Rugby League

At the end of January, it was revealed that the Tees Valley will play host to the 2021 Rugby League World Cup. Here historian Dr Tosh Warwick of Manchester Metropolitan University looks back at when the area last played host to a World Cup…

This article explores the relationship between gender, space and performances of fandom by female match-going fans of the Australian rugby league team the St George Illawarra Dragons. Drawing on a case study that utilised participant observation, semi-structured interviews and a focus group, this article develops a fan typology that details four different types of female fans of rugby league. The findings suggest some female fans were under levels of stricter gatekeeping by male fans depending on their spatial location inside of the stadium. Their inclusion into match-day culture was, therefore, shown to have limits. On the one hand, female match-going fans have agency and choice in the construction and interchange of a fan identity, but on the other, that same identity attests to oppression. We conclude that traditional match-day engagement with rugby league requires conformity to a predominantly masculine ideal.

This study investigated the professional duties of a professional rugby league Academy Manager (AM) with the explicit aim of identifying bespoke development needs through the operation of the Talent Development Self Navigation Framework (TDSNF). This study adopts an original embodied pedagogy approach grounded in a critical realist view of the participant’s Talent Development domain. The paper presents a full description of the framework’s application as a case study example of the TDSNF in practice. Findings acknowledge how the facilitated TDSNF helped the AM reflect more fully on his ‘real world’ and ‘foundational wants and needs’ to co-create both an individual learning plan for himself and a TD development plan for his Academy team. Feedback on the framework’s content, structure, process and outputs was extremely positive. Significant implications in adopting this approach more widely for coach education and learning are then presented.

The Lebanese Rugby League was formed in 1997 in Sydney when a team comprised of Australian-based players of Lebanese descent participated in an international tournament. The Lebanese national team later qualified for two rugby league men’s World Cups (2000 and 2017). The case demonstrates how diasporas can shape sport development. The accomplishment of the Lebanese team has also given the small country some exposure at the global level. Additionally, since 2002, a new sport has been established in Lebanon, making the country one of the few cases in the world where rugby league is more popular than rugby union. This paper examines diaspora issues including the assimilation of Lebanese emigrants into Australian sporting culture and strategic uses of citizenship. Furthermore, the research sheds light on the ‘glocalized’ development of rugby league in Lebanon by its establishment at private Lebanese universities while it is known in Australia for its working-class origins. There is a relationship of mutual dependence between diaspora and homeland: without its diaspora, Lebanon could not participate in the World Cup, and without domestic development in the sport (which includes, since 2015, also women’s teams), the diaspora would not be permitted to participate in global championships.

Pasifika men are significantly over-represented in Australian Rugby League with their dramatic influx into the sport over the past 20 years often being attributed to their “natural” athleticism and other corporeal reasons invoking hyper-masculinity. They are both glorified and demonised for these perceived qualities, and like other indigenous groups of men across the world, can be caught in a paradox of indigenous male athlete as ‘hero and dupe’ (Hokowhitu 2013: xvii). This thesis takes a decolonial approach to Pasifika rugby league in Australia by drawing on the Pasifika concept of vā – the spaces between – to challenge popular paradoxes and binaries such as indigenous/non-indigenous, hero/dupe, physical/intellectual, Pasifika/Australian, and masculine/feminine.

The vā is a space of active service, harmony, aesthetics, and connection, and I argue for its central role in mending the gaps between colonially separated categories for the Australian based Pasifika diaspora, particularly in rugby league which has vā-like qualities. Sport is often described as liminal, being betwixt and between reality and fiction, and as such shares similarities with Pasifika concepts of relationality where it is in the spaces that connect, rather than those that separate, where meaning is made. Sport has the power to both affirm and transgress off-field hostilities and traditions. It can be (and indeed has been) used as a colonising tool to “discipline the natives,” and at the same time it can be (and has been) used as an opportunity to beat the “master” at his or her own game.

