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Do you like touch football? Then you’ll be excited by the NRL 2014 season, because it seems that’s the way our game is headed.
In a year that has already seen the outlawing of the shoulder change, NRL CEO Dave Smith and referees boss Daniel Anderson have once again bowed down to misguided public opinion and placed a ban on any sort of on-field fighting.
The media make out as if fighting on the field happens all the time. Not true – sure a punch gets thrown occasionally and a fight may break out once in a while but what would you expect of 26 adrenalin-fuelled men?
It’s been happening in our game for the last 100 years and it’s part of why we love this game so much. But not anymore, now if you throw a punch of any sort you’re off – sin binned, no questions asked.
Remember the fight between Glenn Stewart and Adam Blair (Manly versus Melbourne, round 25 2011)? Stewart and Blair went toe-to-toe, which eventuated into an all in brawl.
Under this new ruling it would seem all players involved would be sin-binned. That’s 26 players in the bin, leaving the remainder of that game to be played by whom? The remaining four bench players from either side?
And if things getting heated between those eight players, the fans are left watching an empty field. However it may turn out to be the other way around and it will be the players who will be looking into empty grandstands.
The fans, the real NRL fans – the men and women who loved seeing the big hits, who loved seeing the raw unbridled emotion reach boiling point and erupt into a physical affair – these fans will simply walk away from the game they loved so much.
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