As I near the end of the writing of my book Two Tribes, about the divided 1997 season, my tiny keyhole view into the soul of rugby league widens by a millimetre or two.
I am 97 interviews out of the target 100 down, and 95 per cent of the 80,000-word manuscript is complete. I can let you in on a couple of secrets. One is that the book ends by asking the great and the good three key questions about the Super League War: what was it about, who won and what did we learn from it?
Two is that, 25 years on, there is no consensus on any of the answers. You would think the first question would simple posit a response of ‘pay TV’, and it’s true that was the most common answer. But it was far from unanimous. Just the other day an interviewee said it was about expanding and improving rugby league.
What I’ve drawn from this is that rugby league culture is resilient but otherwise chaotic. It has no unifying narrative, and rugby league people can’t really agree – if they’ve even bothered to contemplate in the first place – what rugby league is.
Many people walked away from the sport 25 years ago when power and greed descended and have not come back – many of the 97 people I’ve spoken to had family members, neighbours and friends in this category.
At first that seems dramatic, right? You grew up on the game. You disagreed with some stuff that was going on. You stopped watching it and still don’t, a quarter-century later.
If you followed North Sydney, Gold Coast, South Queensland, Hunter, Adelaide, Perth or any of the clubs forced to merge in the aftermath of the war, it actually makes sense you might give the entire sport the flick rather than will yourself to stay interested. Te Torontonians who still tweet enthusiastically about rugby league are a testament to why that club was so special.
And I have come to realise that if I had been 52 in 1997, and not 26, I would almost certainly have gone right through the exit gate with fans of those axed or merged clubs.
Today? There are multiple reasons why a rugby league fan might decide not to be one anymore.
Some liked the fire and brimstone of punching, shoulder charging and sledging. Thanks to Will Chambers, the last unpleasantness standing seems about to fall.
Some enjoyed closer games than the current flood of points, caused by knee-jerk rule changes made to keep sucking on the teat of a disappearing resource called broadcast rights income.
Some believe they have higher aspirations for the sport than its administration seems to at the moment and aren’t up for another few decades of international football being muzzled and expansion clubs being set to fail and then fulfilling that objective spectacularly.
Administrators are smart enough to know, however, that if they keep our favourite club around, we’ll find it hard to completely sever our ties and keep our money to ourselves forever.
The Friday night game might become background noise, as I saw one tweeter lament a few days back, but if our team recruits well in the off-season, we’ll take an interest next year even if there’s a new rule awarding points for farting in a scrum.
We may stray, but the colours, the home ground, the memories of players past and the shared history we have with our friends who follow the same team are all things that are difficult to shake. Not following the sport actually requires more effort than to keep following it – it requires changing the subject when rugby league comes up in conversation, switching the channel when a story about the sport comes on the news, actually calling the pay TV company to cancel our subscriptions.
(Photo by Ashley Feder/Getty Images)
If we want to rub rugby league out of our lives, it requires a lot of erasing, and friends, family and acquaintances become collateral damage. It’s very, very hard.
What I’ve learnt from asking everyone what they learnt from the Super League War is that our administrators, players and coaches can stuff up a helluva lot and we’ll forgive them if they just let us keep our team.
But…
My team merged in 1998. I’ve got 20,000 kilometres between myself and most of the friends with whom I share a history with the sport. Where I live, the game is almost invisible.
Unlike you, I don’t need to take crap from rugby league and let it into my home on my day off. That’s a pretty liberating feeling.
zonecadet
Roar Rookie
I'm definitely in the minority here. Got into League in the 70s, went to whatever was game of the week from about 74 onwards. Went to a bunch of Grand Finals through the late 70s early 80s. Began to lose interest in League by the late 80s, definitely mid-90s and then, boom. Super League. The general premise - too many Sydney teams, more focus on making it a truly national league, some tinkering with the rules, I agreed with. I was one of the few who watched the 97 season play out with interest. I was regaining my interest and wouldn't you know it? SL announced a new team in Melbourne for the 98 season, perfect I thought, i like the idea of a team in the AFL heartland. I'm in. Been my team ever since and I've lived here since 2001. So I guess, I did go 'cold turkey' on the game for a time, a long time actually. But you know, just when you think your'e out........
Jimbob
Guest
Your experience sounds almost identical to mine (although having never lived in NQ I'm probably not as committed to the Cows as you are). Which BRL club did you follow?