Within these paradoxes are the most fruitful spaces – which I connect to the vā – and where in this thesis liminality gets a Pasifika makeover. I focus on the lived experiences, feelings and emotions of sport for the Australian Pasifika diaspora (and to a lesser degree New Zealand’s), exploring how Pasifika masculinity is framed and how this affects diasporic Pasifika peoples’ roles in “the three f’s” – family, faith, and football. Being a Pacific Islander in Australia is very different to being one in New Zealand or the United States of America. In Australia it is sports and sports media where most visibility and knowledge of Pasifika culture emanates and much of this is based on ideas around masculinity. Like the sea connecting Pacific Islands, diasporic Pasifika identities are made through connections to each other, to ancestral homelands and to their new homes and what they do there, including the playing and consuming of sports, which is, by no accident, itself betwixt and between.

Sport often exists in a balancing act between possibilities for emancipation and oppression and can aid both simultaneously. This includes the emancipation of indigenous masculinity from an inferior position to hegemonic white patriarchal masculinity, and the oppression of other subaltern forms of masculinity and femininity, including homosexual and transgender masculinities, and women. By acknowledging both the powers and pitfalls of rugby league for Australia’s Pasifika diaspora, and drawing attention to how both often coexist within the perceptions and practices of Pasifika peoples, I shed light on the complexities of what sport brings to an indigenous peoples’ lives on an everyday level, both good and bad, and what sport offers in and of itself rather than as a means to an end. I demonstrate how rugby league in Australia plays a paradoxical role in both reinforcing and challenging social values around race and masculinity and I put forward suggestions for better ways of understanding. I argue that being indigenous away from home and on stolen land is different to being indigenous to the land one occupies, but that indigenous people share common experiences of colonisation.

This thesis takes an ethnographic, multidisciplinary and mixed-methods approach which draws on Pasifika methodologies and values, my anthropological background, my position as a white female researcher in a Pasifika masculine research topic, and a commitment to decolonial practices. Like the subjects of this thesis, the way it is written reflects a space between traditional academic paradigms, and decolonial, indigenous and Pasifika frameworks. I am just as interested in how to research diasporic Pasifika identity as I am on the subject of diasporic Pasifika identity. For this work to adequately engage with decolonial and indigenous practices, I question the role of research itself, considering the spaces and paradoxes between so-called objectivity in research, and Pasifika concepts of connection.

Rugby league is fast becoming a Pasifika majority-played sport in Australia, and this position comes with opportunities to refashion a colonially introduced national sport that is run and reported on by a majority white-male cohort and shape it in ways that better benefit Pasifika peoples. While rugby league can be accused of perpetuating limiting stereotypes and perceptions of Pasifika identity, it also offers a rare space for subaltern masculinities and indigeneities, such as those from the Pacific Islands, to thrive in the culturally valued arena of sports in Australia. The arguments in this thesis contribute to more accurate understandings of Pasifika personhood being just as expansive as Hau‘ofa’s Pacific geographic imaginings – Pasifika peoples are not just part of a ‘sea of islands’, they are part of a constantly changing global diaspora of emergent and creative identity practices. I contend that Pasifika identity is not merely reflexive or tied to particular cultural tenets, but rather is formative, emergent and creative.

