How national is the NRL and its coverage?
Roar Rookie
By Hoy, 5 Oct 2009 Hoy is a Roar Rookie
- Tagged:
- Channel 9, NRL, NRL grand final, Parramatta Eels
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This may be a conspiracy theory, but it could be a good one. Long have people outside of NSW felt that their clubs don’t get a fair go by the NRL, the judiciary, Channel 9 and the like.
Some examples of this conspiracy theory include: Canberra hardly ever being shown on free to air TV, certain players being seen to be getting preferential treatment at judiciary, certain NSW greats getting special payments to keep them in the game rather than go to Union when QLD greats get no help from the NRL, and the list could go on.
I, personally, have long been just a little disgusted at the bias of certain commentators during NRL games on Channel 9. I have always felt that Sterlo and Rabbits are the only two in a long line of co-commentators that are even remotely impartial. I would just like to say this is no shot at Sterlo as through the whole finals campaign he has continued to conduct himself in the professional and informative manner that I love, even though his beloved team is involved.
My frustration at the bias shown in the past has simmered to boiling point while watching the coverage of the NRL Grand Final.
I had no real interest in who won. I am not a true supporter of either club, but it seems to me that Channel 9 showed just how national the comp really is. It seems the old NSWRL guard is simmering just below the surface, and Channel 9 were pushing the Sydney team to the hilt to win.
Channel 9 interviewed Parramatta parents, Parramatta greats, Parramatta players, showing Parramatta fans, everything but even acknowledging the Storm were even in the game.
It seemed no secret that everyone at Channel 9 wanted Parramatta to win. Every segment with a commentator is billed to support Parra, even to the point when Kenny Sutcliffe was standing with the kids giving out the premiership medals and said “who do you want to win”. The answer was indecipherable, so Kenny said “bit of difference, but most want Parramatta to win.” Really? How could you tell? I couldn’t understand anything they screamed out.
Interviewing the kids, they showed every child who said Hayne was his/her favourite player. Now I am sure he is their favourite player, but I can guarantee he isn’t everyones favourite player. What about the kids from the Minto club who love Inglis, Slater, Cronk etc? They didn’t get on TV.
Sure there may be some sentimentality here with Parramatta not having won a title in decades, but that hardly excuses the super NSW-centric coverage of the game.
I may be alone, but in a supposed national comp, on a national television channel, on GF day, the last thing I want from the NRL free to air provider is bias towards one of the clubs, especially if it is because that club is from the old-boys NSWRL stable.
PS: They did interview former Storm player Geyer, and then the CEO Waldron, however I stand by my sentiments. Channel 9 threw their support behind Parramatta. That is not how the Grand Final day should pan out. It should be a balanced coverage for all to enjoy.
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Michael C said | October 5th 2009 @ 5:32am | Report comment
Any reason why it’s taken you this long to come to this conclusion?? Tongue in cheek to a degree, but, you really MUST have been giving them the ‘benefit of the doubt’ for an awful long time!!!
Hoy said | October 5th 2009 @ 10:34am | Report comment
I just couldn’t believe how bad it was over the day’s coverage. Everything was geared towards Parra, everything. I wrote it at about 1:30 QLD time yesterday, and it has been edited to post game, however the lead up was just OTT and not a little disrespectful to the Storm I felt.
I can’t understand any reason behind it, other than the old NSWRL thinking still alive and kicking, and as such, the coverage was a disgrace, and in no way indicative of a national game, rather an Us Vs Them attitude for Sydney clubs taken on by Channel 9.
Mr cheese said | October 5th 2009 @ 6:07am | Report comment
I suppose you lot should be careful what you wish for.
Over here, Rugby League gets very little coverage. Most people don’t even know it exists.
Rugby LEaguers are very upset about that, but c’est la vie.
I suppose it will be gone within a few years in this country. Sad, but inevitable.
Difficult for the Aussies, though, because the second rate Aussies use England as something to fall back on. Seriously, what will happen to them when the Super League falls into the sand ????
Their parents should push them into football. That way, you’re guaranteed to make a few quid even if you’re only quite good.
We can’t all be Billy Slater. The second raters will not be able tofind work in Rugby League.
Shame.
Dommage
Lastima
Chris said | October 5th 2009 @ 8:26am | Report comment
Huh, that’s nothing to do with what the article was about…
Mr cheese said | October 5th 2009 @ 9:15am | Report comment
I was saying that we don’t even have ANY coverage of League over here.
Bill Baxter said | October 5th 2009 @ 5:17pm | Report comment
Who is Mr Cheese and where is he from?. Super League will not die in the UK any more than Rugby League in Australia, which Mr O’Neill predicted a few years ago would fade away and die. It’s pretty clear which brand of Rugby is not in a healthy state now!!!.
Mr cheese said | October 5th 2009 @ 10:01pm | Report comment
I am Mr Cheese and I am from NW England.
Anyways, I have never been to Aussie so I don’t know how Rugby League will do in the future over in the prison colony.
In England, it’s really struggling. They’re desperate to make it more popular in new areas e.g. London, S Wales and the south of France. Rugby Union is growing in both England and France, which can only be bad news for League.
