RFL President calls on Australia to pull their weight in international game

At the start of this year Sir Lindsay Hoyle became the RFL’s president.

He spoke passionately this week on BBC Five Live especially on a week that England take on France in an international.

However, Hoyle believes the sport can only grow if the international game becomes bigger and has called for the sport to get “the Australians out of Australia” and finally pull their weight in international rugby and get the game beamed around the world.

“If we’re going to be the great game that we know we are, we’ve got to start playing more competitions. International competitions is where we need to be.

“I’m going to go to the France England game and I’m looking forward to it but we’ve got to get the Australians out of Australia.

“They’ve got to start recognising that you cannot be a one country sport, you’ve got to bring other countries involved.

“They’re the best but we can only beat the best by playing them. They’ve got to stop being in their own back yard, get out there. Get New Zealand, get Papua New Guinea, get France, get Samoa, there’s great world teams out there.

“We need more international matches, they get beamed around the world. Wigan Warrington was a great game and advert for rugby league but the problem is we need it go overseas. The only way to do that is to get international athletes coming through.”