Academic Duties/Recognition/Esteem Markers: Dr Clive Palmer
Principal Fellow Higher Education Academy (PFHEA) 2022
PhD Supervisor of the Year: The Postgrad Awards Winner (2022) FindAUniversity.com
Times Higher Award for Research Supervision (national shortlist 1/8) (2021)
National Teaching Fellow (2019)
Senior Fellow Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) (2020)
Senior Research Fellow: THRiVE Research Centre. CLiP Collaborative Learning in Practice [Project 1]. Student Midwife Continuation of Carer [Project 2]. Coaching for learning in Midwifery teams, UCLan and Lancashire Teaching Hospitals North West (2020/2021). PI: Dr Anna Byron NTF
Higher Education Academy Reviewer: National Teaching Fellow Award (2022/2023 cycle).
UKCGE Recognised Research Supervisor (UK Council for Graduate Education) September 2020
UKCGE National Reviewer (UK Council for Graduate Education) March 2021
Visiting Professor in Sport and Physical Education (Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China, 2019)
Ethics and Research Lead for Taught UG/PG Programmes. Allied Health & Wellbeing Faculty Research, Innovation & Ethics Committee (2018-date)
Teaching Excellence Steering Committee UCLan (2020): [ongoing] Institutional.
Co-Chair of ICE Inter-Collaborative Education UCLan (2020): [ongoing] Institutional: [Clive Palmer NTF and Emma Gillaspy NTF]
Editor in Chief: Journal of Qualitative Research in Sports Studies ISSN: 1745-2375 (2007-date)
Series Editor: Sporting Image and Outdoor Image. SSTO Publications Sport and Wellbeing Press (2009-date)
Fellow Higher Education Academy (2013)
External Subject Specialist (Outdoor): School of Sport, Health and Exercise Sciences. Bangor University.
External Advisor: (PE and Outdoor) University of Chichester, Institute of Sport Periodic Review Panel (2020)
External Examiner: Chester University: BA Outdoor Education and Adventure Management. 2006-10.
Association of National Teaching Fellows (member)
International Federation of National Teaching Fellows (member)
Web of Science Researcher ID: ABG-5003-2020
      https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9925-2811
      Publons Academy (2020) Qualified Reviewer MDPI Open Access Journals, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, Basal.
      Publons Academy (2020) Qualified Review Mentor. MDPI Open Access Journals, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, Basal.
Programme Leadership:
UCLan: Appointed at in 2008 to lead UKCC Level 4 Masters degree in Elite Sport Coaching. Then subsequently led course teams on the BA Sports Studies and BA Coaching degrees, and MA Outdoor Practice.
2000-2008 Liverpool Hope University: Curriculum Lead for Physical Education on BA Sports Studies.
1990-2000 Halton College, Cheshire: Course Leader: GCSE PE, Access Sports Science, BTec ND Sports Science 
Editorial Board Positions:
Journal of Qualitative Research in Sports Studies (JQRSS) ISSN: 1754-2375
Sep 2007 to date (University of Central Lancashire, UK)
Annals of Physiotherapy & Occupational Therapy (APhOT) ISSN: 2640-2734
Jan 2021 to date (MedWin, USA)
Social Sciences ISSN: 2076-0760
June 2022 (MDPI, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, Basel, Switzerland)
Active Peer Reviewer for:
• Philosophies (ISSN: 2409-9287)
• Journal of Sport and Tourism (ISSN: 1477-5085)
• Religions (ISSN: 2077-1444)
• International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1661-7827)
• Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050)
• Sports Biomechanics (ISSN: 1476-3141)
• Innovations in Education and Teaching International (ISSN: 1470-3297)
• Developing Academic Practice ISSN 2732-5725  (Online: University of Liverpool, UK)

 

"Rugby league's history in the Lockyer Valley of Queensland in Australia has been characterised by challenges and changes over time that are emblematic of wider trends in Australia as a whole during the first century of Federation. Little has been written about sport in rural Australia and less still is known about the Lockyer Valley, an area that has produced many great players. The main town of the Lockyer Valley is Gatton, which lies 100 kilometres west of Brisbane. The larger centres of Ipswich and Toowoomba lie 40 kilometres to the east and 30 kilometres to the west respectively.

The story of rugby league in the Valley is emblematic of the changes that have taken place in Australian sport over the past century as leagues grew within local communities during the first half of the century, only to fall victim to increased migration to the capital cities, depressed rural economic conditions, sport on television, and the perceived shrinking of distance through improved transportation infrastructure."

The 2008 centenary of rugby league football in Australia provides opportunities for clubs, governing bodies and cultural institutions to celebrate the sport's heritage. This article examines the major collectors of primary sources relating to rugby league in Australia, including cultural institutions, rugby league organisations and private collectors. It discusses the major categories of primary sources, including printed, manuscript and pictorial material, as well as artefacts. It also suggests sources for exploring beyond the traditional 'who beat whom' narrative that dominates many club histories.

