29 January 2021
International Rugby League History and Heritage Group
The History and Heritage Group (Tony Collins, Andrew Ferguson, Neil Ormston, Tas Baitieri, Danny Kazandjian, Niel Wood) has, over the past 6 months, examined every “international match” ever played in order to create, for the first time ever, a definitive list of games formally recognised by IRL. These will be called “Senior International Matches”
In doing this, we are not attempting to re-write history, change what members have already recognised as internationals or not and certainly not attempting to change alter any player’s international record. The recognition of players and the awarding of caps etc. to commemorate international appearances remains entirely in the gift of each nation.
To decide whether a game is recognised or not has taken a great deal of discussion and consideration as we are trying to recognise games and circumstances from very different times. Therefore, we established some guiding criteria as follows:

•        Would the game be recognised today?
•        A senior international match played between two recognised members, played to full                       international rules?
•        Would the game, at the time, have been treated as such by the players, administrators and             public?
•       Was the game a part of a recognised and approved international competition or a competition         that would carry that status today?

We are now at the next stage of the process which is to consult with each member so that they can examine our list and comment accordingly.
Please find attached the list that we hold for you, I would be grateful if you could reply by February 28th, 2021 if you have any comments to make, if not, we will assume that you are ok with the list.

Best wishes
​
Niel Wood
IRL Media Manager

As I write this, people all around the world is dealing with the most profound crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic. Our individual and collective resilience is being tested, not only by the pandemic, but also the loss of income, loss of jobs and jobs opportunities. Fake news and misinterpretation of facts contributed to the uncertainty.

Covid-19 also took his toll in the rugby league community. I would like to offer my sincere condolences to everyone that lost a family member or friend to the Covid-19 pandemic.
No games were played on field during this season, but we did play a virtual league on Facebook.         
I like to thank everyone that helped or participated in what ever way to make this project a success. South African Rugby League’s Facebook ratings increased dramatically during the competition.
Thank you, Deo Botha and team, for your tremendous effort in this regard. I must also mention Bernard Verster for the excellent idea.
​
The opportunity to return to play presented in October. The cost and effort to comply to the Return to Play Protocol made it impossible for the clubs to participate in this project.   
The season went by without any games played.

Little happened on the field but off the field the administrators were busy. Western Province Rugby League had successful meetings and will be back in the game with the new season.
Northern Gauteng Rugby League is the first to affiliate with their rugby union province, in this case the Blue Bulls Rugby Union. I trust that the other provinces will soon follow suit in this important endeavour. As a result of the negotiations the NGRL’s Northern Bulls changed their name to the Northern Gauteng Cowboys.

On international level SARLSA got involved in the foundation of the new Middle East Africa Rugby League Federation. The MEARLF holds a promising and interesting challenge for SARLSA with much more opportunities on international level.
I would like to thank our Secretary General, Kobus Botha and all the members of the board as well as the directors of SARLSA for their continuous support and hard work.
The Covid-19 pandemic is not yet over, use the time to get your club and province in order.
 
 
“The future depends on what we do with the present” – Mahatma Ghandi .
 
Kind regards,

Dr.Frans F. Erasmus
President: South African Rugby League Sporting Association

4 December 2020
 
International Rugby League (IRL) has appointed the first three referees to its newly formed Elite International Referees Panel. Top NRL referees, Grant Atkins, Ashley Klein and Gerard Sutton had their nominations from the Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC) accepted and will take their places in the squad for 2021.
 
All three officials are part of the NRL Referees squad, refereeing high intensity games week in week out but all three officials have considerable experience of refereeing the international game. All three officials have refereed in World Cup tournaments with Atkins and Sutton making their World Cup refereeing debuts in 2017 and Klein having refereed in every World Cup since 2008, a tournament in which he refereed the final. Sutton also has experience of refereeing the World Cup Final having refereed the final in 2017.
 
IRL’s Match Officials Manager, Stuart Cummings said,
 
“It is great to have our first three referees announced for our new squads and these three referees have shown over a number of years that they can deal with the pressure of officiating at a high level in a tough competition. The fact that they are all vastly experienced International referees is of great benefit to the game particularly as we approach the Rugby League World Cup in 2021.”
 
The Elite International Referees Panel will be made up of eight referees with no one country being able to have more than three referees on the panel. The remaining referees will be selected to the panel as their national competitions come to an end and nominations are received from each country.
 
All three of the initial appointees are excited by the opportunity. Gerard Sutton commented, “This appointment is an honour and an exciting opportunity at a time when the strength of the international game is surging.” Ashley Klein said, “It is an honour and privilege to be selected. International rugby league is something that has always been at the forefront of my aspirations as an official.” Finally, Grant Atkins welcomed his appointment saying, “I am really pleased and excited to be selected for this new squad. I am looking forward to being part of the Elite International Panel and working with the other officials in the international game”.

