- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
When New South Wales finally ended eight years of misery by officially wresting the State of Origin shield from Queensland last week, one of Australian rugby league’s greatest recurring storylines came to a close.
In terms of significance to the game’s history, the Blues’ Origin triumph is up there with Scott marrying Charlene on Neighbours, Patrick dying on Offspring, and Khaleesi finally doing something other than being a sanctimonious, know-all brat on Game of Thrones (which presumably is coming).
Like The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper and Nirvana’s Nevermind did for music, Origin 2014 put a full stop on one time period and opened the first paragraph on another. If those mixed metaphors have you at sixes and sevens, you’re not alone.
The point is that with the Queensland dynasty over, or at least temporarily interrupted, some of rugby league’s B stories (in screenwriting parlance) now have a chance to shine.
And while most of them are as engaging as a NutriBullet infomercial, they’ve got all the originality of a three-camera sitcom set in the house of your average sickly-sweet all-American family.
Which is to say, they’re bloody terrible.
Fellow Expert Ryan O’Connell articulated much of the malaise yesterday when he suggested ten things the NRL could do to improve the game for the better.
Among his suggestions were the removal of any associations with gambling, a summit on State of Origin scheduling vis-à-vis its effect on the NRL competition, and an acknowledgment of the poor standard of NRL refereeing followed by a concerted effort to improve it – problems that have been inherent in the game for several years, at least a decade, and since Jesus played halfback for the Israelites respectively.
Other tubs that get relentlessly thumped year in, year out include the limitations of the second-tier salary cap, the unsuitability of Sydney’s suburban stadiums for the comfort requirements of 21st-century patrons, Australian officialdom’s apparent lack of interest in the international game, and on and on and on until you’re so worn down by the constant negativity surrounding rugby league that tuning in to the Nine Network at 7:30pm Friday feels like a chore.
Especially when you won’t see a ball kicked in anger until closer to 8pm, but that’s another story.
I’m not suggesting that running a multi-multi-million dollar elite sporting competition is as easy as getting a few ducks lined up and setting them loose, nor would I want to be in the shoes of Messrs Smith, Grant and their various offsiders at Rugby League Central. After (mis)managing a couple of bands in the early 2000s, it’s abundantly clear that my talents lie somewhere other than balancing a whole stack of competing interests while simultaneously turning a profit.
But on a personal level, I know that things rarely right themselves unless you’re proactive in trying to fix them.
While every second piece of rugby league content – visual, audio or otherwise – has ‘live odds’ topping and tailing it, any tough stance on players gambling will carry the foul stench of hypocrisy.
If the 2015 State of Origin series again overlaps eight rounds of the NRL draw, the same decrying of the competition’s unfairness and spate of borderline unwatchable matches will again dominate the discourse.
And if someone in a high place doesn’t do something about the obstruction rule, incomprehensible video ref decisions, and players talking to match officials with the level of respect they’d usually afford to something unpleasant they’ve trodden in, we’ll all be so wrapped up in the inconsequential minutiae that not even the superstars will be able to get the story back on course.
Reckon you can pick the winning team? Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match. For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.