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Last year your correspondent wrote a reasonably well-received column on The Roar about not going to the grand final for the first time since 1985.
I didn’t pick a good one to miss, did I? The greatest of all time, in fact.
But the story was about the changing face of the media, about how being at the game is now of dubious benefit to sportswriters given the expansion of television coverage and contraction of access by non-rights holders to athletes.
Despite missing the greatest grand final of all time by blogging from an office, I think I’ll be doing the same for the State of Origin series this year. Put simply, you can do a better job.
Tonight, I will not be at Hunter Stadium for the Australia-New Zealand Test. I had a gig – sideline eye for Triple M – a parking pass and media accreditation.
But the reasons behind my absence tonight have nothing to do with the changing face of the media. I won’t be at an office blogging. I’ll be at Iron Maiden, actually.
(Warning: this is where I start to sound middle-aged and cranky. Change channels now if you wish.)
I began to regret committing to run the sideline when Semi Radradra was picked. You’ve read enough about that.
To my way of thinking, Australian sports fans have not lost interest in the national rugby league team because they are no longer number one.
They’ve lost interest because in rugby league, Australia has almost no-one to play against. Fans have gravitated to sports with a better international scene.
The way to ‘make Test football great again’ (from an Australian perspective) is to fast-track other countries to competitiveness, not to assemble a team that will whoop the Kiwis’ asses.
The NRL’s complete rejection of the notion they are responsible for any national team bar the Australians leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The Evil That Men Do, indeed. But still, I was committed to the sideline gig.
The final straw was the succession of clubs, starting with Brisbane, then the Warriors followed by others, pulling players out of this weekend’s Test matches.
Here’s the thing: perhaps the Warriors trio shouldn’t be playing tonight. But ‘in my day’ (you have just witnessed the first time I have ever typed those words in that order; won’t be the last), national federations sat above clubs and clubs asked them to do things, they didn’t tell them.
Andrew McFadden would have said “we have some issues regarding those players we will be speaking the NZRL about. What happens, we’ll know when their team is read out”.
But those days, when clubs respected the authority of representative teams, are Caught Somewhere In Time. Kevin Naiqama passed a Fiji team medical and was withdrawn by Wests Tigers anyway.
We are now out in the open about something that has been happening for a decade: clubs can pull players out of internationals for any reason, or no reason.
Therefore, internationals involving full-time pros are not ‘Tests’ of anything except the sweet talking skills of the respective team managements.
The Australian team has cache, connections, power and money so they have a full strength team. The less of these qualities you have, the weaker your side is.
That’s not a Brave New World that particularly interests me. We achieved so much at the 2013 World Cup in terms of engagement, competitiveness and the strength of the teams. Now they look like Wasted Years.
So I’ve bailed on what Test football has become – I decided to Run To The Hills.