The ban of the French Vichy government of rugby league in 1941 represented the completion of a campaign against professional sport that had been waged from the very inception of the Vichy regime. Sport has been used as a tool of state propaganda by different authoritarian regimes since it emerged as a significant cultural force in the 19th century. In order to perform this function effectively however, sport must be played on an amateur basis and ideally controlled by the state. Even though rugby league had decided to become completely amateur in 1940, it fell victim to its historical status as a symbol of professionalism.

This article is a case study of one of the few sports, rugby, that does not link national representation exclusively to citizenship. It discusses who may represent a country in major events and under which conditions. It analyses the consequences of the rules on different stakeholders; and discusses why the residency rule in particular is subject to much controversy. The author has conducted case studies of the 2019 rugby union and 2017 rugby league men's World Cups. Academic literature, international newspapers, and rugby-specific websites were reviewed. Other than secondary sources, the researcher also collected primary data through interviews. The interviewees included representatives of Rugby League International Federation and World Rugby. This research reveals that national representation without citizenship is widespread in both codes of rugby. It has also shown that the effects of the eligibility criteria go beyond simplistic rich/poor and center/periphery models. This article argues that the rational for the eligibility criteria is the limited global spread of rugby league and rugby union. Without those lenient rules it would be difficult to organize international competitions.

An increasing body of research has explored how sports coaches learn and develop. However, insight into the fundamental dimensions that underpin coach learning in grassroots and/or junior sport could be more comprehensive. Accordingly, the current study aimed to explore junior rugby league coaches’ perceptions of the acquisition of new coaching knowledge, how this perceived learning is integrated with their coaching practice, and why they perceive different learning sources as an appropriate knowledge base from which to draw. Responses to an online survey, completed by practicing junior rugby league coaches (N = 111), were analysed descriptively and inductively. Findings suggest that informal learning sources were the most prevalent source of learning for coaches, although a rationale for such an emphasis was relatively unfounded. Coaches also appeared to find formal coach education useful; however, the content and suitability of current coaching qualifications when applied to junior modified versions of rugby league appears questionable.

Welcome to Volume 15 (2021) Journal of Qualitative Research in Sports Studies (JQRSS) comprising papers from first-time authors alongside more experienced writers, all wishing to share their ideas stemming from primary research or through critical discussion articles. A glance down the contents page reveals a range of contributions which may be informative and thought provoking for people at different  points on their journey through education and/or research experience. Reviewers’ comments have been incorporated at the end of papers with a view to stimulating further discussion about a given topic. I hope readers will gain as much from browsing the experiences of others formulated through these pages as much as I have enjoyed working with the authors and editing this volume. Below, an Overview of [current] submissions is followed by the JQRSS Qualitative Researcher Award for the previous year. Then an explanation of the Scope and purpose of the journal is followed by an Open call for papers and JQRSS Operational guidance, which provides both an invitation to submit work and further advice to potential authors. In closing, there are summative comments and editorial acknowledgements.

Notice: The discussions, statements of fact and opinions contained in the articles of The Journal of Qualitative Research in Sports Studies are those of the respective authors and cited contributors and are set out in good faith for the general guidance of student supported research and the promotion of pedagogical discussion in teaching and learning contexts. No liability can be accepted by the Editor, Editorial Board, Advisory Board, the reviewers or the authors/submitters for loss or expense incurred as a result of relying upon particular statements made or circumstances outlined in this journal.

