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The first season of Australia’s National Rugby Championship (or NRC) is done and dusted. The record books will show that the Brisbane City were the inaugural champions – but that’s not why I have picked up my pen.
What we have really witnessed is the first iteration of the ARU’s attempt to fix Australian rugby. The natural question which follows is – has it worked?
The NRC is Australia’s answer to New Zealand’s ITM Cup and South Africa’s Currie Cup, which bridge the gap between club and Super Rugby by creating a national professional contest where developing players can prove their worth, playing alongside stars who are not currently in the Test arena.
The idea is that this will keep players active during the international season, allow international coaches to pick from those in form and develop depth in the bench for the Super Rugby teams as well as the Wallabies.
This approach has been particularly effective in New Zealand, where the ITM Cup is credited for building the legendary depth of the All Blacks.
For this reason, the NRC should stay as it has been successful in giving new players and those returning from injury an arena to prove their fitness and get some much needed game time at a high level.
The lack of depth in the Wallabies has also been apparent for a number of years now. That problem was never going to fix itself, particularly not in a sports market as flooded as Australia’s.
But, the ARU decided to take things a step further than the ITM or Currie Cup by changing the rules in an attempt to develop the ‘Australian style’ of rugby – the most notable being increase in the value of a converted try from seven points to eight and concurrent decrease in penalty and drop goals to two.
The ARU CEO Bill Pulver described the motivation behind the changes by saying: “The points change was really designed to accentuate the way we want the game played – smart, creative running rugby”
Many experts on the game have supported this decision, including The Roar’s resident sage Spiro Zavos who went as far as to say that the ARU should introduce the full Experimental Law Variation package circa 2006 to drive this style.
And I could not disagree with them more.
I will admit that the NRC has provided some entertaining rugby over the past 12 weeks, but the variation to the rules have fundamentally changed the strategy of the game. The change in the value of scoring means that tries are now the only valuable means of scoring points. Every week we have a shootout of try-for-try rugby instead of a strategic chess match. It just doesn’t look or feel the same. What we have is a caricature of real rugby union.
If we go backtrack further still, the logic that promoting the running game will serve Australian rugby was flawed from the get go.
This is Australia after all. We love running rugby here and arguably in that isolated element of the game we are the best in the world.
Penalty goals are an acknowledged and necessary evil, the drop goal is simply maligned since Johnny Wilkinson used one to rip a third Rugby World Cup from our grasp in extra-time in 2003, a feat which has never been achieved before or since.
You could make an argument that Australian rugby has never been the same since that fateful kick.
Nonetheless, Australia is spoiled for choice in ball-running backs and our weakness is and always has been in jerseys number one through eight. It makes about as much sense as trying to fix a car that is too fast with more horsepower.
If the ARU had given improving Australian rugby any real thought, they would change the rules so that teams simply scrummage up and down the field endlessly, and conversion points were earned by winning your next line-out.
Of course I am being facetious, but it is no more preposterous than the current NRC setup.
Like most great team sports, Rugby is great because it is complex, intricate and balanced. If we liken it to boxing, the NRC is a bout where two brawlers simply drop their hands and swing for the knockout as opposed to the technical sweet science of the top professionals.
It appeases the bloodlust of the casual fan and lacks depth for those who appreciate that rugby is game of subtlety.
If we are to succeed in copying the New Zealand model as is so often suggested, we must first realist that the foundation of All Black rugby is a profound appreciation for the game. This starts in the junior grades and is required to play at every level thereafter.
The All Blacks aren’t the best in the world because they are better at running rugby, they are the best because every single player at the top level is a dedicated student of the game, both in their own position and a broad sense.
That why while Australia is struggling to find a viable captain, the All Blacks have no less than 5 options in their team of 15. The NRC does nothing to promote a similar rugby IQ in Australian players.
To put it a different way, if you were to suggest the rule changes that apply in the NRC in New Zealand I suspect you might be tried for treason, such is the Kiwi reverence for the game.
The solution is simple enough. Put the rules back to the way they should be so we are teaching our players to play the same game as the rest of the world. If we want to encourage running rugby, it should be a cultural shift rather than one inked into law.
I would like to take this article as an opportunity to encourage all rugby fans – particularly those of you who have played the game – to promote this approach because it really is key to the future of the game in Australia.
The other clear advantage of this approach is that with support from SANZAR, it may be possible to co-ordinate a kind of ‘Champions League’ of rugby, whereby the winner of the ITM and Currie Cups as well as the NRC and perhaps a wild card play for the title of best provincial side in the world.
That is a tournament I would watch.
My predication for an NRC team to enter such a contest today is bleak to say the least. However, as has been true of Argentina in the Rugby Championship, steel is sharpened by steel and such a contest would only further the big game exposure of our developing players and given them one more chance to display their mettle.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.