Trent Robinson is off chops.
Cracker of a footy coach. Indeed, if Craig Bellamy is the best – and he is, every year, doesn’t matter if Des or Ricky or Pay Day Deano coaches the Bad News Bears into the eight where they go out in the preliminary as the season’s dead fairytale, no, Craig Bellamy is coach of the year – then Trent Robinson is No.2.
And he is off his nut. Because the one-man stripping rule is a ripper.
It’s not for coaches because they want things clean, and crisp, and complete. They don’t like anomalies. They don’t like mess.
But rugby league needs anomalies. Greg Inglis? Anomaly. Big Mal Meninga? Anomaly. The fact Cameron Smith has the body of a weasel and can up-end and twist huge men’s bodies, hearts and mind? An. Om. Al. Ee.
And rugby league needs more of ’em. It needs more competition for the ball, not less. Because without scrums or striking out at the ruck, there is none. There is only wait until the other team gives it to you.
And thus rugby league can appear formulaic.
There was a time when the play-the-ball was a genuine play of the ball. You could play it forwards or backwards. And so could your opponent, the man on the mark.
Ray Price and Graeme Wynn and go back to George Piggins and Noel Kelly and that sepia-toned old bad boy who became an Immortal, him, in the headgear, these people would launch great thundering whacks at the ball, in boots with studs six inches long, and they’d do it whether they had the ball or not.
And the ball would do what the egg-shaped Steeden would.
Which is to say whatever physics said it must. And no-one knew what that would be.
And that, friends, was a good thing.
But administrators and suits and whoever makes these decisions, in their wisdom, decreed that hacking at the ball in the play-the-ball was too messy. It didn’t look good. It didn’t look clean. So much ambiguity, it made them sick.
(Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
Accursed ambiguity.
It was the same with scrums. Rather than tighten them up and make them a contest and tire forwards out ever more, they gave forwards – or whoever rests their head on another man’s bum – a rest.
The scrum today, instead of being a contributor to attrition, is the opposite of that. It’s where players go to bludge.
And another layer of gladiatorial attrition was lost.
And it is another story. And league is worse for it. Fact. And just because some people don’t like mess, and ambiguity.
But these people are wrong. A game isn’t bad because it’s messy. Messy is good. Messy is story. And story, people, is why we actually watch the blessed games of man.
What’s going to happen? What twists and turns in the narrative? What in god’s name is the Steeden going to do?
There is little story in carting the pill up five times and then kicking it. We’ll, there is a story – but you know what’s going to happen.
Where’s the fun in that? It’s a shit story if you know the end.
Yet coach Robbo reckons stripping takes away from the spectacle of the game, by which, one assumes, he means the entertainment value.
(AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts)
But he is, respectfully, as stated, off his very chops.
Changeovers in possession are highly entertaining. Coaches like Robbo hate them because completed sets are the building blocks of domination and subjugation of one’s enemies along with several other things too numerous to mention here, but in which he and Craig Bellamy are Zen Masters.
The term ‘completions’ is against entertainment. It’s a bureaucrat’s word, speaking to nice, neat sets of six.
The worst rugby league is bang-bang-bang, big men fill legislated, allowed yardage. Then there is a kick. And repeat.
But the stripping rule, such that it is, puts a spanner in those works. And the story changes. Because the story goes off on an unexpected tangent. And the only people who don’t find that entertaining are those whose team it goes against.
Everyone else? You beauty! Something new in the narrative. Something funky.
The best rugby league is harem-scarem – offloads, knock-backs (remember them?) and, yes, changeover in possession for something other than going over your allotted amount of tackles.
Stripping – as the poor, disrespected scrum once did – changes the narrative. Jazzes it up.
Of course there is nothing to stop the player with the ball hanging onto the bloody ball, and preventing sneaky Englishmen taking off with it like our forefathers in London before being shipped off to Van Diemen’s Land. Just as there is nothing to stop the player offloading to a team-mate and keeping the party going.
Rugby league too often leans to the neat, the unambiguous, the formulaic. The game hates mess. But, again, mess is good. Because it doesn’t follow rules.
The game has always evolved. It’s not been afraid to change. And changing the game back to the one in which there was no competition for the ball would be a retrograde step.
Because, sorry Robbo, the story is why we watch.
woppadingo
Guest
Also, its not dangerous or dirty. Its not like a chicken wing, grapple, rolling pin, prowler, cannon ball, or crusher tackle. All of which are now rightly banned.
woppadingo
Guest
What a load of rubbish you sooks. Players used to be able to compete for possession by striking at the ball in the ruck. Scrums used to be competitive and you had to feed the ball into the middle. Players have ALWAYS been able to strip the ball. Now its evolved to ensure that its one on one - because everyone complained that it was not fair to be penalised for stripping the ball if someone else had been involved in the tackle at any time and players were getting penalised because someone else had touched the player. There has to be some competition for the ball and since it has been eliminated from the ruck and the scrum, the strip is the only time its allowed. There have been about 50 strips in total this year. Thats barely more than 2 a weekend on average so its not like there's an epidemic. Look, if you eliminate it, Rugby League will end up like formula 1, where its basically a procession if you dont get out to a lead from the start. Boring. ,
BustlingBillDunn
Roar Rookie
I don't like the rule because it's unfair on the ball carrier who is already weakened by a pack of hyenas ripping and grabbing at his body in a gang tackle. The hyenas drop off leaving a strong thief subjected to none of that to pinch the ball from the weakened ball carrier. Fair dinkum that's not a fair contest for the ball. It's one sided nonsense.
