The coach who has led the London Broncos revival and taken them within a game of contesting the sport’s ‘million pound game’ has called on Holyrood politicians and big business to get behind the Scotland rugby league ream as it prepares to take on the world’s best.
Andrew Henderson, the former international hooker, has transformed fortunes since taking charge of a club that came close to going out of business three years ago, drawing on the experience of being part of an underdog Scotland team that generated a string of shocks at the 2013 World Cup in getting the Broncos close to a return to Super League.
The team from the second-tier Championship faces Super League Salford Reds this weekend in what is effectively an eliminator for that ‘million pound game’ but the challenge facing them is nothing to what confronts Henderson’s former international team-mates when they meet Australia, England and New Zealand on successive weekends in October and November.
Henderson consequently believes men who are playing for love rather than money against much better funded rivals have earned the right to greater respect and support from the wider Scottish community.
“It’s fantastic the progression of Scotland Rugby League, the national side and I really just hope the Parliament, the government recognise that, see that and reward it with some funding because I know the domestic game is struggling. But it’s like anything, if it’s not getting the recognition, it’s not getting the funding, then how can it really grow there,” he said,
“What needs to happen off the park is we need Scottish businesses buying into this, we need recognition within Parliament and the government up there. We need funding to go in and rugby league to be recognised as a sport in Scotland.
“It’s incredible story to see how, since it started up, the competitions it’s played in the last 15 or 16 years, yet it’s almost as if funding has been reduced in that time, even for the national team.
“However the character has shone through which again epitomises Scottish spirit. The soul of Scotland has always been about hard work, grit, determination, resilience, toughness and it’s just fantastic that the national rugby league has faced so much adversity in terms of being on the big stage with less resources, less funding each year and yet has punched well above its weight in recent years, since that 2013 World Cup. I think it’s a fabulous story to be shared.”
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