Pasifika men are significantly over-represented in Australia’s National Rugby League and their dramatic influx into the sport over the past 10–15 years has often been attributed to their ‘natural’ athleticism and other corporeal reasons invoking hyper-masculinity. Coupled with this discourse is the commonly accepted idea that these sporting opportunities are a good thing for Pasifika peoples. This paper considers both the damaging effects of the ‘hyper-masculine body’ and ‘sport-as-inherently good’ discourses, and addresses the positive potential rugby league has in transgressing various forms of oppression. Rather than arguing that sport is a positive force in society or outright challenging that assertion, I demonstrate how rugby league in Australia plays a paradoxical role in both reinforcing and challenging social values around race and masculinity. It can be a rare space for positive visibility and upward mobility for Pasifika and other Indigenous men, and a space of exploitation, degradation and racism; it can even save lives and destroy them. I argue that these complexities should be better understood before any moral claim is made about the positives or negatives of sport for marginalised peoples.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the professional duties of Academy Managers in professional Rugby League. The aim was to explore the knowledge and application of best practice concepts as well as identifying potential gaps in provision and related development needs. The TD Helix (Wilkinson and Grecic, 2020) provided the realist context by which to explore AM’s attitudes, behaviours and challenges when operating in this domain. Data were collected and analysed against this theoretical framework. Framework Analysis (FA) of the data found that the professional duties allocated to the AMs within the TD landscape were grouped into the following four areas: developing and maintaining a positive culture; implementing a holistic TD environment; supporting staff development and learning; managing up and down the pathway. The key agents to enable AMs’ success in performing these duties were their high-performance coaches. Additionally, in line with the FA method, typologies were created to describe the diverse roles that AMs perform. The roles were: Cultural Architect, Succession Planner, Life Coach Mentor, Sports Craft Teacher, and Character Builder. The paper concludes by highlighting the AMs’ developmental needs and how bespoke support is essential if they are to successfully overcome the multiple challenges they face whilst performing their professional duties.

In the decade 2005–2015, National Rugby League players were implicated in a variety of off-field instances of violence against women. These incidents have been covered heavily by the Australian media and have facilitated commentary on violence and sport, rugby league culture, and whether rugby league players have a propensity for violence. From a total corpus of 933 articles, we critically engage with 190 news reports of domestic violence and focus on the way players and others contribute to media commentary about the incidence of domestic violence allegedly perpetrated by their teammates. Our guiding research question is: What is the character of public commentary expressed by rugby league players about incidents of domestic violence involving teammates? We identify four modes of reflexive commentary involving teammate representation that occur in the reporting of rugby league players accused of domestic violence offences. We argue that these four modes of representation articulate greater or lesser degrees of support or criticism between teammates about domestic violence and, even when critical, these discourses work to rearticulate the normative diminished reflexivity afforded men to publicly comment on and about other men.

Despite the gentrification of cities, local sports teams can still anchor supporters in community and space. However, sports fandom in literature is not often tied to the specific physical environment in which fan practices take place. This chapter seeks to locate the performance of sports fandom within the physical environment of the sports stadium. Using the English Premier League team Everton Football Club and Australian Rugby League team the St. George Illawarra Dragons as illustrative case studies, this chapter explores how fans from both clubs identify with themselves and others inside sporting landscapes, and how sporting landscapes can both enable and inhibit certain types of behaviour.
Drawing on the ethnographic methods of participant observation and semi-structured interviews, I argue that the internal geography of the stadium protects the hegemonic discourses of localised and masculine narratives. This chapter discusses how sports communities are constructed, embodied and lived by sports fans in sporting landscapes. This chapter draws on the wealth of studies on British football fans and adds a comparative dimension regarding the Australian context, thus providing a more comprehensive view of fan identities that engage with sports.

Key Words: Football, Rugby League, boundary, sports, gender, space, community

Storytelling as a mode of research is the focus of this paper, but centred upon the topic of rugby; more specifically, the touch-line culture of Rugby Football League. This article, which is a development in ongoing PhD research, provides a glimpse in to the social complexities of (i) some youths playing the game, (ii) some parents emotional investments in their offspring to play the game, and (iii) the attitudes and behaviours of some match officials. The stories reveal some aspects of lived experience in this social arena, but in the boiling-pot of competition, expectations, and, the mud and sweat of physical and mental effort. The take home message from this strategy in research is not to merely tell or report upon goings on, but to show and reveal aspects this social phenomenon in a way that may have some resonance with the people within it. From an ethical stance of striving for greater good, if this research can act as a mirror for some unsavoury touch-line behaviour, it may help to bring about change within that social world.

