Suffice to say we are talking about different things.

The article you linked to says nothing about the likelihood of getting into an accident, it just talks about reducing the risks of head injury in the event of an accident.

But so what? I don’t deny that helmets reduce your chances of an injury if you have an accident.

Just like if you get into an accident in a car a helmet would reduce your chance of injury.

Just like if you go out in the sun, a hat will reduce your chance of skin cancer.

Just like if you go swimming at the beach a life jacket will reduce your chances of drowning.

The point is, the absolute level of risk in all of the above activities, including riding a bicycle is not great enough to warrant a law which makes it a criminal offense to do those things without the safety device.

No other countries have followed our lead on mandatory bike helmets. We got it wrong and it’s time to change it.

Let’s agree to disagree on it – this article was about poker machines.

Haha ok people wear helmets in car races. That’s exactly my point. No-one wears them in everyday life, and it’s not a legal requirement. It should be the same for bicycles.

A number for what? Ian, even with helmet laws a small number of people (including some children) are killed on bikes every year. The majority of these will be wearing helmets. Whether or not they are wearing a helmet is not the thing which is causing the deaths, it’s the fact that they are hit by cars.

If you think that anything which might increase the injury rate is bad then you will have to oppose any effort to even encourage more people to ride bikes – more cyclists will inevitably lead to more injuries. That’s just a part of life.

Ian, you are not being rational about this.

Riding a bike isn’t dangerous. It is safe and healthy. The health benefits outweigh the risks of a traffic accident by a factor of 20 to 1. Whichever way you look at it, the health risks related to a lack of activity swamp the health risk from getting a head injury (both for the individual and society).

But many in Australia have a paranoid fear of getting a head injury because 20 years ago the state govts in Australia brought in helmet laws and started to tell people things like “If you don’t wear a helmet you’ll get a brain injury” and “Helmets save lives” etc etc.

Strangely all those countries without helmet laws don’t have a problem with an epidemic of brain damaged cyclists – in fact Australia has some of the highest injury rates in the world.

The chance of actually having an accident on a bike is very low. It is only marginally more dangerous than driving in a car or for that matter walking on the street (far more people are killed doing these 2 things than riding a bike each year). Yet no-one wears helmets to drive in a car, and no-one says thing like “think of the children with brain damage”.

I’m not saying that a helmet won’t give you some protection, just that the risk is so small it’s not worth worrying about. There are far better ways to stay safe when you ride a bike than a law which makes it illegal to ride without a helmet.

Personally I don’t like poker machines and have only used them on a few occasions.

But I hate all these regulations that governments feel are necessary to protect us from our own actions. I find it very sad that so many people are willing to just sit back while more and more of our lives are regulated in this way. It does not make for a better or safer society, it just fosters the perception that a governments must do all our thinking and make all our decisions for us.

What ever happened to the idea that as long as your actions are not directly hurting others then people should be free to do what they want? If people enjoy doing something and that thing is not hurting or directly causing a problem for others, then go for it, I say.

Another classic example of the nanny-state mentality is bike helmets. Australia is almost the only country in the world where it’s a CRIMINAL OFFENSE to ride a push-bike without a helmet. What a joke. Riding a bike isn’t dangerous and even if it was a foam hat which might only prevent 50% of head injuries anyway doesn’t make it safe.

This isn’t the first time rugby administrators have sat back and ignored gathering economic forces.

England, 1890s – “A breakaway rugby league where the players are paid? Nah, it will NEEEEVER happen”
Australia, 1995 – “A Superleague competition? Not chance mate, NEEEEVER gonna happen”

A hybrid game would be awesome for a once-a-year exhibition match.

All the knockers said that a State of Origin series would be a waste of time, never happen, what’s the point etc, etc for 15 years before 1980. Now look at it.

A once-off match under hybrid rules is a great idea, and would generate huge interest. Whether it could ever go any further than that would depend on how well the game worked.

OK that is fair enough, he does have a football background. But he’s giving his opinion on the issue on the basis of his medical credentials. My point is that being a doctor is of really no consequence in this debate.

Why is an orthopaedic surgeon somehow qualified to judge what should and should not be allowed in a game of football? Merv Cross’ opinion on the topic is of no more value than anyone else’s.

As a doctor he might be an expert in fixing the sort of injuries caused by gang tackles, but this does not make him an expert in preventing them on the field, nor in weighing up all the various drawbacks and benefits (including non-medical ones) that would be associated with banning certain tacking styles.

