The League Media
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p.Tah
John Thornett (49)
Yeah but it's become the RL catch all thread. I'm not keen on posting in the "RL gives me the shits" thread. The title doesn't do much for cross code relations
Some sets of tackles have seven now though since they came up with the zero tackle.
I'm guessing this isn't one of those situations but they're certainly doing their best of making counting to six more complicated than it needs to be.
Hugh Jarse
Rocky Elsom (76)
There is innovation for you.
Don't kick on the fifth tackle and confuse the buggery out of the match officials and the opposition have dumbed down their participation in the game to "don't bother counting the tackles, just defend until the ball has been kicked".
Don't kick on the fifth tackle and confuse the buggery out of the match officials and the opposition have dumbed down their participation in the game to "don't bother counting the tackles, just defend until the ball has been kicked".
dogs won a gf of a 7 tackle set back in the day.
7 tackles if you gain possession off an opposition knock on, to encourage the defending team to dive on it as opposed to just taking the scrum option.
the argument was that it was a knock back not a knock on, to which it probably was a knock back.
7 tackles if you gain possession off an opposition knock on, to encourage the defending team to dive on it as opposed to just taking the scrum option.
the argument was that it was a knock back not a knock on, to which it probably was a knock back.
Inside Shoulder
Nathan Sharpe (72)
The title doesn't do much for cross code relations
which doesn't bother me
p.Tah
John Thornett (49)
IS I don't think you're alone but not wanting good close relations is pretty short sighted. Australian Rugby can't be picky. If we want to grow the game, those players and fans are more than likely involved in another Code. Why would they want to become involved in our game if we insult something they love?
Imagine a campaign by Tourism Canada trying to recruit Australian tourist "hey Aussies, you may have the world's best beaches, but we've got the world's best skiing and we think beaches are shit and filled with bogans'. Not many Aussies would travel there based on that campaign.
As players and supporters we are the voice of our game. We need to promote what is good in our game without needing to belittle the others. No sport is better than another, it's just personal preference. How can we give others the opportunity to experience and enjoy our game if we turn them away?
I come from a strong RL background. My family hails from Northern England. The other side of my family were stanch trade unionists. I grew up in Western Sydney. My parents worked several jobs to give me the opportunities they didn't have. Not your typical Sydney rugby Union background but I found Rugby and love it. Thankfully I didnt encounter the prejudice early on because I doubt I would have stuck with the game.
I work hard to promote rugby and bring new people into the game as many fans do. How many fans/players are out there that we should be welcoming into our game. Players and fans that can put back into the sport and help it grow.
I tease RL on the forum, but that's general banter. That's what we all do. I've gone off on a tangent now, but I do object to hostile comments towards RL. It doesn't help the game in the long run.
I like to watch
David Codey (61)
Someone summed them up to to me the other day.
The culture of the game,loves big blokes flogging little blokes.
It doesn't matter if it's a bit high,a bit late, cos it's a mans game and we luv the contact........
and there should always be an exception to every rule for the right bloke......
Quick Hands
David Wilson (68)
Gus Gould gives some really good insights into some parts of the game - his technical analysis of certain things is light years ahead of what we get served up by Marto et al. However, in other aspects of the game he romantically looks back to a past which didn't really exist. He likes the idea of punches, shoulder charges, doesn't mind high tackles in certain circumstances, likes the idea of semi-comotose players playing on etc. But as someone who's watched league for a long time, this world never really existed and if it did exist, the purpertrators were sent off. Guys like Rex Mossop and Noel Kelly were regularly sent off for punching, high tackles etc, shoulder charges were never part of the game when those guys played. In the days when you couldn't replace injured players a tactic was to either injure an opponent so you both had to go off or to start a fight in which both players were sent off and number stayed equal. In the same way, during the 70s and 80s players were regualrly sent off for high tackles which are nowhere near as bad as tackles of which Gus now approves. I recall going to an ANZAC day match at the SCG in the 1980s Canterbury v Souths where Peter Kelly hit Ross Harrington with a high tackle in the first tackle of the match and was sent off - he beat the bugler and the official party off the ground it was that quick.
You could hazard a guess that 80% of Australians and 99% of the world don't know anything about either type of rugby.
IMO both codes should be looking to be go after that 80% by presenting themselves as an inclusive family, whichever type of rugby/footy people enjoy that's up to them and goodluck to them. Lets face it a lot of people are going to prefer touch to either form of tackle etc etc or games of social tag.
But either way sheer hatred of an organisation that spawned from the same sport and is essentially playing a similar thing doesn't really get anyone anywhere.
Inside Shoulder
Nathan Sharpe (72)
I can see your point but 2 things caused me to make that flippant response:
League journos have no time for RU and continually run it down and belittle it.
Many/most rusted on league followers parrot what the league journos write - even those supporters who go to test matches and some who get the 2 or 3 game Tahs packages will trot out all the old about scrums, length of time the ball is in play, kickathon, kicks deciding the game etc etc.
So I guess I'm just tired of apologising for my game: if they don't get it its their loss.
One thing both sides need to accept is that following a sport isn't necessarily an entirely rational decision.
Friends, family and someone's upbringing is going to have a far bigger impact on the sport(s) they support and find enjoyable than the actual content of the sport.
Suggesting that a small tinkering of the rules is going to have a substantial impact on attracting fans is wishful thinking.
