Rugby league and the transfer deadline day the sports world forgot

So, that was the rugby league transfer deadline day. Oh, you missed it? Never mind. If you forgot there was one, let alone that it was last Friday, in the words of St Etienne – the band, not Arthur Mourgue’s hometown – join our club. You are not alone.

You didn’t miss Dave Woods reporting from Robin Park on the latest big-money Wigan signing. There was no Stuart Pyke with hourly updates from the University of Chester sports complex on new faces trying on Warrington training gear. No Steve Brady coming live from a roasting Stade Gilbert Brutus car park. No Mark Wilson excitedly informing TalkSport which NRL star has been spotted looking through an estate agent’s window in Hull. Not even Jon Wells revealing his next acquisition for Castleford. And clearly no countdown clock on Sky Sports News.

Deadline day – indeed the whole week’s countdown towards it – went under the radar, again. It’s a major missed opportunity, one of many from a sport that, in the wise words of Tony Collins, never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. There are very few staging posts each season when the game can give media outlets – and therefore fans and the wider sporting public – reasons to focus on league. The transfer deadline day should be one of them. And this year’s came on one of the deadest days in the sporting year.

One reason could be the lack of action. Rugby league, more than any other sport, likes to “get its business done early”. Anti-tampering laws theoretically prevent players from talking to other clubs until they have just six months left on their contracts, but that merely encourages deals to be done on the quiet. Impending transfers are announced in May and June, six months before players even trains with their new