Footy Fan
Guest
League's 'secret sauce' is it's ability to evolve. It started on day dot, with bold changes to Union rules to strip some rubbish and add some good stuff, and it's continued since. Each decade has tweaked, tuned, and thrown in the odd radical change to the rules. If you plotted the graph of 'how good' versus 'decade since 1908', you'd see a nice, smooth, upwards trend. Darwin would like him some league. When I was a kid, the scrum took up one third of every game. It was a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Fans could see nothing that was happening. They'd set, collapse, reset, blow the pea, wrongly reset, back off and do it all again. Several minutes would pass. Nothing as boring as watching Newtown v North's proceed through 15 scrums. As bad as Union. Yep, that bad. Winning against the feed? Maybe a couple or few times per game. Filthy cheating and penalties blown? In 40% of scrums. Testing players engines and aerobics? No chance - the exact opposite. The reason why they could play without interchanges (bar for severe injuries) was because the game was so slow due to scrums. What did the game do? What it always does - identified the bad and fixed it, as radically as required. They're now a non-entity and it's the best thing since six tackle sets. Onto the strip. Yes we want contests for possession. But. Having four hulking beasts ripping a ball-carrier every which-way with gusto. While the shortest of them (with the biggest biceps) works his way to the best possible purchase. Followed by the magic call for synchronised swanning-off with haste. That's the unfairness fight the game has had. That's flat broken. It's not league. The game will fix it. Either: restrict to 2-man tackles only, or revert to the old rule.
Dan
Guest
No.
Dan
Guest
Robbo isn’t off his chops - his point is that the way the rule is structured requires far too much attention from the officials over other aspects of the game due to the practice of players dropping off creating confusion both for the officials and the attacking players. It’s not so much messy as a complete change in thinking as to how the game has been for a generation. I agree with you that the loss of the contest for possession at all levels of the game is lamentable, but this current half baked approach to bringing back the strip isn’t adding a genuine contest so much as it is adding confusion. I have always thought the strip rule was over the top, but I hate the way this new rule is adjudicated even more. I’d much rather they just remove the strip rule altogether and allow it to be a free for all. At least that way the attacking players would know what they’re in for when going into every tackle and that way it can be a genuine contest rather than the equivalent of a sucker punch.
Philip Sinclair
Roar Rookie
If I recall accurately the reason scrums were given less importance was because they slowed down the game. Teams would take their time to pack just right, then halves would just feed the ball in the second row anyway. When refs cracked down on second row feeds and gave a penalty everyone screamed. Also, there were holdups for not packing properly, and teams made to pack again. I can just imagine the tricks coaches would come up with to totally ruin the concept.
Paul Toohey
Guest
Could not agree more. Used to go to Lidcombe oval in the mid 70’s and Wests were competitive everywhere except scrummaging. The crowd was on bated breath at every scrum! Visiting teams would take the last tackle because they knew they had a 2 in three chance of winning the scrum, much better than the stereo type game we get today. BORING
Tim Buck 3
Roar Rookie
The try should not have been changed to 4 points. Giving away multiple penalties on their line would've been stopped by kicking goals and beating them on the scoreboard.
Slane
Guest
If you say so.
Slapsy
Roar Rookie
Well put. Now I know why I usually turn my back on this silly game,and concentrate on the races,every Saturday afternoon at the club.
Max
Guest
Not just coaches, but referees too stifle innovation and the unexpected. Remember Tim Sheens trying to have innovative scrum plays. BUT every time one of his teams tried something out of the box, the referees or video box would call it back to re-set the scrum or penalise his team.
Gavin
Guest
At the moment, Canberra and then Melbourne are the best at stripping the ball under the current rule. If the rule stays the same, the other teams will get close to their level next year after working on it next preseason. There will also be an increased focus on ball security, resulting in less offloads, less attacking football. My opinion, short term gain for long term pain. Bill Harrigan talks about it in an interview on this podcast, at the 1 hour, 8 minute mark. https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/full-credit-to-the-boys-podcast/id948010217
BA Sports
Roar Guru
Joe watch the world blow up when the Storm try one strip, with two in the tackle, or Cam Smith releases the ball and wins a penalty just before the Raiders employ their strip... All of the sudden everyone will be against it....
LeftRight
Guest
Have to agree with the author. League has reduced contests for the ball to a minimum, that is, stripping the ball one on one. I'd love to see League bring back contested play the balls and in particular contested scrums. On the matter of scrums, today there is nothing to stop a team putting on a shove, but it's rarely seen and worse still League sees second row feeds as being OK! The game doesn't have to have endless scrum resets. Rules could dictate that a scrum could be reset once & if a clean scrum does not eventuate on a second result a penalty will be awarded & if no clear penalty can be determined the side feeding the scrum gets the ball.
Joe
Roar Rookie
Boy are the Raiders living up to their name with all the ball steals this season. At 26 they're way ahead of number 2 the Storm at 11. In fact Hodgson alone has 11 strips this season. After getting 4 strips against the Raiders its no wonder Robinson is blowing up. 4 turnovers which can happen anywhere on the field including in your own attacking zone could mean the difference between winning and losing a close Finals game...and worse still you really can't coach or prepare for it this late in the season. This Saturday might turn into a strip show with the number 1 and 2 teams for strips going at it.
BA Sports
Roar Guru
Just checked. The run time on Showgirls is actually just over 2 hours! … still more stripping in a Raiders game... :silly:
watda
Guest
If I wanted to watch an hour or so of stripping I would prefer to watch "Showgirls"???
Randy
Roar Rookie
If the NRL really wants to revolutionize and open up the game, then make it 12 v 12 on the field, 4 bench players still. Thirteen on the field is passed its used by date as the field has effectively become smaller with increased fitness and mobility. Remove the lock position. And the other benefit of this is that it free’s up players for expansion.
Tim Buck 3
Roar Rookie
Yes markers striking at the play the ball wasn’t entertaining during the 1971 grand final. George Piggins stole enough ball to sink St-George.