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Would you believe that the words ‘controversy’ and ‘rugby league’ both have 11 letters?
Since rugby league started in the 1900s it has had controversy as its bedfellow. Whether disputes with its parent code or arguments about money rules, player transfers, referees and now the dreaded bunker, controversy has followed.
I wrote an article recently about what is wrong with AFL and concluded that there’s not much wrong with it, certainly not enough to justify prosed rules changes. An AFL game moves at a cracking pace and there is action all over the ground resulting in crunching hits, high athletic marks and rapid scoring.
When I look at the NRL and the pace of the game it certainly moves quicker than rugby union with its interminable scrums and resets, injuries and lineouts.
This year, however, the administrators in conjunction with the referees have conspired to inflict on us the bunker and a plethora of penalties. This has ruined the game for most rugby league spectators.
This year has averaged about 50 per cent more penalties per game than last year. Why?
(Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
The referees say it is a result of a directive from the NRL that the offside, play-the-ball and hands-on-the-ball rules have to be strictly enforced so that the game will be better in the future. This is ridiculous. The game was just fine. There was no groundswell among the stakeholders to ground the game to a screaming halt.
All that this policy has done is to aggravate those people on which the game relies for its existence: the fans, both those at the grounds paying to watch the game and those who pay their TV subscription every month.
The NRL have an obligation to run the game for the benefit of these fans. Slowing the game down only serves to antagonise the spectators and turn them off spending their money to support the game and the clubs.
What they should have done is raise these issues with the coaches and players prior to the season and not nit-pick the game into oblivion at the start of the year without broad consensus.
The other innovation to drag the game down is the dreaded bunker. Look, technology is great – Hawk-Eye in tennis is rarely wrong, disputes are rare and it can be used only on limited occasions.
I get that a ball-tracking system is easier to administer than the bunker, which is a far more complicated system needing to rule on positions of the ball relative to a player’s hands or feet.
Apart from making sure that the bunker-bound official does not stuff up (not so easy; see the Canberra versus Cronulla game last week) I would do away with the referees asking for help on almost every try. This slows down the game. The US system in the MLB and the NFL relies mainly on opposing coaches challenging, say, one decision per half. In the NRL, if they are right, they retain the right to challenge again that half. If they are wrong they, maybe they should lose an interchange.
The US system has not created the hysteria that our bunker has. This hysteria cannot be resolved by talking up the game; it needs sensible, sensitive officiating.
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