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Four players sin binned. Two punches thrown. It was something you would see in an U14s rugby league game, but instead it has occurred in the toughest game on the rugby league calendar: State of Origin.
The brawl started when Billy Slater elbowed Mitchell Pearce in the face.
Considering if the biff rules weren’t in place there would be no doubt that Pearce would be retaliating with his fists.
Instead what happened was a couple of jersey grabs and some threats before the game moved on.
However the aggression was still there. And you don’t have to be a psychic to realise that there was going to be another blue moments later.
And there was. Brent Tate, after pushing Gallen off the tackled player (which was acceptable as Gallen was taking his time) was punched twice on the chin by Trent Merrin.
Tate then tried to wrestle Merrin in order to protect himself while Hodges came in over the top on Merrin to back up his team mate. Neither Tate nor Hodges had thrown a punch; they were just trying to defend themselves from the enraged Merrin.
Greg Bird was the next man to charge in on the brawl and all he did was jump in the air to stop another brawl breaking out from Merrin and Tate.
As soon as the blue finally came to the stop, it was a surprise to see Brent Tate and Justin Hodges be the first players to be sin-binned.
Then Trent Merrin was sent for 10, which was expected, and then shockingly Greg Bird was on his way as well.
Soon enough, the toughest match in the State of Origin calendar turned into a soccer match with both sides left with 11 players each.
Aside from Trent Merrin, who was the only one to throw a punch, Tate, Hodges and Bird should have remained on the field.
However the new biff rules, that were included into the game just recently, shows that this is what is to be expected for the future of rugby league; even on the toughest stage that is State of Origin.
But according to the overall criticism to my last article, this is what some people wanted.
They wanted a rugby league culture without aggression. Meaning that they should be very happy with the result of four players going to the sin bin when only one player actually threw the punches.
That is why I believed that rugby league was fine the way it was. People love the occasional biff.
I’m not talking about an entire game of punching but just two players going at it for one minute until the refs finally send them off for disobeying a rule where they know what their fate is.
This is one of example of many more to come, that shows why banning the biff was a bad decision.
Bring back the biff, I say.
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