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I’m surprised there haven’t been more back-to-back champions in rugby league’s modern era and I’m expecting Sydney Roosters to end the drought this year.
It’s not the mountain to climb that some people make it out to be. It isn’t as if teams haven’t gone close to winning two in a row – and, in a couple of cases, three straight.
Brisbane is the last team to win a full-blooded two in a row, in 1992-93. They also won two straight in 1997-98, but that doesn’t count in the absolute sense because in ’97 the game was split due to the Super League war. The Broncos won the SL title and Newcastle the ARL title.
The Knights beat Manly in that ’97 decider. It was the third straight grand final the Sea Eagles played in, after losing in ’95 and winning in ’96.
The Roosters made three straight grand finals from 2002-04, winning the first and losing each of the next two.
And Melbourne played four straight grand finals from 2006-09, going loss-win-loss-win. Of course, the two titles they won were subsequently stripped from the club because it was discovered to have cheated the salary cap.
American football, a game whose elements are sometimes compared to league, and that the NRL borrows from, has produced three back-to-back winners of the NFL Super Bowl during the period in which league has failed to produce one.
The Dallas Cowboys won in 1993-94, the Denver Broncos in 1998-99 and New England in 2004-05. Dallas also won in ’96, to make it three titles in four years. New England also won in ’02, to start a similar run.
And when Denver won in ’98 they beat Green Bay, preventing the Packers from winning two in a row after having won in ’97.
Since the NFL has 32 teams, twice as many as the NRL, and a player draft as well as a salary cap in the name of parity, while the NRL has just a salary cap, it is easy to think the NRL should actually produce more back-to-back winners.
So why hasn’t that happened during this corresponding period?
I’d say part of the part of the reason is that quarterback remains overwhelmingly the most important position in NFL football, and because of the protection they are afforded under the rules they mostly tend to avoid major injury and stay on the field for the duration of the season.
So their influence remains enormous, and all three of those back-to-back Super Bowl winners had great quarterbacks. So, too, did the Green Bay team that went close to winning two in a row.
League has evolved to the stage where the so-called ‘spine’ positions – fullback, five-eighth, halfback and hooker – are talked about collectively regarding their importance at least as much as any individuals playing in those spots are.
There is increased risk of an NRL team losing its edge because the main influence is spread around more and that means there is a greater chance of the team being affected by injury, suspension or a dip in form to one or more of those players.
Take the example of Melbourne hooker Cameron Smith being forced to miss the 2008 grand final because of suspension. The Storm lost 40-0 to Manly.
I know, a 40-point margin is way too much to attribute to one player being missing, but it was generally accepted Smith’s absence did major damage to Melbourne’s chances.
The Roosters look like a team that can take back-to-back premierships.
They have only lost one player from their 2013 grand final squad – reserve forward Luke O’Donnell. In Trent Robinson they had a first-year NRL coach last year who should be even better for the experience. And they have a mostly young squad that should also be improved.
They have two very influential halves as well, in Mitchell Pearce and James Maloney, instead of just one stand-out and one average first-grader, which is the best most teams can hope for in the NRL.
And none of the other teams that were in contention last season, but couldn’t top the Roosters, have improved their line-ups this season.
Plenty of people subscribe to the theory that, these days, it is simply too hard to win what is widely regarded as the toughest football competition in the world two years in a row.
They say players have a letdown and can’t get themselves back up to meet the required level of intensity on a weekly basis.
I don’t doubt it’s difficult to go back-to-back, but the Roosters are perfectly placed to meet the challenge.
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