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While the world around it wilted to political correctness, rugby league refused to sell out. That was the magic of the game we all loved.
No matter how much other codes watered down their own products, rugby league stayed true.
That was then. This is now.
Banning the shoulder charge was something diehards still can’t get their heads around. To the executives in corporate NRL land, it was a decision that had to be made for the future and the next generation.
Acceptable? Okay maybe. The physical nature of our game could survive without the shoulder charge.
After Paul Gallen whacked Nate Myles in State of Origin the public went into meltdown and the NRL’s kneejerk reaction was to come down hard on players taking their frustrations out and using their fists.
Banning the shoulder charge is one thing. Trying to outlaw the very nature of the most physically demanding sport in the country is another. What are these men suppose to do?
Experts have repeatedly echoed the same sentiment that if you continue to alter what has made this game what it is you change the fabric or essence of the game.
Now we are seeing what happens when you try and fix what isn’t broken.
These innocent decisions made by suits that have never played the game have snowballed into what we see before us today.
A game that we continually shake our heads at.
This is a professional era, and unfortunately there are too many people in too many positions that think they need to make decisions, or alter them, because that’s what they think they need to do.
The referees and their interpretations we see in 2013 are the bastard children of that snowball effect from the top down.
Every single game of every single week is determined by the flow of the game created by the men in pink.
Penalties are blown for the sake of it and players and coaches alike have simply given up on worrying why these penalties are being given.
Every ruck is a lottery and even sitting at home you can sense when that whistle is about to be blown.
What happened to two teams in an honest to God contest? A battle of field position and fatigue?
When a ball hits the turf it is automatically assumed the defending players have stripped the ball. Isn’t the onus supposed to be on the attacking player to keep possession?
More times than not the attacking player has simply lost the ball. We see it time and time again on slow motion replays yet referees would rather just blow the whistle and piggyback teams down the field.
Do people really think defending players are continuously trying to steal the ball?
You might think the banishing of the shoulder charge and fighting have nothing to do with ruck penalties or how the referees see a game of football.
It is all a part of the de-evolution of the systematic controlling of the sport.
It is a scary thought to ponder where we will be in years to come.
That fabric is being ripped away one thread at a time.
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