Pfitzy
Nathan Sharpe (72)
Suggesting that any number of Law changes can bring more fans is staggeringly idiotic.
You know what does? Success primarily. And if you could do it playing pretty rugby, then fuck yeah.
Because to most of us who are rugby fans, we understand there are good and bad games of rugby. Whereas league fans are sold on the knowledge - delivered by Saint Gus of Penriff - that there are NO bad games of Loig. Just bad officials, bad decisions, bad pieces of play. To the rest of us, lots of league games look practically identical.
Its not that I don't get the strategy - in fact I like to listen to Peter Sterling break down the occasional play that means something - but ultimately its a game of attrition that is very samey
Inside Shoulder
Nathan Sharpe (72)
Quick Hands
David Wilson (68)
It's often noted that one of league's advantages is that because the game is controlled by Australia, they can respond to demand and change rules and interpretations at whim. Whilst this is true, IMO it is also a big weakness - it allows papers like the Telegraph to run campaigns for rule changes, which are really at the whim of journos.
League scrums are basically uncontested because the ARL gave up under an onslaught from the DT, same with contested play the balls, same with the 10m rule, same with golden point, same with send offs (or lack thereof) and on and on it goes. The DT and its journos are now in search of refereeing perfection, when we all know it doesn't exist - so now we have a forensic analysis of every try and almost every doubtful incident is also analysed ad nauseum. The problem being that the human watching the video is prone to exactly the same chance of human error as the human with the whistle, so round and round it goes.
Gus Gould's position on the rules is this: referees shouldn't enforce the rules, they should use their common sense to only enforce rules in situations that suit him. In all other occasions it's play on and hope for the best.
League scrums are basically uncontested because the ARL gave up under an onslaught from the DT, same with contested play the balls, same with the 10m rule, same with golden point, same with send offs (or lack thereof) and on and on it goes. The DT and its journos are now in search of refereeing perfection, when we all know it doesn't exist - so now we have a forensic analysis of every try and almost every doubtful incident is also analysed ad nauseum. The problem being that the human watching the video is prone to exactly the same chance of human error as the human with the whistle, so round and round it goes.
Gus Gould's position on the rules is this: referees shouldn't enforce the rules, they should use their common sense to only enforce rules in situations that suit him. In all other occasions it's play on and hope for the best.
mxyzptlk
Colin Windon (37)
A slight tangent off that point: BBC Manchester does a regular show called Rugby League Extra, and after the last round of the Six Nations tournament, they acknowledged the crazy amount of scoring by chalking it up to the influence of league and the many league players who crossed codes to union.
That made me think of two things:
1.) Apparently Ireland and Wales had nothing to do with the 221 points scored that day, at least if you're a RL journalist from Manchester, because none of those players did time in Super League or the NRL.*
2.) Is the influence of RL also to blame for England leaking
* Granted, some of the Wales players may have played some league when they were younger, but I'm not aware of any.
Strewthcobber
Simon Poidevin (60)
Shaun Edwards and Les Kiss may have had something to do with the scoring though?
mxyzptlk
Colin Windon (37)
That depends. If you mean people who played in the actual NFL then playing gridiron for fun, with pads, then no. By the time they're done their bodies are usually shot. If they left early enough, it's possible but unlikely, because they've already played at the most brutal level and it's not exactly something they do to relax.
If you mean people in general playing gridiron for fun as adults, yeah, that does happen. There are amateur and semi-pro leagues that play with full pads. A friend of mine played on a semi-pro gridiron team in Texas for fun when he was stationed there with the army. He had to buy his own pads, and many of the players were former high school and college stand-outs who just didn't make it through college and into the NFL. Some of them go on to play arena football or in a developmental league.
But if you count flag football and touch, then lots and lots of people play into adulthood. Many cities have adult-age flag football leagues through community centers and universities, where anyone from the public can play. Cops and fireman also play in flag football leagues against each other. It's not uncommon. And it's kind of a tradition for people of all ages to just play backyard games of football on holidays -- especially in the snow on Thanksgiving. The only real difference is the lack of pads, tackling, and defending the line of scrimmage is just a lot of pushing instead of big wholloping smacks.
But as far as team sports go, I'd say far more people in the U.S. play soccer and basketball into adulthood. I'm not counting softball, because any game where you keep a keg of beer at second base skews way more to the recreation than the athletic side of the spectrum.
mxyzptlk
Colin Windon (37)
Yeah, and you'd think the hosts would acknowledge that. But they were focusing on the players, and then went on a little rant about union taking their players and ruining them. And I think they were just blindly focusing on England.
Edwards and Kiss, though, focus on defense, not attack. Same with Andy Farrell at England. But that still raises some questions. England leaked 100 points, but Wales leaked 93 throughout the tournament, while Ireland gave up just 56 points, almost half as many as the other two possible champions. So defense arguably won the title, but why is one former RL guy's defense almost twice as solid as the other two former RL guys' defenses? (Topic for a different thread, I know.)
Besides, it's too simplistic to say these former league players/coaches just walked into union and applied league principles to get instant wins. They're hybrid coaches who had the benefit of playing in an established professionalized environment while union was still getting on its professional feet. I doubt Farrell, Edwards or Kiss came to union with a clear strategy on how to handle the breakdown, since that's not an element of league. They developed that side of their coaching via union.
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