National Rugby League side Canterbury Bulldogs player Brett Morris has "proposed scrapping pre-season trial matches amid fears rugby league's ever-expanding schedule has reached breaking point," according to Walton & Warren of the AAP. The NRL on Thursday "used the Auckland Nines launch as the stage to hail rugby league as the premier year-long football code in Australia." Ignoring fears of player burnout after more than a dozen stars were unavailable for last month's Four Nations tournament, won by New Zealand, "the league was instead spruiking the game's new never-ending season." NRL Head of Commercial Paul Kind revealed the league's official 2015 season launch would take place two days before the Nines start on January 31 "because we see rugby league as a sport that delivers a 12-month calendar with better variety than any other code in the country." Kind said the Nines, which offered A$2.25M in prizemoney last year, "had the full support of all 16 NRL teams." But Morris believes that "trial games must go." Morris: "I understand that the fans want to see their football but, if it was up to me, there would probably be no trial games. ... But especially with the Nines, the All Stars games, I think there's enough footy in the build-up to the season to maybe miss a couple of trial games and you can start the season." Morris' concerns come days after Melbourne player Billy Slater, recovering from shoulder surgery, "called on the league to shorten the season" (AAP, 12/11).
