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NRL's tough stance on biff at odds with true fans

Roar Guru
16th June, 2013
25

The decision by NRL Elite Referees Performance Manager Daniel Anderson to sin bin any players guilty of throwing a punch mid year is disgustingly inappropriate and a blatant attempt to take the focus off his sub-standard referees.

It also appears as though the NRL have replaced one reactionary CEO for another.

All of this stems from the overreaction from State of Origin 1 where Paul Gallen used Nate Myles as a human punching bag.

In the hoopla that followed, the person most affected by this (Myles) claimed, “How good was it!? That’s what people want to see!”

That’s right Nate – that is what people want to see!

Any reasonable Rugby League fan was more concerned about Paul Gallen’s swinging arm in the tackle on Myles while he was being held by two other players, not by his decision to throw a punch when one on one.

Gallen was put on report for the swinging arm and what were the ramifications for this illegal action – absolutely nothing. Instead the league was influenced by media hype and suspended Gallen for a couple of punches that didn’t do any damage at all.

In the post game analysis, all we heard was that Gallen’s three-punch combo is the reason why mums won’t let their boys play Rugby League. Please do not believe that.

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The reason little Johnny isn’t allowed to play league is because he is forced to play against Garry Goliath. Does anyone honestly think for one minute that mum thinks there might be a fight so that is why Johnny can’t play!? Mum is more worried by the size of the opposition and the fact that some of the opposition kids have about 20 kilos on her little boy.

It seems that Rugby League is so worried about being a more viable option for kids to play than Aussie rules that they have forgotten the roots to what drew kids to it in the first place.

League is a tough sport played in the schoolyard where your aim is to get over your combatants. When you are playing a tough game, sometimes things get a little heated and result in physical confrontation.

To combat this all the NRL had to do was increase their education and promote that violence or illegal play in any form within under 18s and below will not be tolerated and suspensions will be enforced.

Instead, we read that NRL heroes influence kids and if an NRL player throws a punch then the kids will as well. Rubbish!

Anderson and CEO Dave Smith need to understand that the NRL is the professional level of this great game and the brutal nature of this sport is increased ten fold when this level is reached. I

f two players come to blows in a State of Origin match then it is absurd to compare it to an under-8s game. Two men having a fight on the Rugby League field isn’t the same as a fight in Kings Cross at 2am. Have we really slipped that far in intelligence to not be able to distinguish between these two examples?

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This article is not condoning pre-meditated illegal attacks but portrays a fan’s severe disappointment that this great game is being sanitised to the point where two grown men can’t put up their dukes and resolve an issue one on one without fear of being sin binned.

It seems that in the NRL’s attempt to draw in a small amount of new fans they may be pushing away the majority of old ones.

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