I thoroughly enjoyed the football served up by Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Tonga on Saturday night.
Sure, there was no structure, but their ‘devil may care’ attitude made it so entertaining to watch.
Four teams playing footy in the style many of us remember from when we were growing up.
Another thing I really enjoyed was the lack of ‘grubbiness’ in both games. Besides one incident, which can be best described as a ‘knee-jerk reaction’ (pardon the pun), I didn’t witness one chicken-wing, not one crusher or cannonball tackle, nor one shoulder charge. No wrestling holds, no head or leg locks, nothing!
Which brings me to Friday night’s game. Just what was Adam Blair thinking?
Seriously? Not only has he put himself in a position where he could be suspended for four games, but he could have also seriously hurt one of his club teammates in the process, and risked putting them both out of action for a month or more.
A mate of mine (who just happens to be a Broncos supporter) said he didn’t believe Blair meant it. I argue that he may not have deliberately intended that it be Sam Thaiday to whom he did it, but he definitely ‘meant’ it. Whether he ‘meant’ it consciously or subconsciously is another thing.
Footballers these days have become so conditioned to using wrestling holds in tackles to slow the play down that for some, it has just become second nature to grapple in an effort to dominate the tackled player.
So who’s to blame?
Craig Bellamy.
While every team does it, who introduced it to our game?
Stand up and take a bow, Mr Bellamy. Your willingness to adopt at-all-costs tactics has almost single-handedly led to the demise of entertaining rugby league.
Coaches used to come up with plays like the ‘Mouse Hole’, the ‘Wall’, the ‘Up the Jumper’ and, of course, the ‘Bomb’, all of which were designed to score tries, not maim the opposition.
I know the NRL have taken steps to remove these tactics from the game but coaches continually appear to be working on finding new martial art moves and holds. It has made watching a tackled player and tackler on the ground these days akin to watching a UFC bout.
The way things are going, I’m sure it won’t be long before a bit of ‘Bakom’, ‘Bokator’ or ‘Lerdrit’ finds its way onto the field.
We need to take a Jim Cowans-style approach and mete out penalties that will have players questioning whether they want to simply tackle the opposition and be playing again next week, or try and see it they can reassemble their opponent’s limbs and spend a lengthy stint on the sidelines.
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