Adam
Roar Guru
It is good, i can enjoy just about any game (50 point blow outs being an exception)
Steve Mascord
Expert
For me, nothing is a given. I wake up each day and assess everything I see and do and feel as if it's brand new. I know that's strange. But that's just the way I am.
jimmmy
Roar Rookie
I did mean it in a ' nice weird ' kinda way.
jimmmy
Roar Rookie
So RL has done nothing for SA since 1998 ? And SA has done what exactly for RL.
Joshua Butler
Guest
You mean a so-called "national" competition that does not have representation west of the Great Dividing Range? Why should I support something that has done nothing for South Australia since 1998? The only way I could even support the "NRL", would be to have Adelaide represented (whether a resurrection of the Rams or some other identity) & to have the so-called "Australian Rugby League Commission" ACTUALLY REPRESENT ALL STATES, not just NSW/Qld!
Steve Mascord
Expert
All true. That's exactly what the column is about.
Steve Mascord
Expert
The first sentence is the nicest thing you could say to me. Of course I'm strange!
Paul
Roar Guru
I'm not sure I get this piece, which doesn't seem to have much to do with Rugby League but more to do with habits. How hard is it to stop drinking, stop smoking, stop driving too fast, stop opening the fridge door during lockdown, stop watching or being interested in Rugby League? It depends how invested you are in that activity and how much you want to stop. I'd also suggest no-one can take something that's been a habit completely from their lives, nor is healthy to do so. The hate that is described in this piece, which drove people away from the game, is corrosive.
E-Meter
Roar Rookie
Not that hard really. I've gone from watching nearly every game per week 5-10 years ago to about 1-2 fortnight these days. But I'm glad I saw Melbourne V Manly that was a high quality entertaining game. Most of the teams are terrible to watch this year and so devoid of skill and ability.
Nat
Roar Guru
There's a certain freedom in having no horse in the race. You get to watch and appreciate the games for what they are. I only tip because I'm in several comps and rarely bet for that same reason, I don't like the preconceived notion of backing a team for the side hustles when I really don't care in reality.
Tommyknocker
Guest
I can understand the sentiment. I have been a dedicated RL supporter for almost 50 years. The covid break last year surprised me with how little I missed the game. Each year the game moves further and further away from the game I played and watched with my dad. The constant rule changes have eroded the foundations upon which the game was built. Successive administrators have attempted to polished the rough edges of League not realising it is these rough edges that gave the game its uniqueness. This has been done to appease an imaginary supporter base who want to Americanise the game whilst ignoring the working class roots that made the game great. I feel the game sees the old supporters in their faded 1980s jerseys as an embarrassing past rather than those who could pass their love of the game into their kids and grand kids. Maybe I am just bitter.....
no one in particular
Roar Guru
similar number claim to have marched for South Sydney
Dwanye
Roar Rookie
Hi Mr Mascord. Always loved your stuff, I really waiting for your book. A lot of people blame Super League for losing their club or what happened, I think this misses the point. I blame the ARL. How they ran it let it happen, not treating clubs and players properly let it happen, not being honest with whatever their goal was, let it happen. I think the ‘three great and the good three key questions’ are interesting, but the questions I have always wanted to hear was if super league (or any other group) didn’t happen, what was the ARL’s ‘actual’ plan? Those up high knew since early 70’s there was too many Sydney clubs, Arthurson knew there was too many clubs, they wanted to sort that out but we’re too hopeless, indecisive and slow to do it properly. What was their actual plan to do this? Every few years do what they did to Jets and Wests? I never had faith in how they would do this and I always wanted to know ‘how would they do this fairly?’ Where they just going to let the five or six teams left, like Manly, south’s, st’s or Easts spread/cover a larger area, change their names, or just hope fans would jump on board a team left? From 1995 season with 20 clubs do people really think the ARL was keeping 20 clubs forever?
