'I was attracted to the danger': James Graham strongly defends kickoffs amid safety debate
With several players knocked out this season, evidence is mounting to scrap or shorten kickoffs - but Graham questions whether the concern is all…
Rugby league’s 2013 incarnation of the World Cup certainly attracted more than its fair share of critics, but surely nothing can detract from that consummate Kangaroos performance against the Kiwis at Old Trafford in the final.
That’s the long and the short it.
What must be seriously questioned, though, is the wisdom of playing the code’s international showpiece at a soccer ground.
Old Trafford is the home of Manchester United has some of the shortest in-goal areas for any match of rugby league that I have seen.
It was a disaster waiting to happen.
It’s not as if Cup officials hadn’t been forewarned, the Luke Lewis injury earlier in the tournament, for one, should have had the alarm bells ringing.
In the event, they must have breathed a huge sigh of relief that the injuries to Australia’s Brett Morris and New Zealand’s Manu Vatuvei weren’t more serious.
The solution?
In the circumstances, while Cup organisers were playing so fast and loose with player eligibility laws, I wonder if they shouldn’t also have agreed to shorten the playing field length by, say, five metres to ensure (slightly) more player-friendly in-goal areas.
Controversial, maybe.
But I’d suggest a lot less controversial than if the in-goal farce had turned into a tragic “own goal” for the code.
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