Elite professionals opportunistically employ threats to their work identities to author preferred selves. Predicated on understandings that identities are subjectively available to people as in-progress narratives, and that these are often insecure fabrications, we investigate the identity work of members of a UK-based professional Rugby League club. The research contribution we make is to demonstrate that professionals use identity threats as flexible resources for working on favoured identities. We show that rugby players authored identity threats centred on the shortness of their careers, injury and performance, and how these were appropriated (made their own) by men to develop desired occupational and masculine identities. In so doing, we also contribute to debates on how professionals’ identity discourse is an expression of agency framed within relations of power.

When we consider games as culture asset and tend to block implementation of game that has local similarity, we have found that autorithies needs to understand certain issues that bind people and cultures, by playing well knon games we will understand our team games, Rugby League expansion in the world is facing blocks of barrieres that can only be over came by going back to undestanding what games can help in developping subject that we are learning like communication, integration, non discrimination. youth behavior and other and resenttly a community build up and a common denominator.

Book Description
This book critically examines how rugby union has developed in recent years, in nations on the periphery of the sport. Focusing on people and places on the fringes, it examines contemporary issues and challenges within the global game.

Such a collection is timely, as the sport’s governing body seeks to expand influence and participation beyond the eight core nations, with the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan being the first time that that tournament has taken place outside of the core. Presenting case studies from Europe, Africa, North and South America, Asia and the Middle East, this collection offers an interdisciplinary account of a sport that is undergoing a period of significant change. Through examination of topics such as the development of rugby sevens and the growth of women’s rugby, it considers what the future may hold for the sport.

Rugby in Global Perspective is important reading for students of sport in society, the globalisation of sport, sports studies, sport development and associated fields. It is also a valuable resource for academic researchers working in rugby union or sport in the peripheral rugby nations, as well as those with an interest in cultural geography, sociology, development studies, events studies, event management and sport management.

Table of Contents
1. Japan 2019 and the internationalisation of rugby union  2. Challenging the core: the rise of Argentina in international rugby 3. Against all odds: Fijiana’s flight from zero to hero in the Rugby World Cup 4. From past to present: is there room for professional rugby in the United States of America?  5. Struggling for recognition: developing rugby union in Lebanon 6. ‘Moufflons’ living precariously: the brief history of rugby union in Cyprus  7. Rugby and sport development in Brazil: from peripheral to centre stage  8. Rugby beyond the core in Africa  9. Rugby towards 2030

In the Super League era rugby league matches have become events presented as entertainment packages.  The paper considers the apparent cultural incongruity of opera appealing to rugby league's fan base and the cult status enjoyed by 'Opera Man'.  This is achieved through the use of Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital, taste cultures and symbolic value.

Criterion data for total energy expenditure (TEE) in elite rugby are lacking, which prediction equations may not reflect accurately. This study quantified TEE of 27 elite male rugby league (RL) and rugby union (RU) players (U16, U20, U24 age groups) during a 14-day in-season period using doubly labelled water (DLW). Measured TEE was also compared to estimated, using prediction equations. Resting metabolic rate (RMR) was measured using indirect calorimetry, and physical activity level (PAL) estimated (TEE:RMR). Differences in measured TEE were unclear by code and age (RL 4369 ± 979; RU 4365 ± 1122; U16, 4010 ± 744; U20, 4414 ± 688; U24, 4761 ± 1523 Kcal day). Differences in PAL (overall mean 2.0 ± 0.4) were unclear. Very likely differences were observed in RMR by code (RL 2366 ± 296; RU 2123 ± 269 Kcal day). Differences in relative RMR between U20 and U24 were very likely (U16, 27 ± 4; U20, 23 ± 3; U24, 26 ± 5 Kcal kg day). Differences were observed between measured and estimated TEE...