Northern Gauteng Rugby League Granted Associate Membership of the Blue Bulls Rugby Union

​On Wednesday, 25 November 2020, the Blue Bulls Rugby Union Committee, formally approved the application of its rugby league equivalent, the North Gauteng Rugby League (NGRL), for associate membership. This decision followed the earlier affiliation of the South African Rugby League Sporting Association (SARLSA) to its national counterpart, the South African Rugby Union (SARU) as an associate member. This affiliation was mediated by the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) and was aimed at securing formal recognition for the sport of rugby league. SARLSA, in accordance with the formal Memorandum of Understanding between the two bodies, remained an independent entity responsible for its own operations.
In line with national developments, it was agreed that all provincial and regional bodies would similarly affiliate as associate members of the appropriate provincial structure. The NGRL is therefore the first SARLSA affiliate to formally affiliate to its relevant provincial counterpart. This will now be followed by the formal conclusion of a Memorandum of Understanding between the two parties which will formally conclude the process which was initiated in May this year. In practice, associate members is allowed to participate in all discussions but do not have voting rights.
 
Against this background, Dr. Frans Erasmus, President of SARLSA remarked:
“This is a positive development and a significant step towards establishing the NGRL as an iconic province on par with the Blue Bulls.  We are also committed to win the same level of support for our sport from the South African rugby-loving public and to bring honour to both province and country. Rugby League offers real opportunities for ambitious players and is able to provide talented sportsmen and women with additional pathways to achieve their dreams. Good luck to our clubs as they continue with the task of promoting rugby league”.   
 
Dr. Hendrik Snyders
Media Officer: SARLSA
dr.hendriksnyders@gmail.com

The Annual General Meeting of International Rugby League (IRL) has confirmed the elevation of Nigeria Rugby League Association (NRLA) and Rugby League Federation of Ghana (RLFG) to affiliate membership.
Both nations have undergone a rigorous process to satisfactorily demonstrate the growth of their organisation and their capacity to deliver rugby league programmes.
These are the first two nations in the Middle East – Africa (MEA) region to achieve affiliate membership and further illustrates the progress being made by the sport in the region.
NRLA Vice-President, Ade Adebisi said:
 
“We were pleased to receive the votes confirming NRLA as an Affiliate Member of International Rugby League.
 
“This is motivating news for all of us at NRLA. Our target is to qualify for the world cup in 2025 and achieve full membership status. I would like thank Remond Safi and our entire team for making this a reality.”
 
Kareem Captan, RLFG General Secretary commented:
 
“This marks a significant milestone in our journey towards participation in RLWC2025 and obtaining full membership. 
 
“It reflects the ardent dedication of our team and players and the gracious and enduring support we have been so fortunate to receive from our sponsors, partners, and stakeholders and we thank them all.”
The AGM, which was attended virtually by 35 nations, also heard an update from Chair Greg Barclay on the progress made by the international federation during a very disrupted and challenging 2020.
He highlighted IRL’s compliance with World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the appointments of the first ever Head of Judiciary and a Match Official Manager, the work of several advisory groups, including women and girls, classifications, wheelchair rugby league and the laws advisory panel, plus the work on the re-brand and roll-out of the website and digital members' portal.
IRL chief executive officer, Nigel Wood summed up the meeting saying:
“It was great to have so many members attend and participate in the AGM in such trying circumstances. We would like to thank them all and also congratulate our friends in both Nigeria and Ghana on their successful applications to become affiliate members.
“Quite rightly, members focussed on IRL’s response to the problems created by the global pandemic. They were satisfied that we have been able to manage the international federation’s affairs prudently to ensure that the impact on our support for members is as limited as possible.
“We are all looking forward to an improved 2021 and a World Cup to remember for the most positive of reasons.”
 
For PR and media requests please contact:
Niel Wood
media@intrl.sport
​

TODAY IN SOUTH AFRICAN RUGBY LEAGUE HISTORY
10 NOVEMBER 1923 – TANK VAN ROOYEN WIGAN DEBUT
​

Gert Wilhelm [George] ‘Tank’ Van Rooyen was the first Springbok to move to British rugby league after the First World War. He played for three clubs, Hull Kingston Rovers, Wigan and Widnes, despite not switching codes until he was aged almost 30. He was born in Steynsburg, and played for Johannesburg Pirates and Transvaal, as well as appearing in two tests against the All Blacks for the Springboks in their 1921 tour of Australia and New Zealand. In September 1922 he joined Hull KR, and despite making 25 appearances for the club in his first season, missed out on playing in their team that beat Huddersfield 15–5 in the Championship final. After a further 10 games for Hull KR in the 1923-24 season, he was transferred to Wigan and made his debut on 10 November 1923 against Wigan Highfield at Central Park.
The legendary Wigan full-back Jim Sullivan, who played for Wigan from 1921 to 1946, remembers van Rooyen as “the most fabulous character I have known in rugby league”. He remembered a “great giant of a man... solid granite... the strongest man I’ve ever seen apart from the old music hall acts. There were times when I thought he was more than human.”

