{"id":297705,"date":"2025-12-04T00:51:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T00:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/297705\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T00:51:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T00:51:20","slug":"luke-keary-defends-his-unwatchable-super-league-rant-as-england-legend-agrees-with-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/297705\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke Keary defends his “unwatchable” Super League rant as England legend agrees\u00a0with\u00a0comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"NRL\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Former Catalans Dragons half-back Luke Keary has defended the comments he made earlier in the season that slated the Super League competition.<\/p>\n

The ex-NRL Grand Final winner was fined \u00a31000 for an interview he gave to Australian media<\/a>, whereby he stated the Northern Hemisphere competition as \u201chorrendous\u201d and \u201cunwatchable\u201d in a scathing review of the division.<\/p>\n

Berating almost every part of the game, including on-field product, media coverage and the TV broadcast, Keary, who was at the Dragons at the time, was hounded by the UK fans and media for his views, but has now revealed he still stands by what he said.<\/p>\n

The former Sydney Roosters and South Sydney Rabbitohs man was a guest on James Graham\u2019s\u00a0The Bye Round<\/a> podcast, as he discussed his overall time in Perpignan, as well as the benefits of a potential NRL involvement in Super League.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was awesome,\u201d said Keary, discussing his overall time in the south of France. \u201cIt was just great to experience it all. It was challenging at the start, obviously I got myself into a bit of trouble for being a bit too honest, but it was awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Super League, even the crowds\u2026 it\u2019s so different over there to here in Australia. The fans, they\u2019re just mad, they\u2019re singing the whole game. It was full of great moments, but it was also a pretty challenging year on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graham dived into the interview the recently retired playmaker gave back in May, and revealed that he actually agreed with what he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou made those comments about the Super League and you said you were too honest. When I read them, I actually thought you should be applauded for your honesty,\u201d said Graham.<\/p>\n

\u201cI care about the game on both sides of the world and I want to see it get better. For me, I was like, maybe they should listen. Maybe they should take that on board.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keary, who does admit the way he gave his views came across badly, explained how he still believes his comments are still worthwhile.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cI stand by the points inside it and a lot of people reached out, the same as you, Jimmy, who have watched that game over there, been a part of it, and want to see it do better. They could see where I was coming from.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve watched the Super League ever since I was a kid. You get up, you watch all those NRL boys go over there and play and you admire it from afar, but had no idea about how it was run or any of the intricacies inside, or the RFL, or anything like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a huge shock to be about what was going on over there and what people were putting up with and even the way Catalans were being treated during it all. It all came to a head in that interview, but it was the way it came across, I really regret that.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on to say how Catalans have to pay for every Super League club\u2019s travel to Perpignan, and also defended fellow French side Toulouse, with the Championship Grand Final winners receiving half as much funding as the rest of the competition, making for an uneven playing field before a ball has even been kicked.<\/p>\n

Graham replied: \u201cI\u2019m 100% with you. It was funny, because your comments were made and some of the responses were \u2018who\u2019s this Aussie coming over here, telling us how rubbish the comp is and you should be grateful\u2019. But then [Peter] V\u2019landys goes over and\u2026 basically says it needs to be rescued and it\u2019s like \u2018oh, he\u2019s the saviour\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou asked about the running of the game over there. I genuinely don\u2019t know who is in charge, which is the unfortunate thing.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026When I watch the game over there, there are just a few little things that can make a huge difference and wouldn\u2019t require a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Check out the latest episode of The Serious About Rugby League Show on our YouTube channel here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Catalans Dragons half-back Luke Keary has defended the comments he made earlier in the season that slated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-297705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}