How to follow the NRL from overseas

Following the footy from another timezone is two separate problems: working out when your team actually plays, and finding the score without wading through a highlights package that spoils it. The broadcast is the hard part. The score doesn't have to be.

Kick-off times, roughly

Most of the NRL season runs in Australian Eastern Standard Time. As a rule of thumb, a 7:35pm Sydney kick-off lands at about:

• Auckland - usually 9:35pm, the same evening. Auckland is generally two hours ahead of Sydney, but can be three hours ahead during the brief spring gap when New Zealand has entered daylight saving and Sydney has not.
• Singapore, Hong Kong, Perth - 5:35pm.
• Tokyo - 6:35pm.
• Dubai - 1:35pm.
• United Kingdom and Ireland - 10:35am.
• New York and Toronto - 5:35am.
• Los Angeles and Vancouver - 2:35am.

Those shift by an hour whenever daylight saving starts or ends at either end - and Australia, Europe and North America all change on different dates, so there are stretches of the year when the usual conversion is simply wrong. Rather than doing the maths, Six Again shows every kick-off in your device's local time, wherever the device happens to be. Land in London mid-season and the draw reads in London time.

The score, without the broadcast

Who can show you the match depends entirely on where you are. For an eligible followed match, Six Again can put the live score on your lock screen shortly before kick-off when the feature is enabled - a Live Activity on iPhone or a Live Update on Android 16 and later.

That suits the expat pattern well. A Friday night game in Australia is a Friday lunchtime in Britain and middle of the night in California, which means you're usually somewhere else doing something else. The score sits there quietly and you check it when you glance at your phone, the same as at home.

When the game finishes while you're asleep

Half the rounds will kick off at an hour you're not awake for, and there's no fixing that. What helps is what you wake up to:

• The scoring timeline and score worm show how the game actually turned, not just the final score - a two-minute catch-up on a match you slept through.
• The live ladder puts the result in context, including a No Byes view when the mid-season table looks wrong.
• Avoid Spoilers hides your teams' results across the app - and off your lock screen - until you've watched the replay at a civilised hour.

Set it up once

Finals time makes all of this sharper. The grand final is on Sunday in Sydney; local time ranges from daytime or evening across Asia and the Pacific to morning or overnight elsewhere. Use the local kick-off time in the app once it is confirmed.

Keep your club in your pocket, wherever you are

Live NRL scores on your lock screen, kick-offs in your local time, the live ladder and the full draw - with no gambling ads.