Roy Masters
Roy Masters is a Rugby League Columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald
League
Lack of Plan B compounds copycat conundrum
Roy Masters Basically, there are two ways for a rugby league team to use the ball: go through the opposition, or around them.
League
Pet peeve: NRL clubs make mockery of memberships
Roy Masters Rugby league has an ignoble history of creative counting - fictitious crowd figures, salary cap manipulation, exaggerating injury tallies, even miscounting tackles.
League
Hot topic: should the season kick off at night?
Roy Masters Islands in the oceans may drown and the Antarctic ice shelf melt but climate change takes on an immediate meaning for coaches when it affects the scheduling of games.
Roy Masters
Short-term goals win out for Bellamy, Storm
Roy Masters Craig Bellamy has opted for immediate short-term team success in Melbourne over guaranteed long-term personal security and stability with St George Illawarra.
Roy Masters
Sizing up the shoulder charge ban raises challenge to the data
Roy Masters THE International Rugby Board's chief medical officer, Dr Martin Raftery, while endorsing the Australian Rugby League Commission's ban on the shoulder charge, disputes most of the data used to...
Coaches, not subterfuge, are the finals X-factor
Roy Masters 'They obviously want an all-Sydney club grand final,'' one NRL club official texted immediately after the Sea Eagles' controversial victory against the Cowboys a week ago.
Why succeeding often means failure
Roy Masters IT'S preferable to be the coach who follows the coach who follows the legend. Just ask anyone who followed Jack Gibson, particularly after his appointments at Eastern Suburbs (two premierships) and...
Dark forces at work if Blues can break the spell
Roy Masters You need a witch's cauldron and a clove of garlic to understand state of origin.
The brain game provides one of many challenges for today's coaches
Roy Masters A neurologist friend tells me there is a part of the brain that actually grows in adulthood.
Roy Masters
Old tensions surface in great debate over Immortal eight
Roy Masters An historic meeting in Sydney on Wednesday of some of the game's top powerbrokers will decide rugby league's eighth Immortal.
The more things change, the less they stay the same in three decades
Roy Masters David Gallop has held the NRL's top job for a decade but there has been a revolving door in clubland, with a record number of club chief executives and coaches exiting in the past two years.
Fullbacks on the rise in the modern-day pecking order
Roy Masters Magpies greats, such as Noel Kelly and Tom Raudonikis, will gather at the SCG today for the foundation club's annual reunion, before shuffling across to Allianz Stadium on arthritic knees to watch...
Roy Masters
One-time foes united on plan for two stadiums to cover all codes
Roy Masters In a ''back to the future'' strategy, two long-term rugby league administrators have combined to rationalise the use of NSW government-controlled stadiums, possibly leading to the return of the...
It's tough to wrestle with stats: NRL's top teams have balance just right
Roy Masters Super coach Wayne Bennett is in unfamiliar territory with the Knights, the legendary premiership winner having one of his worst starts to a season in his 26 years in the top grade.