​Some of the feats Sullivan could remember included carrying a bag of cement under each arm with ease, shifting snow from the pitch with a wooden plank 12 feet by seven inches; single-handedly lifting a horse out of manhole and hoisting a broken down van off its wheels.
He made 32 appearances in his first season for Wigan, scoring four tries. And honours came his way, with a Lancashire League medal and Challenge Cup winner’s medal. He played in every round of the Challenge Cup, and in the final Wigan beat Oldham comfortably at Rochdale Hornets’ Athletic Ground. Wigan won 21–4, and their main concern was whether the massive crowd could be kept off the pitch

​Flashback Friday
David Barends – from Elim to Bradford
David Barends was one of only a small group of non-white South Africans to play rugby league in Britain. He was born in the town of Elim, a small village near Cape Agulhas in the Overberg region of the Western Cape where community life strongly centred on the Moravian Church. A part of the Boland rugby community, Elim with early clubs such as Rock Roses, is a traditional rugby town. At the beginning of the 20th century, the regional clubs which included Caledon Pirates, and Progress of sister-town, Genadendal, played under the auspices of the Caledon Rugby Union which was succeeded by the Southern Rugby Union, an affiliate of the then South African Coloured Rugby Football Board.
David learned his rugby at primary school and further refined his skill at nearby Emil Weder in Genadendal, one of the few black high schools in the rural Western Cape rural at the time. He moved to Cape Town after finishing school and joined the Progress Rugby Club under the City & Suburban Rugby Union and according to the available information also represented the latter union as a winger in interprovincial competition. After a period, he left to join the Roslyn club under the Western Province Rugby Union which he represented in the Rhodes Cup competition. On the 24 August 1970, he made his debut for the elite squad and national team of the South African Rugby Union, the successor of the former SA Coloured Rugby Football Board.  Their opponents, in what was billed as the “Fifth Test”, was the African Springboks of the South African African Rugby Football Board in terms of the racial designations of the time. These tests were used as an alternative to full representative honours since apartheid prohibited the inclusion of black players into the all-white Springbok-side under the South African Rugby Football Board and who regularly played against the national side of other countries.
Barends’ debut test, coincided with the tour of the 1970 All Blacks - the first which saw the inclusion of Maori’s. The played at the Green Point Stadium in Cape Town was arranged to showcase the quality of Black rugby to the New Zealand visitors. In addition it was planned for the All Blacks to be introduced to the players before the game. Further, Dr. Danie Craven and the Cape Town-based Springboks of the SA Rugby Board were invited to attend the game.
 
In order to facilitate this process, the Department of Community Development gave permission for White South Africans to attend the game. Tickets for this encounter therefore went on sale at Logans Sports shop in Cape Town for Whites and at the Green Point Track for Coloureds and Blacks. The All Black team, however, never turned up. The SARU’s side won the ​encounter by 17-6 with David Barends who afterwards was to leave South Africa to play professional rugby in England, scoring two famous tries.
 
Through the collective efforts of Ivor Dorrington and Leeds sports promoter, Jim Windsor, Barends was able to join Wakefield Trinity for a sign-on fee of £1000 sterling. After scoring two tries on debut, his place in the league ranks was assured allowing him to settle down and in the end, spent three seasons at the club while refining his game and polishing his craft. Having served time with his first club, he contracted with York RLFC. After another four productive years, he signed with Bradford Northern in 1977. During this period, he made 202 first class appearances and scored 70 tries to establish him as one of their most potent and iconic players and was suitably rewarded in 1979 with selection for Great Britain in the series against Australia. David Barends in the process became the first player not of British origin to play for the Lions. He played 16 times, including the first two tests against Australia, and scored 10 tries. Although the Lions were successful outside the test matches, Australia won the test series 3–0. David’s debut was in a 35–0 defeat in the first test in Brisbane, although he did have a try disallowed. He also played in the second test in Sydney, which Great Britain lost 24–16.