You do not need to an orthopaedic surgeon to be able to grasp that players are sometimes injured in tackles. Being a doctor does not make you any more expert on the question, in fact it may make you less qualified to comment because it may be very difficult to be objective about the issue when you are dealing with the negative consequences of it on a daily basis.

So whether on not gang tackles and shoulder charges should be banned is a question worth asking, but the debate can live without the opinion of this bloke.

Here’s a bit of trivia. All of the “rugby” bodies all started out with the word “football” in their name. The ARU used to be the ARFU, before they changed it.

The ARL is actually still officially called the Australian Rugby Football League, likewise the QRL is actually officially the QRFL.

Not a bad idea actually, although it seems like it would be at long odds to come about.

I’m generally against clubs playing games all around the place purely for money reasons, because I think it’s a bit of a slap in the face to the supporters and members who come to the home games each week, and it also weakens a club’s identity. But a club that was specifically founded without any one particular home ground, the NOMADS R.L.F.C…..it could work.

If Fox shows the game live, this would take a huge bite out of the ratings for the delayed telecast on 7, because anyone with Fox will want to watch it live. So how many people have pay tv? 25% or something? The figure is probably higher for football supporters, a lot of people I know get pay tv primarily to watch sport. So the ch7 ratings would probably be something like 20-30% lower if fox get to show it live. 7 would want a big discount for this I would think.

True, the Roosters are probably in no danger of being punted with Politis and his mates at the helm.

However I think the Sydney Roosters have not done a good job with maintaining their own ties to the general population of the Eastern Suburbs. Changing their name from Easts hasn’t won them any friends in the East, nor has the fact that it is virtually impossible to become a football club member.

History has shown that mergers are a pretty bad way of changing the make-up of the competition. Have a look at Wests Tigers. They don’t have twice the supporters or members than the other Sydney clubs that didn’t merge. This merger took 2 reasonably popular Sydney clubs and ended up with 1 reasonably popular club, many former supporters from either side of the merger just walked away.

A better way is to provide a place for the less popular teams to play, that is a second division.

I am an Easts member, and if the club merged with South Sydney I would not support this new club….I would much rather the club keep it’s own identity, colours and name in a lower division, and would continue to support them there, with some hope that they might play at the top level again one day.

It’s great to think positively. The Bears might get in, but they might not.

If they don’t get in, wouldn’t you rather watch them in a quality second division than not at all?

Fez,

Unfortunately the 2 second tiers are not really equals. The NSW Cup is really a poor cousin. Not in the standard of football, but in the sense that there are only a few teams who are genuine clubs with their own identity and history. Newtown, Norths, Balmain and Wests are it. Balmain and Wests are already represented in the NRL. So that leaves only 2 teams with any legitimate claim to be playing at the top level. The remainder are either NRL reserve-grade teams or clubs like Windsor or Wentworthville who are just junior clubs from within the district of particular NRL clubs. There really is little need or demand for heaps more teams from Sydney in the NRL, whether the top tier or the second tier if it ever develops.

A second tier needs to be skewed towards teams from the Qld Cup, because these are teams that have a long history as genuine first grade clubs, and many have potential as future NRL clubs.

I think you’re spot on here JiMMM.

Travelling costs would not be a huge problem for a competition similar to the one you’ve suggested. Like you said, the majority of the teams are already playing in the Queensland Cup and the travelling is not a problem there.

Generally I think people overestimate how much it costs for travelling expenses. It would probably cost each team a couple of hundred thousand dollars per year. Yes this is a lot of money, but it’s not huge in the context of how much it costs to run a professional or semi-professional club. It costs about $1m per year to run a team in the Queensland Cup, for example.

Great article Sheek.

There are a couple of points I would add.

As you say, historically all interstate competition was based around state representative games. But these games have never been the week-to-week bread and butter of any sporting code, they were always infrequent events that punctuated the normal club seasons.

The only football code that has attempted to build a home-and-away style competition based upon state rep teams has been rugby union with decidedly mixed results. The others went for a club-based style, which is superior for many reasons.

The problem rugby union now faces is that the teams have an identity crisis. All the Super clubs look and behave like clubs, they are not state representative teams in any way except for the historical links that exist for the Reds and Waratahs. The Brumbies, Force and now Melbourne seem to make pretense of being anything other than a football club.

What a strange article.

