Welcome DCE - Done deal according to Phil Rothfield.

[Bates]

More than 40% of the athletes playing NRL and NRLW are of Maori or Pacifica heritage with most having deep religious faith. This is not only exclusive to the aforementioned cultures. Australian rep players Nathan Cleary and Lindsay Collins will pray before and after games.

To ban praying before games could see a huge backlash from NRL players right down to parents who's children play junior footy.

[Paddo Colt 61]

I'm a lapsed catholic too. But I don't mind others having religious beliefs (as long as they are not an imposition on non-believers).

I do find it amusing though how those of Christian faith are widely and openly lampooned and derided in public forums now. This doesn't seem to attract the same disapproval as criticism of other religions.

Even smoking ceremonies and Ernie Dingo's welcome to country are expected to be treated with the utmost reverence.

I noticed during indigenous round that crowds are now being ordered by the ground announcer to "please stand for the welcome to country". I mean, what the actual fark?

Religion of any kind is more and being seen as socially divisive. Oz is fortunate in that it has never been stridently religious and religious affiliation has been widely just nominal. The majority of marriages are now secular and funerals are heading the same way.

Christians, especially, have had abominable press in recent years with the pedophilia infestation and other scandals. 300 years after the Enlightenment and 150 after Darwin, the Sheeple are ever so slowly forfeiting religions that they mostly knew little about anyway and, quite rightly, they see the reality as inconsistent with the preaching. The relative newcomers are the Evangelicals who have made inroads in the Pacifica community and surely we don't need their brand if facile religiosity. Like you Player, most don't mind religious displays until the practitioners gain political power as they have in US and here in the LNP and then we see reversals of Womens' Rights and all sorts of assaults on majority freedoms.

Smoking Ceremonies are signs of respect and an acknowledgement that our Indigenes owned and occupied the country for tens of thousands of years. There is no mysticism in it and it cannot be equated with entreaties to one or other Sky Daddy.

[SamKerrSimp]

Love Robbo's coaching but there are numerous buys over the past 12 years that have worked out poorly...Dom young, Brandon, burgess from UK, hall winger UK, so to presume because Robbo wants him, he will automatically be a good fit is not automatically so!

Remi Casty was another awful signing. Kicking Maloney out for Hastings, Jayden Nikorima was awful, Paul Carter

[player 1]

Religion of any kind is more and being seen as socially divisive. Oz is fortunate in that it has never been stridently religious and religious affiliation has been widely just nominal. The majority of marriages are now secular and funerals are heading the same way.

Christians, especially, have had abominable press in recent years with the pedophilia infestation and other scandals. 300 years after the Enlightenment and 150 after Darwin, the Sheeple are ever so slowly forfeiting religions that they mostly knew little about anyway and, quite rightly, they see the reality as inconsistent with the preaching. The relative newcomers are the Evangelicals who have made inroads in the Pacifica community and surely we don't need their brand if facile religiosity. Like you Player, most don't mind religious displays until the practitioners gain political power as they have in US and here in the LNP and then we see reversals of Womens' Rights and all sorts of assaults on majority freedoms.

Smoking Ceremonies are signs of respect and an acknowledgement that our Indigenes owned and occupied the country for tens of thousands of years. There is no mysticism in it and it cannot be equated with entreaties to one or other Sky Daddy.

Also a pretty good little earner for the performers - certainly no mysticism in that.

Also, "women's rights" do not necessarily make it ok to choose abortion as a first line contraceptive method, performed at any stage of the pregnancy. Just my right wing nazi opinion.

[The Lip]

2500 for a welcome to country - that number is 3 years old

[Paddo Colt 61]

Also a pretty good little earner for the performers - certainly no mysticism in that.

Also, "women's rights" do not necessarily make it ok to choose abortion as a first line contraceptive method, performed at any stage of the pregnancy. Just my right wing nazi opinion.

* Probably no more than the singer of the Anthem I'd say and it's not mysticism it's a cultural welcome ceremony.

* No not a Nazi opinion, mostly a Catholic one I'd suggest because I, too, retain a lot of that Catholic guilt thing. It's not easy to completely shake indoctrination that began at age 6. Having said that few of us are flippant about abortion. Abortion as first option contraception is a conservative deception, very few females would have that attitude and even if they did, it's their bodies and their lives. I assume that you expect to have personal control over yours? What is it that Conservatives profess to love, Freedom isn't it?

[Bates]

Foxsports are now suggesting that it's just a handshake deal.

Let's hope Robbo had his fingers on his other hand crossed making the agreement null and void.

[player 1]

* Probably no more than the singer of the Anthem I'd say and it's not mysticism it's a cultural welcome ceremony.

* No not a Nazi opinion, mostly a Catholic one I'd suggest because I, too, retain a lot of that Catholic guilt thing. It's not easy to completely shake indoctrination that began at age 6. Having said that few of us are flippant about abortion. Abortion as first option contraception is a conservative deception, very few females would have that attitude and even if they did, it's their bodies and their lives. I assume that you expect to have personal control over yours? What is it that Conservatives profess to love, Freedom isn't it?

150 minutes to come up with that. Ever considered you're not the smartest person in the room after all?

"Abortion as first option contraception is a conservative deception, very few females would have that attitude and even if they did, it's their bodies and their lives"

At some point in pregnancies, maybe not at 20 weeks, but at some point during the pregnancy the baby surely may be considered to have some right to protection - or is it ok at 39 weeks to change your mind and exercise your right to freedom over your bodies and lives? How about to be on the safe side to protect freedom of choice, we offer the choice to kill the newborn up to, I don't know, 2 weeks of age?