- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
On Saturday it was easy to sit back and enjoy the enterprising play of Samoa, the luckiness of England, the grittiness of New Zealand, and the injuries of Australia.
However the weekend’s international games threw up more concerns about rugby league than causes for celebration.
Sitting down to watch Australia take on New Zealand, for the first time in a long time you felt genuine trepidation about the Kangaroos’ chances.
The only thing to keep the hopes of Australian supporters alive was the fact that we still had Cooper Cronk, Cameron Smith and Greg Inglis in the side. And that’s not easy for some to say about those feared Queenslanders.
Despite Beau Scott’s early efforts, it soon became clear that all was not well with those wearing the green and gold.
Even though they were not carrying specific injuries per se, rugby league is a game of attrition. And you know what attrition does? It wears you down. Thus, it is too readily apparent that the years of intense competition are beginning to take their toll. Apart from GI’s try, the boys looked flat.
Actually, if flatness were the only concern, then there’d be no concern. No, the players looked unenthusiastic – hell, they looked over it.
Who can blame them? Without their usual cast of supporting superstars, anyone would be very soon sick of another 110 kg hulking frame running their way.
Surely even NSW supporters felt sorry for Smith and Cronk on Saturday night. Everything they tried seemed laborious and a step behind their usual crisp selves.
Where was Billy Slater for the inside ball? At home.
Where was Darius Boyd to finish of Johnathan Thurston’s long ball? At home. Both of them.
Where were the Morris boys to show off some phenomenal acrobatics? Matt Scott and James Tamou charging it up the middle?
And let’s not forget the soon to be punt kick returner for the Seattle Seahawks, Jarryd Hayne. He would have beaten four players and scored, except apparently he’s achieved everything in the game and playing for Australia is not a great priority.
Just in case those sadistic sports gods thought they had missed a beat, as if on cue arrived the insult to injury, with Daly Cherry-Evans hurting his back merely trying to change direction. GI couldn’t make it back out after halftime as he was as sick as a dog.
The only person who looked electric in parts was Michael Jennings, but he always looks ten yards faster than anybody else. Apparently Wile E. Coyote hit him up about chasing Road Runner.
Nothing should diminish New Zealand’s win. They played well, were the deserved winners, and in all likelihood would have given the Kangaroos first side a good run.
But that is the point: the Kiwis were not allowed to face up to the first side.
Competitors want to play the best and beat them, they never want a question mark hanging over their heads. In 2008 New Zealand won the World Cup fair and square, Australia had no excuses, they were dusted. Not so this time.
If England or New Zealand win this Four Nations there will be a question mark of Riddler-sized proportions. Meanwhile, if they don’t, well they should probably give themselves an uppercut.
So let’s go back to those early stages of Australia’s game, where the original trepidation was setting in. Again, why was it there?
How can it be anything other than player fatigue? 26 rounds of games, a minimum of 3 finals, pre-season, maybe the nines, the Anzac Test, City versus Country, and of course State of Origin.
Far out, it’s exhausting just writing that list out, let alone playing in it.
No doubt there will be cries about ‘being too soft on the players’, that they ‘need to harden up’, they are paid professionals and therefore should play. Of course, you would hope that were not the case. Because you can’t defy physics and these blokes are still human.
The game has never been faster, harder or more testing. So don’t argue about these guys being soft for a second.
They don’t miss games because they are sore and tired, they either have an injury and/or illness that has been debilitating to the point they have become ineffectual.
Articles have stated New Zealand was missing players as well. But the difference there was that it wasn’t their top eight and many of them wouldn’t have even made the English side. Besides, of course New Zealand should be able to field a full strength side nearly every Four Nations barring catastrophe. They don’t have State of Origin and the Warriors make the finals once every four years.
That State of Origin sidestep, it bears reminding, is in a lot of ways a physical advantage. The physical and emotional toll taken by State of Origin simply cannot be underestimated.
So any gripe is not that New Zealand won. Not at all. No, it is that the quality of international rugby league is being forced to suffer in the service of the domestic competition, both club and representative.
Rugby union has global traction because its international competition is strong. Their ace in the hole is that supporters want to see their nation do well. League instead relies on domestic strength, like clubs, the Blues or the Maroons.
Even in Papua New Guinea they would support Queensland over their national side. That is no exaggeration. You want to know what stops alcohol sales in Papua New Guinea three times a year? State of Origin, so concerned is the local government by the way supporters and television viewers carry on.
There needs to be a restructure of the domestic competition that caters for State of Origin and the Four Nations. The only way to do that is cut back on the amount of round games and finals played each year in the NRL.
True league lovers watch it for the love of the game. Whether it’s the red and blue of the Knights or the lime green of Canberra, true passion cannot be questioned. Of course, we also want to see it blossom in the international arena, simply because it is such a great game.
And the game cannot blossom if you don’t nurture it.
The game should be restructured into four divisions, with four teams in each division. Teams in each division will play one another twice while playing the remaining teams just once, which would total 18 rounds. The top teams from each division will make the finals, with two remaining wild card spots. The wild cards spots will be determined by overall wins from the rest of competition. The top four will also be ordered by overall performance.
This is where the battle will be hard fought. But what would happen if there will be teams who can potentially make the finals despite having a worse record than teams in other divisions?
Good Lord we can’t have that. Well, can’t we?
Anyone who is a fan of the NFL no doubt understands this predicament. Hence, inter-divisional games become so critical. If one beats their divisional rivals in both games they will more than likely top the division.
The competition would be split into two phases. The first nine rounds, followed by three weeks of stand-alone representative weekends, finishing off with the final nine rounds and then onto the finals.
The final product would reduce the round games by eight, with one less extra week of the finals, so we can all go back to enjoying the grand final on a mid-September afternoon.
Now, what about doing away with the Anzac Test? This allows for a match between the previous year’s premiers and the Warriors. If the Warriors finally manage to take the silverware it would be a grand final replay.
But you want to know what eight less rounds results in? Avoiding player fatigue. A three-week representative season smack bang in the middle with not only the State of Origin, but City versus Country, in both NSW and Queensland, televised games, Tests between the island nations, a north versus south island game in New Zealand.
It would be a time to promote, promote, promote.
Most importantly it would mean that clubs would not be without their star players during the season, and we will have the best of the best playing together at the end of the year. Surely that is what we all want to see.
The possibilities are endless and certainly have not all been listed. What do you think? How would you improve the game?
What we simply cannot keep doing, though, is ignoring the fact that we are destroying our best players.
Follow Karlo on Twitter @KdogRoars
Article by Cameron Hughes and Karlo Tychsen
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.