Firstly, what is a “greedy” salary? 25% more than the average? 2 times? 25 times? It is completely arbitrary. And who should be entrusted with determining what that level is? Comrade Sheek, the Minister for Salary Equality?

And why are you so concerned with “greedy” sportsmen? Very few sportsmen are truly earning huge amounts in Australia. Most senior doctors, lawyers, accountants, bankers and so on would be earning just as much or more than the top football players of any code in this country. Are you also concerned about their “greed”? No-one regulates and seeks to restrain their income.

Mate, we live in a free country. And part of being a free country is the fact that some people will earn more than others. Just accept it.

Ultimately, sportsmen get paid roughly what they are worth. Maybe it’s not what you or your granny “feels” they’re worth, according to your homespun philosophy, but they are paid broadly in accordance with how much income they can generate for their employer. Just like everyone else in society. They can generate this sort of money because they are hugely popular, and what they do is watched and enjoyed by millions of people. They can get people watching and talking. People like you and me sit around on internet boards talking about them.

Your article comes across as petty and seems primarily motivated by feelings of envy about other people earning “too much”. I’m not trying to attack you personally, because I enjoy your rugby union and league analysis, but I can’t agree with this article.

Well of course the “same old beards” on this website are not going to agree with the decisions made by CA – we love cricket exactly as it is.

But whether you like it or not, 20/20 has proven beyond all doubt that it can appeal to a wider audience. When you are getting tens of thousands now to domestic cricket when in the past it was played in front of friends, family and the seagulls, you can’t ignore it.

When was the last time, if ever that a non-20/20 domestic match got an attendance above 10,000?

Good move from CA. The T20 competition is better suited to be a club competition rather than a state-based competition. Keep the state sides as representative sides. There’s nothing to be admired about Chris Gale “representing” Western Australia because he signed a contract with them. It just makes state representation meaningless.

Well done, this is an excellent article. Too many people are just so eager to drink the kool aid on the idea of this “independent commission” that they seem to be willing to ignore these very real problems.

Why do these 16 clubs need to own so much of the game of rugby league? They will say that it doesn’t matter who “owns” the commission because it will be run independently, but if that is the case then it shouldn’t matter if the QRL and NSWRL own 50% as was the original Superleague peace bargain. Of course it DOES matter who owns the commission, which is why the clubs are fighting tooth and nail to get as much legal ownership as possible.

And when they gain ownership just as certainly as night follows day they will act according to what is in the collective best interests of those 16 clubs, which is not necessarily the same as the game of rugby league as whole.

Every organisation acts to further it’s own interests, this is natural. The primary objective of an NRL football club is to win matches and eventually win the premiership. It is not to develop juniors, support representative football and promote the game generally. But all of these things are essential for the long-term health of the game. That’s why we should have some body which is vested with responsibility for these things as it’s primary purpose, and this body should have reasonable ownership and power within the ARLC.

I don’t agree that Australian crowds lack atmosphere. Australian rugby union crowds can sometimes be fairly subdued, but using rugby union crowds as a measure for the entire nation is where you’re going wrong.

The atmosphere at rugby league matches can be great and you’ll hear a lot of chanting and for some clubs even singing. I don’t think anyone who’s watched Queensland play NSW live at Lang Park would say the crowd lacked atmosphere.

I support both rugby codes, but I think it’s pretty fair to say that the atmosphere and crowd is quite different at the two games.

If a club’s location is irrelevant to it’s popularity then why are the Brisbane Broncos on TV every Friday night? They are by far the most popular team in the competition by crowd figures and TV ratings, because they have a huge slab of the “heartland” all to themselves.

Unfortunately for the Bears, TV revenue will be the deciding factor, and the only area that will add to TV revenues (in the immediate future) is another team in or around Brisbane. A channel 9 executive is on record saying exactly this.

I also find it strange that Bears supporters make such a big deal of things like getting a jersey sponsor, and the fact that they are building up a profile in the community. The Ipswich Jets are already a real football club with members and supporters who exist in the real world, not just on facebook. They have been building up a profile in the community for over 25 years. They have sponsors who have recently stated they will be happy to be involved if the club moves up the NRL.

Meanwhile, the “Central Coast Bears” don’t even exist yet. The North Sydney Bears play out of North Sydney Oval. Why is this? Is it because the Bears are only interested in the Central Coast if it gets them a ticket directly into the big time of the NRL?

You’re right the Steelers name was a good local fit (which is why I said “most” in my comment above). But it was still a direct rip-off from the NFL team.