TODAY IN SOUTH AFRICAN RUGBY LEAGUE HISTORY
31 OCTOBER 2011
Leonard Michael Anthony (Len) Killeen

On this day, nine years ago, Len Killeen, to date the only South African to won the much-coveted Lance Todd Trophy in a rugby league final, passed away. Killeen, formerly of Swifts Rugby Football Club in Uitenhage in the Eastern Province, signed with St. Helens in 1962 and went on to become a fantastic points-scorer and match-winner supreme, one of the stars of the club’s four trophy season in 1966. On three occasions, he completed the regular league season as the top scorer. After playing against Liverpool City in a pre-season match, he made his debut against Salford on 18 August. Killeen scored 25 tries in 27 matches in his first season, and was only beaten by fellow-South African Tom van Vollenhoven, who finished on 33. Killeen really came to the fore in 1965–66. With Tom van Vollenhoven’s scoring starting to decline, with only 18 tries, Killeen ended up as top try scorer and goal kicker in the game, with 32 tries and 120 goals from 44 appearances for 336 points – 22 less than the previous season.
In that season’s Challenge Cup Final at Wembley against Wigan, Len firmly inked his name into the annals of rugby league history. Following sterling contributions in the run-up to the final such as scoring all the points in the Saints’ semi-final against Dewsbury – two tries and two goals –in the club 12–5 victory, the Wembley Final was to be the crowning moment of his career. On Saturday 21 May 1966, in front of a crowd of 98,536, Killeen scored a try, three penalties and two conversions – 13 of Saints’ 21 points in their 21–2 win. This sterling performance was crowned with Len winning the Lance Todd Trophy as the Man of the Match.
 
The said trophy was introduced in 1945–46 and named in memory of Lance Todd, the New Zealand-born player and administrator, who was killed in a road accident during the Second World War. The trophy's winner is selected by the members of the Rugby League Writers' Association present at the game. The first winner of the trophy was Wakefield Trinity Centre, Billy Stott in 1945–46. St. Helens' Sean Long in 2006 became the first player to win the Lance Todd Trophy three times, having won in 2001 and 2004. Five players have won the trophy twice: Warrington's Gerry Helme in 1949–50 and 1953–54; Wigan's Andy Gregory in 1987–88 and 1989–90; and Martin Offiah in 1991–92 and 1993–94; St. Helens' Paul Wellens in 2007 (jointly) and 2008; Hull FC's Marc Sneyd in 2016 and 2017. Sneyd and Wellens are the only players to win the award in consecutive finals.
 
Killeen was not only the third St. Helens player to win the award, but was also the 21st recipient of this famous award. In addition, he was only the second overseas player to win the trophy, after Ces Mountford and the first winger to do so.

​TODAY IN SOUTH AFRICAN RUGBY LEAGUE HISTORY
27 OCTOBER 1973 – GREEN VIGO HAT-TRICK
 
On this Day, 47 years ago, Green Vigo, a Protea and representative player of the South African Rugby Football Federation and Saldanha Tigers, scored a hat-trick of tries for Wigan against Hull Kingston Rovers in a comprehensive 38–3 victory. This was his first year in professional rugby and a season in which he played 26 games and scored 11 tries. Along the way, he earned a string of nicknames, ranging from “Super Green” to the ‘Wizard of Wigan’ and the ‘Saldanha Iron Horse’. Possession blistering pace and displaying a physical approach to the game, he became a target of opposition players early on. As early as his full first professional game, he lost some teeth after a stiff-arm tackle. He won his first medal, in the Lancashire Cup Final against Salford on 13 October 1973.

​TODAY IN SOUTH AFRICAN RUGBY LEAGUE HISTORY
WAYBACK WEDNESDAY
26 OCTOBER 1957 – TOM VAN VOLLENHOVEN
 
On this Day, 63 years ago, in front of 23,000 fans, Tom van Vollenhoven, made his debut for St. Helens against Leeds at Knowsley Road. Recruited for the Saints from Rhodesian rugby after strong financial competition from other league clubs,  Springbok Number 314 after concluding a record deal and signing-on fee of £7 230, then went on to make a further 408 appearances for the club,  scoring 392 tries along the way. On two occasions he scored six tries in a club match.
His October-debut, however, proved to be a cracker. Playing with the likes of Duggie Greenall, Vince Karalius and Alex Murphy, on the day, the ‘Vol’ as he came to be known, scored his first first-class try and helping his side to a 36-7 victory. From this point onwards, there was no looking back.
In 2000 ahead of the World Cup, Tom van Vollenhoven was inducted into the Rugby League Hall of Fame and remains the only South African representative thus far to be honoured in this way.
On his passing in 2017, St Helens Chairman Eamonn McManus in an interview with Sky Sport noted:
"Tom was one of St Helens' and rugby league's greatest ever players: a true great amongst greats. He lit up the game during its great era in the 1950s and 60s. There may be possible debate over who was St Helens' best ever player but there is no doubt over who is our most loved and revered player: it is Tom van Vollenhoven."
Dave Dooley of the Saints Heritage Society in turn wrote of Heritage Player Number 747:
“Tommy Vol was truly a phenomenon, with 392 tries in 408 appearances - says it all, doesn`t it! A blond, crew-cutted figure, who possessed terrific pace and athletic ability, he was also extremely strong for his size. Apart from finishing with aplomb if given even minimal space down the touchline, there was no contest - three points every time! He could conjure up tries from the most unlikely scenarios, regardless of the craft and skill of his centres.”