The Queensland Rugby League receives some well-deserved recognition

The Queensland Rugby League is one of the best run sporting bodies in the country.

It has received some well-deserved recognition from the Australian Government by securing an ongoing role in the administration of around $2.2 million in funding for rugby league in our closest neighbour, Papua New Guinea.

It was a decade ago that the QRL’s Arthur Eustace asked to see me to discuss the state of rugby league in PNG. The QRL was considering expanding the Queensland Cup competition, a state wide competition for first grade players.

Within two years the PNG Hunters joined the competition and just a few years later it won the premiership.

When the Covid border closures occurred in 2020, the QRL could have excused for returning to a state-based competitio- by including for example the great rugby league city of Toowoomba.

To its credit, it didn’t do so, and assisted the PNG Hunters relocate to an excellent facility on the Gold Coast Broadwater in the electorate of the state opposition leader, David Crisafulli.

He tells me that the Hunters have been a credit to themselves, their families and the game.

A plan to start playing home games again this year had to be abandoned because of national elections related lawlessness.

But the team plans to return in 2023, though it may be able to play a full season of home and away matches including several in regional centres.

Unlike the National Rugby League, a bloated 400 plus employee bureaucracy, the QRL has been on the ground and pro-active in promoting the game, and sport generally, in Papua New Guinea.

At the same time the QRL has worked hard to maintain the game in a challenging environment in regional and country Queensland.

The QRL recently released an ambitious plan to develop a Centre for Excellence for Rugby League on the under-utilised site of the 1982 Commonwealth Games in suburban Nathan.