This was after a failed merger with arch rivals the Manly Warringah Sea-Eagles in 2000 which they ran under the banner of the now defunct Northern Eagles. The North Sydney Bears have proposed readmission to the NRL for the 2013 season which they will be called the Central Coast Bears and play their home games at Gosford where they built their homeground Graham Park.[citation needed]
Former top-grade side Newtown Jets were also a foundation club, but were forced out of the competition after the 1983 season for financial reasons. They now field a team in the NSW Cup.[5]
There also existed Newcastle (who withdrew after 1909 to start a local premiership) and Glebe (also known as "The Dirty Reds" because their colour was maroon) who were removed from the NSWRL premiership in 1929 for "unsporting behaviour" [6]. 23 days after the kickoff on April 20, 1908, another team entered from Cumberland. They only ever won one game as they won the wooden spoon in 1908 and did not participate after that.
[edit] List of Premiers
- For the list of NSWRL premiers 1908 - 1994 see - New South Wales Rugby League premiership
- For the list of ARL premiers 1995 - 1997 see - Australian Rugby League
- For the Super League premier 1997 see - Super League (Australia) season 1997
Key improvements over the original NRL Rugby League include:
- Online multiplayer, allowing two players to play against each other in either a friendly match or a competitive "ranked" mode
- More teams and players than ever before, with updated statistics and team strips
- 40 Stadiums, including revamped versions of those from NRL Rugby League
- Brand new gameplay features, including ball-stripping and pass-to-playmaker controls
- Multi-year franchise mode, putting the player in the manager's shoes - hire and fire players, manage team finances and stake out a multi-year plan as you strive for glory
- Massively upgraded graphics engine, allowing for remarkable star likenesses for more than 500 players
- Motion-captured animation from Weta Digital, the vfx-wizards behind The Lord of the Rings movies
- Highly customizable gameplay experience, with sliders and content editors that allow for considerable adjustment.
In addition, the Xbox version of the game includes the following enhancements:
- Multiple save-slots available in Franchise and Competition modes
- Shoulder-barge, fend and sidestep controls additionally on right thumbstick
- Pause function disabled during ranked matches to prevent player exploiting this feature
- Autosave available in Competition and Franchise modes
- Graphical tweaks to improve the overall look and realism of the game
- Improvements to management of custom and customized players and teams
- New Zealand Haka
[edit] Gameplay Modes
- Instant Action
Jump straight into a game with random teams, pausing only to decide which team you want to play - Single Game
Set all the details (such as teams, weather, stadium - etc) before jumping into a one-off friendly match - Competition
Take part in a full season of a popular competition or make up your own - includes multiplayer support, with the ability to play as 1 to all of the teams in the contest - Franchise Mode
Ten years back-to-back, with off-field management, player trading and representative competition spicing up the action - Online
Both friendly (no consequence) and ranked modes, allowing head-to-head multiplayer over the internet
[edit] Teams
- Brisbane Broncos
- Canberra Raiders
- Canterbury Bulldogs
- Cronulla Sharks
- Manly Sea Eagles
- Melbourne Storm
- Newcastle Knights
- New Zealand Warriors
- North Queensland Cowboys
- Parramatta Eels
- Penrith Panthers
- South Sydney Rabbitohs
- St. George Illawarra Dragons
- Sydney Roosters
- Wests Tigers
- Bradford Bulls
- Catalans Dragons
- Castleford Tigers
- Harlequins RL
- Huddersfield Giants
- Hull F.C.
- Leigh Centurions
- Leeds Rhinos
- Salford City Reds
- St Helens RLFC
- Wakefield Trinity Wildcats
- Warrington Wolves
- Widnes Vikings
- Wigan Warriors
- Australia national rugby league team
- Cook Islands national rugby league team
- England national rugby league team
- France national rugby league team
- Fiji national rugby league team
- Great Britain national rugby league team
- Ireland national rugby league team
- Lebanon national rugby league team
- New Zealand national rugby league team
- Papua New Guinea national rugby league team
- Russia national rugby league team
- Scotland national rugby league team
- South Africa national rugby league team
- Tonga national rugby league team
- United States national rugby league team
- Wales national rugby league team
there is also a Sidhe Interactive team(the makers of rugby league 2) team that features in the game.
[edit] Background
Announced in February 2005, Rugby League 2 became known to the world with the launch of an associated website and, importantly, a forum / bulletin board system hosted by Sidhe Interactive. For the first time fans were able to gather together in one location, discussing the title amongst themselves and also directly with the developer.
The online functionality in particular received a lot of attention, being the first (and still only) Rugby-variant sport to go online. Many thousands of online games have been completed since release, with the top players on both the PC and PS2 charts having completed more than 350 games each.
Rugby League 2 has proven to be quite the catalyst when it comes to fans dreaming of new features and improvements for a later version of the game. Thousands of ideas have been submitted thus far (a thread on the official forums at http://forums.sidheinteractive.com/ collates the best of these), which the developers have promised to consider should another version be developed.
A sequel entitled Rugby League 3 has since been released.
[edit] Update
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