peeeko
Roar Guru
i reckon 10 times as many people claim to have walked away from the game than actually have
Heyou
Roar Rookie
Interesting. Super League killed my team when it was still in its infancy. A merger made the death a little easier to take but it hasn’t been and still isn’t easy. ‘We are one but we were two’ continues to invade conversations although admittedly the call to demerger is more vigorous when the merged team is not going well. We can get it together in the good times, but the angst returns to torture us when the perception of equity is questioned in no uncertain terms. Super League failed us. The NRL seems to be failing us. I’m ‘browned off’ as my dear old Dad says. I tried not to watch all the games, sticking only with my embattled team’s eighty odd minutes of hell, but it’s a heritage, a love of the sport, a history that defies understanding sometimes. I lasted… not even one round. I love this game. Life is not the same without it. I’m not happy. I don’t like what is happening to the great game. I despise many of the more recent rule changes. I despair at the lack of consistency in adjudication, the bunker blunders, the perception of bias from match officials, unintentional I’m sure, the failure of the salary cap to enhance equality, the difficulties for match officials to police the NRL’s rule book when there are so many unclear rules and interpretations, clubs finding ways to circumvent rules, in nefarious ways at times, the fawning commentators with their own understandable biases, the talking heads who rabbit on before during and after games and on Sunday mornings and every other night. I avoid them. I can’t watch them for long before disgust ensures that I turn the box off, having to press the mute button because I personally can’t cope with some of the mad comments made during games. I hate the concussions and head injuries being suffered by players despite the crackdown. Is their fewer head high tackles since the ill timed, short term crackdown? Not that I can see. I dislike Grapple tackles, shoulder barges head clashes, falling into tackles, chucking the milk knees in back, wrestling tackles, hands all over the ball in two-four man tackles, kicking, punching and slapping ‘tackles’ oh yeah… I could go on and on. But despite all my whinging, I still wait for team list Tuesday’s, the first Thursday game and every other game - live or later. How long my inherited habit continues is up in the air at the moment. It’s not bloody easy. If my team was the Storm or Panthers, South’s or even the Eels, I’d probably be feeling more positive… I should end right here :laughing:
Adam
Roar Guru
I've never shared which team I follow on the Roar (that I can recall). Because for me it's quite irrelevant as I live 700km from the closest team - so I find it less pressing to follow a team religiously. I could probably pretty easily erase rugby league if I really wanted to, there's a handful of people I know that follow the sport so giving up the game would actually make my weekends easier (no sideways glances from the wife when I choose sport over her). I'm actually getting to a slightly strange age where I'm looking to give up a few things to focus on the family, the NRL is certainly not on the block just yet, but I'd never rule it out
Rob9
Roar Guru
Interesting read Steve. Thanks. This quote really stuck out to me: ‘What I’ve drawn from this is that rugby league culture is resilient but otherwise chaotic’ So true. The game has a habit of making it hard for itself but it will always pull through. I still believe the game had a golden opportunity to rebuild itself in a more sustainable direction in that period that you speak of. There’s a blissful aura in being at rock bottom and knowing that there really isn’t a foot that you can put wrong next because you’ve already taken every possible bad step to get to where you are. It’s effectively where rugby finds itself in this country at the moment and it’s starting to make some headway as it rebuilds. Rugby League obviously rebuilt and you would have to say it’s done so successfully. But I think it could have been rebuilt a lot better when everything was up in the air and there wasn’t really any embedded structure to pull down (at least not like there is today). I guess we all have our motivators for engaging in the game. For most of us I’d imagine our club is our channel in to Rugby League, but I’ve been surprised how much weight the product itself carries. I thought I’d follow my Sharks up and down the field for every meter regardless of how they perform. There’s been some years where that’s well and truly been put to the test but I’ve managed to stay true until recently. In 2020 and 2021 (in particular), while they’ve been hovering around the 8 which is usually a pretty exciting spot for your team to be sitting- I’ve never been less interested. I never realised how much I just enjoyed the game for what it was until the fabric of the game itself was flipped on it’s face.
jimmmy
Roar Rookie
You are one strange dude Mr Mascord. “Unlike you I don’t need to take crap from RL and let it into my home on my day off”. Most fans willingly invite the game into their home especially on their day off. I get that your work involves RL so its different for you . But why say ‘Unlike you ‘and imply we have to take crap from RL if you are differentiating yourself from the rest of us. I lost my club not in the Super League war but in the change from city based to national competition. I could not then or now become a Broncs fan but I never stopped watching and I always willingly invited the game not just into my house but went out and coached and got involved with junior footy . When the Cowboys came along I jumped on. I was living in NQ and a community based club with a mission that includes providing pathways into professional sport for young NQers was exactly what I endorse. RL is welcome here any time , work day, day off, holiday. Anytime.