Traditional Rugby League towns such as Halifax, Widnes and Leigh are pretty much neglected. That means their attendances are very low. Widnes even let people in for free in a match against Gateshead because people have lost interest in rugby league.
Rugby League will end up being unpopular in both Widnes and South Wales.
Let’s be honest: very few people in England could name a single RL player. 15 years ago, people could have said “Martin Offiah, Jonathan Davies, Jason Robinson, Shaun Edwards”.
Rugby League may be thriving over in the prison colony but back here it’s in big trouble. What will happen to Aussie RL when English RL disappears ??? That will deprive the 2nd raters or old men of a chance to make a living. Look at Matt Gidley, St. Helens. Matt King, Warrington. Pat Richards, Wigan.
In the future, they will have to work in bars in Earl’s Court.
Perhaps English Rugby LEague should just kiss and make up with Rugby Union. If they rejoin the fold, the north of England can still have a say in egg-chasing.
Let’s be fair: Wigan and Hull are football towns nowadays..
John Ryan said | October 5th 2009 @ 10:48pm | Report comment
You are kidding mate, not another RL will be dead soon, one word for you BOLLOCKS
Mr cheese said | October 6th 2009 @ 10:44am | Report comment
That’s a great word to use.
Are you Australian, John Ryan ? I am not talking about the NRL.
I am talking about RL in my own country: England. Over here, RL is doing its very best to become popular in new areas e.g. The South of England, South Wales, and the South of France. With very limited success.
The Play Off quarter final between Huddersfield and Catalan was seen by 4,000 spectators. Meanwhile, at a semi-final in Aussie, you had 75,000.
Rugby League may be doing well over there but it isn’t over here !
AndyRoo said | October 5th 2009 @ 8:40am | Report comment
I doubt that there are a bunch of kids in Minto that love Billy Slater or Cooper Cronk.
Melbourne only entered the comp in 1998, they play a less expansive style and Channel nine have done 3 consecutive years of Storm Grand Finals, would have been running out of things to talk about.
There is also the fact that Parramatta are very cooperative with the media and have made their players much more available.
After the siren it was all about the storm wasn’t it.
Edit: Just saw that Channel Nine then cut away early from the post match in the Southern States. Poor form Channel Nine.
Michael C said | October 5th 2009 @ 8:44am | Report comment
Parramatta WOULD be more ‘available’ to the media….given that they’re a Sydney based team.
The commentary was pretty damn biased, no surprise from Sterling though,
We still think back to 1999 when Warren had a tear in his voice describing the Storm winning,
and Gould…..”Man versus machine”……what a crock!!
btw – any truth that the game was started late because the organisers had forgotten about daylight saving and the fireworks had to be catered for (which then stuffed up the GTV9 timings)???
AndyRoo said | October 5th 2009 @ 10:19am | Report comment
It’s half geography but Parramatta have been willing to let their players go on the Footy show and such on a thursday night even when their playing Friday night all year. Most clubs don’t allow that.
Michael C said | October 5th 2009 @ 12:10pm | Report comment
Yep, but again, it’s an unfair proposition to judge Storm on….it’d be like AFL people complaining that the Lions rarely let Jonothan Brown on the footy show…..given that he’d had to be in Melbourne on the Thursday night…..(or, are you talking about live crosses via satellite??)
AndyRoo said | October 5th 2009 @ 12:31pm | Report comment
Live crosses, open training sessions etc etc.
Parramatta and I think the Broncos are more open than other clubs.
I am not so much having ago at the Storm more suggesting the more open clubs are going to get more press….plus there is the fact that Parramatta have more fans than most clubs (including the Storm) and haven’t won a premiership since 1986.
There just a more interesting story becasue by now (this is their 4th appearance) we all know most of the Storm players story.
Melbourne could have done their bit, there was no talk of naming a tram after Billy Slater or Cameron Smith. If Parrmatta had of got up Nathan Rees was going to commision the Moi Moi Express and Hayne Train.
Mick from Giralang said | October 5th 2009 @ 8:50am | Report comment
I find it hard to understand why Channel Nine works so hard to suppress the game in Victoria. They’ve obviously paid big dollars for it yet coverage is grudging at best and belies the good ratings they get whenever they show the game at a reasonable time. Of course, a lot of the blame for this situation lies with the inadequacy of the TV contract signed off by the NRL administration, which should have mirrored the AFL deal in requiring reasonable coverage of the game in expansion areas. The AFL executive runs rings around its NRL counterpart in terms of competency.
Matt S said | October 5th 2009 @ 9:40am | Report comment
Mick, any support that is taken away from the beloved AFL is a hit for that code. Rugby league on TV at a decent time would attract far greater support for the game but channel nine is willing to suppress that just to keep the AFL happy.
I read Cunxin Lee (Mao’s Last Dancer) is a big rugby league fan after being introduced to it and this is AFL obsessed Victoria. Someone from the arts and business background liking league!! Added, I rerad in the paper, Swiss soccer player (keller) & Czech player for Sydney FC absolutely love league after watching the game on TV. This is the sort of thing that suggests league is as much a major player in TV land (and the residual benefits) than the AFL would like to see.
