The NRL is the highest level of professional rugby which can be achieved in Australia, and consists of 16 teams in total. The annual Telstra Premiership is widely considered to be the most elite professional rugby league championship worldwide, and remains the most well-attended and viewed rugby league championship on a global scale.
The Premiership season runs from March to October, and generally sees 9 matches being played over the weekend for 26 weeks.
Kick Off with NRL Betting
Due to the structure of the NRL Premiership season, there are plenty of matches on which to place wagers. Rugby sport betting has certainly risen in popularity over the last few years, and is especially popular amongst enthusiasts. Even the most inexperienced of sports bettors will be well versed in placing wagers on the outcome of a given match, but there are a variety of wagers that can be placed on a game as complex as rugby.
One of the most popular wagers amongst rugby enthusiasts remains wagers on the final score, which is known as match supremacy. Supremacy wagers sees players betting on how many points one team will beat the other by, and generally enjoys alluring odds. First Try Scorer wagers are also popular amongst players, as pay outs are generally high due to the difficulty of correctly predicting which team member will be the first to successfully score the first try. Players can also bet on which team will be the first to score a try, but these pay outs aren’t as lucrative.
Major sporting events as the NRL Premiership offer more NZ sports betting varieties, as wagers can be placed on individual matches, the top scoring teams throughout the season, and the outright winner of the whole championship.
Basics and History of Rugby
Most fans of rugby will be well-versed in the legend of how the game originated. It is widely believed that ruby was born in 1823 when William Webb Ellis, in complete disrespect for the rules of football, picked up the ball and ran with it. This action of course became one of the distinguishing features of rugby as it is played today, and the inaugural match was played in 1857.
Rugby is a full-contact sport and matches are played between two teams of 15 players, with team members divided into specific positions on the field. Game play is 80 minutes in total divided into two halves, with a half-time break in between. The aim of the game is to score points through tries and kicking the ball over the H-shaped posts. Tries count 5 points and successfully kicking the ball over the posts count as either 2 or 3 points depending on the kick circumstances.
Origins of the NRL
Even though the history of the NRL is a relatively short one, the league has become the most highly regarded professional rugby league worldwide. The National Rugby League was established in 1997 after an event which has become known as the Super League war of the mid-1990s. During the Super League war, a vicious court battle took place between the Australian Super League and the Australian Rugby League regarding broadcasting rights and control of the national rugby league in the country. Parallel ASL and ARL premier championships took place in 1997, after which both entities agreed on a truce and formed the National Rugby League.