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In a positive step forward, the NRL’s Integrity Unit is looking into the way teams selections are announced each week. I have been suggesting for decades there should be a better system.
I know some of you will be muttering about my own conduct when it came to switching player positions within my teams, or even springing the occasional player from nowhere to play despite not being listed.
To read more Brian Smith, outside The Roar, check out his website SmithySpeaks.
I was simply using the rules to gain an advantage, something many others were doing a long time before I joined the circus.
Indeed, Wayne Bennett and Newcastle did it last weekend.
Abandoning the Tuesday 4pm publication of all team selections is long overdue. Its single purpose was to provide the NRL a small revenue stream by newsagents selling the official Big League magazine, which is also exclusively sold at all grounds on match day.
But how close to accurate is it? Rarely I would suggest.
Requiring coaches to name their available list on Thursday or Friday each weekend would give greater accuracy, with no player allowed to take the field if he is not on that list.
the number of players on that list might be the sticking point, but if it’s 20 or 21 players, that would let punters know who is not playing.
But if this is all being done for punting purposes I am disappointed. If it’s good enough for the FIFA World Cup coaches to nominate their final teams an hour before kickoff, with all the money that would have been punted on those games, it should be ok for NRL clubs too.
How that effects individual players and the Integrity Unit’s requirements I am not sure. Can we seriously expect, for instance, that a rookie player who knows he is making his debut this weekend not to tell his family and friends? Would he be in danger of disciplinary action for divulging information?
If the punters want to risk their money they should either take the risk or wait until the coach feels it is appropriate to his team’s best chance of winning to announce his team – but no later than an hour before kick-off.
If the Integrity Unit is going to discipline coaches or players over not revealing what position they are going to play, starting or coming off the bench, they are barking up the wrong tree.
Super League messed up the position versus player numbering system, which has otherwise been the same antiquated system since 1908. Can someone tell me what position #14 plays when he enters the field? And watch any scrum this weekend – tell me if the numbers packing down are the same as the positions we traditionally associate them with.
It happens every week in almost very match.
Stop the folly NRL – give each player a number 1 through 25 when each club sends in their salary cap top 25, and ask them to sort out 1-13 as close to traditional positions as possible.
Anyone outside the top 25 who ends up playing should then be assigned the next number available – 26, 27 and so on.
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