Victoria is a very protected (& thus Xenophobic) market despite what others here argue.
Redb said | October 5th 2009 @ 10:50am | Report comment
You really have a very distorted view of the world, the AFL is not the enemy and always to blame for everything that happens to rugby league/NRL or on Ch 9?
Art Sapphire said | October 5th 2009 @ 10:42am | Report comment
Well said Hoy – amazingly Spiro in his piece thought the commentary during the final was exemplary. Everyone in Melbourne thought it was biased. Most people in Melbourne perceive NRL to be a Sydney game and not a national game. Channel Nine’s decision to pull the plug on the celebrations for the Melbourne viewers and the biased commentary they had to listen to during the game only reinforces this perception.
AndyRoo said | October 5th 2009 @ 10:47am | Report comment
I thought they were biased agaisnt Parramatta.
They didn’t show enough replays of Slater dropping the ball but getting a penalty and no one called for Shane Hayne to get the Clive Churchill medal!
Instead they toed the line so they wouln’t take away from the Storms Victory.
Go the Eels
….. I will admit Brent White, Cooper Cronk and Greg Inglis were outstanding though.
Art Sapphire said | October 5th 2009 @ 11:02am | Report comment
They did not show more replays because it would have shown conclusively that it was the defender’s knee that knocked the ball out Slater’s hands. If anything Andy that’s bias against Melbourne as it perpetuated this non-existent injustice against the Eels.
I also liked how Phil Gould was imploring, ordering, begging “just get on with it!!!” that Fui Fui’s try be given even before it went to the video ref. That’s very professional
AndyRoo said | October 5th 2009 @ 11:09am | Report comment
Phil does that every week in regards to video refs…unless it’s the Broncos scoring the try.
Now they have a case agaisnt bias…Gould hates them.
Michael C said | October 5th 2009 @ 12:13pm | Report comment
Was there ever an angle that showed the ball actually touching down??
AndyRoo said | October 5th 2009 @ 12:28pm | Report comment
You can see where the ball would have touched the ground. It was more whether he got it down before/if he went into touch that required more replays.
Hoy said | October 5th 2009 @ 10:59am | Report comment
I would like to possibly set something straight. I have a problem with bias commentary yes, but yesterdays commentary wasn’t even that bad really.
My problem was with the lead up during the whole day. Wide World of Sports, into the Football coverage for the NSW club GF, then the Under 20s, and it was all about Parra.
Parra parents, past Parra players, current Parra players, Parra supporter etc. Updates from Parramatta…
The actual commentary for the game was OK comparatively, but jeez, the lead up was poor.
Brett McKay said | October 5th 2009 @ 2:43pm | Report comment
Hoy, I’m sure a lot of that had to do with the good old Sydney v Melbourne rivalry anyway, but I also think most of the Sydney media was happy to jump on the Parramatta bandwagon this week. I take your point about the balance of the lead-up, but in my opinion it was probably more about catering to where the ratings would come from. Given Ch9 in Melbourne cut to the news before medals were handed out or cup was lifted, they obviously had better things to show the Melbourne audience.
Agree about the commentary too, I thought it was quite balanced, particularly Rabs and Sterlo, but even Gould was quite measured in his analysis. In fact, I thought he could have been more harsh on Parramatta, if he really wanted to point out where they were going wrong. Melbourne he just kept saying were “..just so clinical.”
prowling panther said | October 5th 2009 @ 11:24am | Report comment
the lead up wasn’t broadcast in southern states only the game
the bias was extraordinary though. i was a neutral observer and the commentators were clearly rooting for parramatta who were admittedly the sentimental favourites. Still it is inexcusable for a national coverage. In the first half, Inglis copped a late hit from Ben Smith when parramatta were under siege on their line. Clearly late and intentional but wasn’t even mentioned. Even the Fui’s final try, Sterlo touched on it but I think his leg went into touch before he twisted his body to ground the ball. Rabbs and Gould didn’t give it a look saying ‘Just give it a try!!’ The AFL would never feed such a poor quality coverage into their expansion states. NRL is way too Sydney centric and will not become truly NATIONAL in the near future.
Simone` said | October 5th 2009 @ 11:48am | Report comment
I cant believe Ch9 in Melbourne went straight to the news after the game finished. We had to put on the radio to see who won the Churchill (had a few bets on it). Didn’t even see the players get there medals, or Storm getting the trophy. Was a disgrace. So was the commentating, noone could see the try yet both commentators “It was a try just get on with it.” Lucky i don’t really follow the sport or I may get upset.
Mick said | October 5th 2009 @ 1:48pm | Report comment
The Cowboys get hard done by on Channel 9 and the footy show. They hardly rate a mention by Fatty and the boys (unless they’re previewing a match). But it’s typical Sydney-centric bias. Gould doesn’t like Nth Qld, that’s pretty obvious but for pete’s sake, at least show us some objectivity when you cover our games. Thurston, Tonga, O’Donnel and Bowen all deserve more of a mention than they are getting. Nth Qld is rugby leage heartland anyway. Btw, Sterlo is one of the most objective and balanced commentors I’ve seen. Keep it up!