Rugby League Week


Rugby League Week was the highest selling Australian rugby league magazine, ahead of major competitor Big League. It was published weekly during the Australian rugby league season, which runs from March to late September. The magazine was headquartered in Sydney.

History

Rugby League Week was launched in 1970. In 2001 the magazine's name was changed to League Week, to avoid confusion with rugby union. It reverted to Rugby League Week in 2003. It was owned by Bauer Media Group. The former owner was ACP Magazines. The last edition was published on 27 March 2017.

Content

The magazine contained news coverage of Australian rugby league, focused primarily on the first-grade NRL competition but with coverage also devoted to lower-level competitions. There were usually also several profiles of rugby league players in each edition. A number of league personalities, including Mark Geyer, Stacey Jones and Wally Lewis, had regular columns; unconfirmed rumours and miscellaneous gossip are reported in a column written by 'The Mole'.
Each edition contains previews of the games to be played in the next NRL round, running from Friday to Monday. Details of every match from the previous round are also included: the games are assessed and each player who took the field, as well as the referee, is given a rating. Details of when and by whom points were scored are also included. Results, but not ratings, are published for most notable rugby league competitions in Australia, as well as major competitions in New Zealand and England.

Player of the Year

Related to the rating of players ever since Rugby League Week was first published during the 1970 NSWRFL season has been its Player of the Year award.
Since 1978, players have been rated out of ten for every game. To deal with absences from club rugby due to interstate and Test duty, the five lowest scores of every player are deleted from their final score. After these five lowest scores are removed, the player with the highest score wins the award.
From 1970 to 1977, the method of judging was the same except that players were awarded points out of five instead of ten.
YearPlayer
1970Tommy Bishop
1971Bob Grant
1972John Ballesty
1973Johnny Mayes
1974Arthur Beetson
1975Bob Fulton
1976Ray Higgs
1977Mick Cronin
1978Geoff Gerard
1979Ray Price
1980Kevin Hastings
1981Kevin Hastings
1982Kevin Hastings
1983Phil Sigsworth
1984Peter Sterling
1985Ray Price
1986Peter Sterling
1987Peter Sterling
1988Ben Elias
1989Gavin Miller
1990Mal Meninga
1991Ewan McGrady
1992Paul Langmack
1993Steve Walters
1994Cliff Lyons
1995Laurie Daley
1996Allan Langer
1997Brad Fittler
1998Andrew Johns
1999Andrew Johns
2000Andrew Johns
2001Andrew Johns
2002Andrew Johns
2003Steve Price
2004Nathan Hindmarsh
2005Nathan Hindmarsh
2006Luke Bailey
2007Johnathan Thurston
2008Billy Slater
2009Jarryd Hayne
2010Paul Gallen
2011Corey Parker
2012Ben Barba
2014Jarryd Hayne
2015Roger Tuivasa-Sheck
2016Jason Taumalolo

The Immortals

In 1981 Rugby League Week named 'The Immortals', four players that they considered to be the greatest in Australian history. In 1999 another two were added and in 2003 another one. At the end of the 2012 NRL season it was decided that Andrew Johns would become the eighth immortal. Currently numbering eight, The Immortals are:
  • Arthur Beetson
  • Clive Churchill
  • Bob Fulton
  • Reg Gasnier
  • Graeme Langlands
  • Wally Lewis
  • Johnny Raper
  • Andrew Johns

    Ten out of Ten

Since the 1978 NSWRFL season, Rugby League Week has rated each player in each premiership and representative game on a scale of 1-10. There have been 17 players since 1978 to achieve the rare feat of being rated 10/10 for a game. Manly-Warringah second row forward Terry Randall had the honour of being the first player to be rated 10/10 in the opening round of the 1978 season. Parramatta halfback Peter Sterling is the only player to achieve this twice while Brad Fittler is the only player to receive 10/10 in a representative game having done so in the second test of the 1995 Trans-Tasman Test series against New Zealand.
RLW's 10/10 ratings since 1978 include: