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There’s been an awful lot of angst in the rugby league world over the past few weeks.
You can choose from any number of crises: the refs are useless, the media are laughable, the NRL administration is a shambles, the next Immortals are wrong…
I’m not acting like I’m any different, either. I’ve thrown a few spears when the occasion called for it. Like many fans, frustration has got the better of me as a relentless wave of negativity floods over the NRL season.
So it’s time for some positive thinking in a year of rugby league aggro. There’s a lot of hate out there. Let’s bring some affection.
You may agree, you may not. But it’s time to turn away from all the anger, to let some light into our hearts. I’ll start us off…
Rules
Rules control the fun, a wise person once said to me at a Christmas party. Now that the NRL have told the referees to stop ‘nitpicking’, we’re starting to appreciate just how important rules are and how good things can be when you’re enforcing them as opposed to ‘managing’ them.
I quite liked having a defensive line back ten metres and not having messy rucks that took five seconds to clear. It didn’t bother me one bit that teams got penalised if they broke the rules. I know I wasn’t alone in this school of thought either.
Funnily enough, after the NRL’s now traditional backdown, the two teams who benefit most from dirty rucks and ‘fast’ defensive lines are the two chiefly responsible for the crackdown in the first place, Melbourne and the Roosters.
Maybe ‘crackdown 2019′ will last a couple of weeks longer than 2018 did. Who knows? We might eventually reach a point where clubs learn that breaking the rules is their fault, not the game’s.
Which brings us to…
Referees
The saying goes ‘no referee, no game’ and you get the distinct impression the NRL is hellbent on destroying refereeing as a desirable career path for the kids. Refs get smashed every minute of every game and in rugby league no one, not even your own employer, will stand up for you.
Matt Cecchin. (Photo by Mark Evans/Getty Images)
Enforce the rules! They’ll tell you. Then a few weeks later they’ll publicly humiliate you and tell you to back off, before asking you to crack down again just three weeks after that.
But you know what? I love referees. Even when I disagree with them. The team are a lot more resilient under fire than most of us grandstand heroes and I know 99 per cent of the haters wouldn’t have the courage to pick up a whistle themselves.
Maybe we can show some basic respect up and down the grades for those in the middle? It’s a first step I guess.
Wayne Bennett
Wayne Bennett is great. He’s made a career out of showing up doubters while building teams that are competitive. His ‘get off my lawn’ approach to public relations means that a 62 per cent winning record from more than 800 games is often overlooked or fobbed off because people just don’t like him.
He’s one of the best coaches we’ve ever seen and if this is his last year in rugby league it’s a shame, but he goes with a record that will take some beating.
Even now he’s managed to rebuild the Broncos on the sly while head office tries to boot him as far as possible.
A lot of people don’t like Wayne and that’s OK – he doesn’t care. That’s your problem.
Coach Wayne Bennett looks on during the Brisbane Broncos training session (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
Player movement
I love player movement. It helps teams adjust rosters for premiership tilts, it gets young fellas game time when there aren’t opportunities and, most importantly, it helps players maximise what they can earn during a career with an average length under three years.
I also love the NRL world’s reasonably mature approach to players moving clubs. You rarely see the hysteria you do in AFL circles.
But I’ve even got an idea for how you can make it better. Keep the salary cap, make third-party payments public, whack on a trade deadline of June 30 and have a free for all, with any player able to go anywhere at any time.
Clubs can work it out as a player trade, or they can buy out a player’s existing contract (using salary cap cash) to get them on board.
There’s enough rubberiness around contracts these days. Why not just make things easier? None of this ‘he’s coming next year’ nonsense. Get it done now!
Decent analysis
When Newcastle played the Gold Coast a couple of weeks ago, I kept an eye on Mitchell Pearce, in his first game back from a bad injury. He swept back and forth across the field, organising and conducting as his side squeaked out a win.
It was fascinating to watch – but no one was telling me what he was doing and why he was doing it.
Say what you want about Channel Nine’s NRL coverage, they’re responsible for one of the game’s best phrases: “If you freeze it there…”
When Peter Sterling, Andrew Johns, Phil Gould and sometimes Paul Vautin break down a play, it’s brilliant viewing. There’s just not enough of it. Give us a TV show where teams are broken down into ‘x’ and ‘o’ to show us exactly what a side does on attack and defence.
All clubs look at set plays, defensive structures and ways they can exploit their opponent. Why isn’t anyone out there breaking it down for us? In-depth strategic analysis is criminally underused in rugby league coverage. If there was a show focused on it, I know a stack of us would be all over it like Uter Zorker on a chocolate cake.
Matt Nable’s commentary
Nable’s debut season on Fox NRL has been hairy at times, no doubt. But I like his calls. One thing about Warren Smith, Andrew Voss and most of the commentators on the network is that they can’t hide it when they’re enjoying a game and that rubs off on a viewer.
Nable gives the impression that he’s happy doing the job and I’m not going to rip a person for teething mistakes when I’m enjoying the coverage.
For all the complaining about commentators the NRL is actually in a decent place – try watching any AFL game on Channel Seven, then come back tell me what bad commentary sounds like.
Fox should be a great point of difference from the miserable, proudly ignorant, ref-bashing effort served up on free-to-air. The worst thing they could do is head down that path. There are a few bad signs that it’s sneaking in, they need to be cleaned up and I hope they sort it out.
Just don’t put Nable in the booth with Steve ‘Blocker’ Roach, please.