- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Firstly, what are the questions we need answered to improve the game?
The questions are: how to stop players slowing the ruck to a crawl? How to stop deliberate penalties? How to ensure the game flows to allow maximum quality footy and entertainment? What measures will deter coaches enough to affect change?
All these questions are asked in the interest of ensuring the game is the enjoyable spectacle we all love without some of the dark arts that have developed. Everything changes, it’s inevitable and not to be feared.
The game will never be the same as it was in the 80s, and in many ways, it’s much better.
The athletic professionalism of today’s players has played a part in this change. The past era’s featured some players who were full-time smokers and/or borderline alcoholics. Of course, there was more fatigue, etc.
Some commentators will have you believe the game is going downhill in every area but in reality, outrage and scandal get the most attention and they use it. In this day and age of internet and alternatives to traditional media, the news that sells is all they will push.
With this in mind, we need to address the crackdown and the need for it sensibly and without hysteria. The stop-start games we have seen with excessive penalties is a short-term Band-Aid solution.
Players will obey while they are heavily penalised but will return to their old ways at the first sign of softening. Reffing the game this way doesn’t deliver quality footy, so long-term solutions are needed.
Speeding up the ruck isn’t a hard fix but it’s never going to be a perfect solution. Defenders now will try to take a player high and hold them until another 1-3 players arrive to continue the slow hold or grapple movement to the ground. Once they are on their back a dominant tackle is called.
This is a poor interpretation of a dominant tackle as it rewards grab tackles designed to slow the ruck over hits. Eliminate this and reserve a dominant tackle for hitting a player and landing them on their back.
A dominant tackle allows the defenders to lay on a player and has in the recent two seasons become a farce. So forcing defenders to immediately roll away after all hold tackles are what we saw in the early rounds, but the stance is softening.
Like giving away deliberate penalties, it’s an issue that needs policing. Any repeated infringements should get ten in the bin plus a two week holiday. All tactics against the spirit of the game should be dealt with in a similar way.
The constant stoppages that increased penalties produce can never stop if the NRL is to succeed cleaning the game up this way.
The only deterrent coaches can’t manipulate is a suspension. It makes hold tackling a less attractive tactic. What I’ve now noticed is a trend towards players holding the ball-runner up until the ref calls held and then take him to ground.
The ref should let it go the first time and issue a warning, next time penalty.
(Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
The offside penalties for all players and not just those within a certain vicinity of the ruck? How this hasn’t always been policed with two refs is beyond me. It was always a rule that was enforced throughout junior footy.
Sure, if you noticed the ref wasn’t looking you would risk a few steps but it was a risk you took.
Stopping deliberate penalties is easy. Any repeated infringements cost ten in the bin and two weeks, same as I said above. Sin binning isn’t enough of a punishment considering how many we have seen this year yet most teams copping a binning go on to win.
It indicates the risk of being binned can be outweighed by halting a team’s momentum.
It also indicates that the extra penalties are having the opposite effect on fatigue because in years gone by a binning was extremely hard for most teams to overcome.
Gould wrote a piece years ago on player fatigue and how such high-level athletes require only a minute to recover from fatigue, I’m not 100% on the time but it was short.
This resulted in the time clocks, which had immediate results in giving fans with more in play footy and rewarding teams who work over an opposition building pressure. More deliberate penalties seemed to be the coaches’ response and the NRL need to fight fire with fire and use suspensions to get their attention.
Allowing a game to flow was what Hollywood Harrigan was renowned for and it produced good footy. This was before the Storm’s grapple tackle gained dominance. However, it’s not all doom and gloom.
If grappling and holding a player carries the risk of suspension and binning for things like not rolling away quick enough, pulling a player to the ground after a held call or laying on an attacker, the hit tackle becomes the more attractive option to coaches and players looking to maximise advantage.
Players of teams getting grab tackles a bit wrong a couple of times will miss games they don’t want to. This shouldn’t matter because that’s what makes it an effective deterrent. Once this is implemented, we wouldn’t be almost two months in and in a worse state than we started.
If the NRL continues to penalise infringements the way they are, we will diminish any positive steps because only continued excessive penalties can clean the game up this way. I’m sure any passionate fan realises the flowing games are always the best to watch and protecting this should always be a top priority.
Long term, the most attractive and exciting game we can produce will be the most profitable for all involved. The game still resembles the game played 100 years ago far more than our cousins in rugby.
They have mishandled the game terribly and if it wasn’t for 7’s would be going backwards. League’s a better game and is only getting better despite commentary about the superior yesteryear.
The last 5-10 years has produced the Manly-Roosters games and Broncos-Cowboys games which are the best club footy I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been around a fair while. The Roosters, Manly and Cowboys have produced teams in the modern era that played the most entertaining and high-quality football you can see.
(AAP Image/Mick Tsikas)
The Raiders many years ago are the only other team that played such an entertaining style at a high quality. Beautiful ball playing, players in motion, strong and fast ball carriers running perfect lines and hitting to dominate in defence. Throw in minimal to no stoppages and that’s perfect football.
The players provide the entertainment, but the NRL needs to provide the framework that makes this the best way to win.
The game’s far from in crisis but needs a bit of tweaking. Misleading commentary and outrage for headlines aren’t helping anyone and I find it ruins what should be enjoyable.
Why are these people who pay large sums to portray the game to the public via their media wrecking the experience?
I’m not saying it should be all rainbows and butterflies, but these people are paid to be the smartest minds in the game. Why can’t they offer insight into issues instead of having tantrums?
Those in positions of influence should have more respect for the game and the young ones who are only beginning to fall in love with the game are listening and thinking, “Wait maybe this game isn’t any good.”
The generation that came before them didn’t wreck their experience with whinging.
The honest appraisal of situations will bring about honest and positive outcomes. We need more people with ideas like Vossy’s corner post rule change. Having a genuine think about the game doesn’t seem to be a sought-after commodity and that’s the real outrage.
Reckon you can pick the winning team? Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match. For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.