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The NRL Commission needs to get its act together

Dave Smith may not have been a rugby league man, but that was a strength. (AAP Image/Damian Shaw)
Roar Guru
15th July, 2013
43

When the NRL Commission finally came in, it was the NRL rejoicing that this was the required direction that would take rugby league to its rightful position as Australia’s number one sport.

Unfortunately, this Commission has failed to deliver on its promise, and tough calls need to be made because at the moment everything is just status quo.

Can anyone actually name (apart from the TV deal which was already done) any improvements the Commission has made?

Reactive edicts to ban shoulder charges and punish fighting would potentially be their greatest achievement thus far. These changes have divided fans straight down the middle and can hardly be dubbed achievements.

Fans have been voicing their concerns for years, calling for game scheduling to be modified. The only excuse given for there not being stand-alone Origin weekends is that the TV stations need to get their minimum amount of games every weekend to justify the amount of money they spent on broadcasting rights.

So in other words, rugby league fans are expected to swallow four or five potentially uneven games just to keep Channel Bine and Foxtel happy.

Sunday afternoon served up further evidence that this model isn’t working with the Dogs (minus one player) thrashing the Storm (minus four players) 39-0.

The Commission chooses to run the competition over the State of Origin period even though clubs are affected and some sides are given a completely unfair advantage in the competition.

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The NRL has stated that everyone has raised concerns with the scheduling, but no one has offered any solutions.

Isn’t this the Commission’s job? How long must the NRL competition continue to suffer over the nine-week Origin period because the scheduling is put in the ‘too hard’ basket?

Many good judges consistently raise the issue of having an under-20s competition but no reserve grade. It’s said that the standard of replacement players coming through is deteriorating because of the under 20s competition, but has this matter been addressed? Will it be in the future?

Country rugby league has been on its knees for years, and yet what have the Commission contributed or modified in its first few years of power? They continue to take the City-Country game to one rural town and think that this is supposed to fix all of the problems.

Where is the development and game promotion that is going to tackle the issues?

Do they think that by banning the shoulder charge and having harsher penalties enforced for fighting is going to increase junior numbers?

Some suggestions for improving the scheduling and addressing the bush areas include having representative matches run over three consecutive weekends.

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Friday night would see the New Zealand equivalent State of Origin match with Auckland against the rest of NZ. Saturday night would see NSW and Queensland state leagues play their State of Origin, with the under-20s to follow. Sunday night would see Queensland take on NSW in the senior State of Origin.

The New Zealand Origin would be played in different locations in New Zealand over the three weeks, and the state league and under-20s would do something similar in different country areas.

Isn’t this the type of forward thinking we were hoping would be introduced when the Commission came into power?

Everyone knows of the great work that Todd Greenberg has done at Canterbury, but he is about to be thrown in at the deep end. If things don’t start to improve drastically then he will probably be the one that cops it.

The eight person Commission that has come in has been ridiculously quiet (even considering that John Grant makes appearances at award ceremonies) and it is getting harder and harder to justify their pay packets the longer things continue to stay the same.

David Smith’s grand plan for getting more people to games was jumping castles and live entertainment.

Really? Are these the types of ideas and improvements you get when you pay someone a million dollars a season to improve the direction and image of the game.

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The NRL is a billion dollar industry and it’s about time they starting acting like it.

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