It’s been something hard to ignore even as a non-league fan, the game is changing and people are crying foul. And it’s about time.
For years I’ve had people chewing my ears off about how rugby league is a man’s game and it’s only with these changes that die-hard association football fans like me will start to believe it.
Before you dismiss me as a second or third generation Greek, Italian or Balkan, growing up sheltered in one of the large metro areas let me tell you, you couldn’t be further from the truth: I am what some of my football buddies would call a skip, I can trace my roots to the first fleet and most important I’m from the rugby league heartland of Dubbo, New South Wales.
It was a hard time for fans of my game, having to constantly defend your choice in sport, facing childish bullying because of it, but I came out of it pretty good.
Albeit I did so with a bad taste in my mouth when it came to such sentiments that I was faced with, most notably the view that “sokkah” was somehow less manly than league.
It’s sort of like forgoing beer and treating it with disdain all because bourbon gets you drunker quicker. League may be tougher but soccer has its moments.
I’d love to see anyone who thinks lowly of football take a challenge like France’s Patrick Battiston did in 1982 against German keeper Harald Schumacher, an exceptionally high foot which left Battiston forgetting where he was for about 20 minutes.
Now, I’ll admit we don’t face body crushing tackles, but as my ankle still reminds me, there’s still a lot that can go wrong when you’re running full pace and someone slides in studs up to take you out.
Three years on and I still have to be careful with my ankle.
While this injury did set me back, I bear no ill-will to the man that caused it because tackles like the one I faced are acceptable within the rules, he got the ball, I slowed to try and pick out a pass and immediately hit the ground.
Long story short I was hurt.
But the point of the story is that it was within the rules to do that.
It’s not within the rules to punch another player, by the way some rugby league are carrying on you would have thought it was.
But I looked it up, there has never been any rule allowing punching.
This brings me back to my original sentiment, I’ve always thought that league could be manlier for the very reason that there were so many on the pitch bust-ups.
I have no problem with violence, I like the occasional UFC match but I don’t like people that go against the rules of a sporting competition. Yes in association football we see plenty of it and it always disappoints me.
The rugby league fans crying foul about the banning of on-field punching makes it seem like they not only accept bad sportsmanship but support it. For you to be attached to something which was dubious in the first place speaks volumes about the kind of game rugby league has turned in to.
Which brings me to my sentiments of manhood and the true nature of sports. To me the manliest aspect of any sporting competition is fair play, being better than the rest within a set of rules and a humble approach to whatever game you’re playing.
What it does not include is simply being “tougher”.
As some league fans I’ve known have thought, on the pitch bust-ups are against the rules and using your toughness in an act against the rules is one of the least manly things I can think of.
Believe it or not, association football was once like rugby league, hard hits barely being punished, high legs, sneaky elbows to the face and stamping all common place.
Much to the chagrin of the seasoned football fan this kind of play was slowly dissolved over a period of 30 years from the 70s to the 90s.
Each rule change was met with the same outcry from fans who felt their manly game was being taken away and being replaced the game the low-IQ minority league fandom love to hate.
It’s been a rough transition from nightmarish game where blood flew freely, to the fast, athletic and skilful game all know as association football, but on the whole I’m glad we have taken this turn.
It has let the technical side of the game flourish and I believe it can do the same to rugby league.
In 20 years’ time we could be seeing rugby league as a highly technical affair which attracts the best athletes from around the globe. If that means cracking down on punch ups, what have you got to lose?
Welcome to the 21st century rugby league. If you continue down this path you might have hundreds and thousands of people like me coming back to the game.
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