BY CURTIS WOODWARD

@woodward_curtis

Rugby league is made up of many different religions – all of them are out for themselves. The only thing they have in common is the thing they all supposedly worship… rugby league.

These religions are rubbish.

It’s fake… it’s a front for the rich who feed off the greatest game of all.

All these “religions” chewing away at the never-ending carcass.

No one person has a right to say they own our sport.

Rugby league was here long before any of us and it will be here when all of us are sleeping in the dirt.

Today we watch as media giants prod and stab and kick. Rugby league is their dirty little whore. ‘How dare it push back when we’ve given it so much?’

Remember, rugby league was here first.

Almost 100 years ago, Balmain secretary Bob Savage called the 1924 final between the Tigers and South Sydney at the Sydney Cricket Ground. It was the first ever footy match broadcast on radio.

If Bob could see the media circus today and the shit-canning by the NRL’s “partners” do you think he would have have gone ahead with that first call?

The media cowboys have become a law unto themselves.

Somewhere, at some point, they started to believe they were bigger than rugby league.

In Rex Mossop’s autobiography, ‘The Moose’ spoke about his debut TV appearance in 1964.

“Viewers who switched on the Channel 7 evening news for my debut appearance back in May, 1964, would have seen a snappily-dressed, smartly-groomed 36-year-old former footballer confidently relaying the day’s sports information from behind what appeared to be a businesslike desk in a spacious, hi-tech newsroom complex,” Mossop wrote.

“That was the impression, the reality was something else again.

“TV studios then were hot, stuffy little makeshift pigeonholes – a table plonked in a spare space of the studio floor with a few backdrops hastily thrown up and a tangle of lethal wires connected to cameras, lights and power sources twisted all over the floor.”

Thank heavens we didn’t lose Rex that first night at the hands of a stray wire.

https://twitter.com/The81stMinute/status/1257959992004468736

From that May evening, the presentation of footy snowballed.

But nobody ever forgot that rugby league was here first.

It was about the sport.

About rugby league.

News Corp CEO says there is a “new reset reality” for the NRL but what the hell does that even mean?

Sometimes we may forget how resilient and beautiful our game is.

Current partners want to crush it and rebuild it in their own image.

Business is business but if you’re going to play dirty pool expect a cue over your head.

One organisation is $2 billion in debt.

The other went early and cut costs to their network to the tune of almost $300 million thinking COVID-19 restrictions would last into 2021.

Foxtel is ‘sweating’ on NRL’s return as pay TV service drowns in $2 billion debt

But they want to question the NRL’s spending?

Rugby league was first played in this great land 112 years ago.

Channel Nine called their first premiership game in 1992.

And how was Rupert Murdoch going to build his new subscription TV service in the ’90’s?

On the back of rugby league.

Our game has seen many challengers.

No one has or ever will, defeat our sport.

This is our religion.

@woodward_curtis