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Dave Smith, the new NRL Supremo, knows next to zippo about the game and he has forced refs boss Daniel Anderson to bring down an edict that cannot work in State of Origin football.
‘One punch and you’re off’ screamed the Sunday Tele, on page 1 of all places.
Well, great stuff Smithy, your knee-jerk message got out there but it is as practical as the proverbial ashtray on a motor bike.
Supposedly, it is aimed at preserving the game’s ‘image’, but that’s pretty tatty after the past two weeks starring James Tamou, Blake Ferguson, George Burgess and the alleged spitting and racist sledging incidents at Brookvale Oval.
I loudly applaud Dave Smith’s tough stance against players who have transgressed off the field but this latest no-fisticuffs law means a big fat zero with regards to being an image-preserver for the code.
Banning punches in Origin? I say good luck to you Dave, and your mouthpieces.
We league fans are counting down to the biggest Origin game in a decade, maybe the biggest ever. The Blues can win the series with straight-sets wins, the Maroons will be prepared to do anything to prevent them.
Both teams will run onto Suncorp next Wednesday night with obligatory words from their coaches: one punch and you’re off.
It might work for a few minutes, maybe even an entire half, but then the contest will get down to the wire – players will be desperate for an edge and will literally try anything to achieve it.
They might sledge, gouge, nip, squirrel grip and niggle away until they get the inevitable reaction. Something may happen in a scrum, where the refs, linesmen and TV cameras cannot see all. That scrum – shock, horror – might explode with a flurry of punches.
The refs have been told by their boss that punches are no-nos and must be dealt with by use of the whistle and sin-bin.
OK, let’s say they do and three or four players are cooling their heels (and fists) when another bushfire breaks out.
Will they issue their sternest-ever caution and order more players from the field, effectively killing the contest in front of a sell-out stadium and a TV audience of millions?
I’ll bet they will not. They’d get crucified by the fans and the media. They would have shot Bambi between the eyes. They would have killed Origin dead as a maggot.
No, Mr Smith, I’m afraid you just don’t get it.
Origin is the toughest level of football on the planet and fisticuffs can be part and parcel of it.
It is one thing to ride in on your white steed and be the tough guy administrator the code has ‘seemingly’ lacked. It’s another to know something about the heat of battle, especially the unique two-state war that is State of Origin.
If your referees had acted appropriately in Origin 1, Blues captain Paul Gallen would have been sent to the sin bin for his skirmish with Nate Myles and that probably would have been that.
Players in Origin football get baited all the time. After all, these are highly-charged, elite athletes in a gladiatorial contest of league’s own making.
If they feel the need to throw a punch they will. You will never be able to change that mindset.
It could be in the name of self-defence, and so often it is.
Rugby league is a man’s game in which the very nature is to defend yourself and your team when threatened.
If you take the physicality away for the sake of the do-gooders, Origin will die a lot faster than half a dozen stints in the sin bin.
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