The Roar
The Roar

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Why rugby league is burying rugby for entertainment

9th March, 2012
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James Maloney spent more than a year at the Warriors after signing with the Roosters. (AAP Image/Action Photographics/Grant Trouville)
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9th March, 2012
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No wonder NRL chief David Gallop is smiling. The new season has kicked off with so many sensational games, the 13-man code has buried Super Rugby for entertainment.

The long overdue Independent Commission is up and running, and referee boss Bill Harrigan is demoting poor form whistlers and touchies, which is also overdue.

ARU boss John O’Neill would kill to be in the same position.

There will never be an independent commission in rugby, where interstate jealousies, rivalries, and territorial infighting are rife.

Rugby referees are a protected species. Only South African Jonathan Kaplan has been given a three-week holiday in recent seasons for a sub-standard performance. But he’s had plenty of mates over the years wrecking games in three countries.

As for sensational Super Rugby games, they are as scarce as hen’s teeth.

The Roar‘s readers only have to click onto rugby legends David Campese, and Murray Mexted to find solutions.

The difference between rugby and rugby league is simple – the coaches.

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Admittedly, league has four fewer players on the paddock, and they make full use of the extra space.

But that doesn’t mean rugby can’t make full use of their available room. Current coaches, with the exception of Queensland Reds’ Ewen McKenzie, the Hurricanes’ Mark Hammett, and the Chiefs’ Dave Rennie, are in defence mode in the main to avoid defeat.

Running rugby is forgotten in favour of kicking the soul-case out of the football to stay in opposition territory. Boring and negative.

On the other side of the coin, league’s opening round produced two golden point victories, including a replay of last year’s grand final between Manly and the Warriors with both sides sporting new coaches.

Manly won 26-20 in a cracker of a game, and the Roosters’ dramatic come-from-behind rush with two tries in the last three minutes saw them beat South Sydney 24-20.

More of the same last night with defending champions Manly remaining unbeaten by downing the premiership favourite Tigers 22-18, and the shock of the season so far with the Cowboys beating the Broncos at Suncorp 28-26.

Evergreen Matt Bowen scored two superb tries for the Cowboys in front of a 43,171 crowd.

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Last night only 15,768 watched the Hurricanes whup the Force 46-19 by running the ball all over the field, and roughly 17,000 were at the Chiefs-Crusaders game at Napier, which produced some entertaining rugby in the Chief’s 24-19 success.

But entertaining is the rugby exception to the rule.

Hopefully the Reds will produce the goods tonight against the lowly Rebels, and the hard-to-fathom Waratahs against the Highlanders at New Zealand’s largest indoor venue – the 30,000-seated Forsyth Barr Stadium overlooking Otago Harbour in Dunedin.

The Reds should romp in, but the Waratahs will have their hands full with the locals playing the better and more consistent rugby.

Still, the facts remain: Rugby league has swamped rugby so far this season with on-going entertaining football.

It’s time for rugby to lift its game and respond.

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