The League Media

[p.Tah]

Not all the League Journos are bad, Steve Mascord is a good guy. They are referring to the health of UK rugby, but he doesn't put a negative spin on it or a snide remark about the Australian game.

It appears that hybrid rugby game between English and Australian teams is still on the table; and Challenge Cup winners Leeds are keen. There were reports earlier this year that Great Britain rugby league and Australia rugby union were to clash at Wembley in December. Now it's more likely to be a Super League team against a Super Rugby franchise. "I've heard about that; it would be worth looking at," Rhinos coach Brian McDermott said, adding he had not been told of an opponent or venue. 'The rugby union game is in great shape at the moment, they've got some fantastic athletes and it would be interesting if each game pits its best against the other."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...-the-cards-20140824-107r2e.html#ixzz3BLWP0Dhi

 

[mxyzptlk]

In some way I wonder if the americans don't like league because its conceptually similar but actually inferior to NFL whereas union is just different.
i watch more NFL than NRL and I suspect its for that reason.

That's a good question. The six tackles is close enough to the four downs, and the way the defense has to back off 10 meters makes the league ruck/play the ball superficially appear like a line of scrimmage. The shape of the athletes is a little different; the NFL has massive linemen whose jobs are similar enough to what the front row does in a union scrum (push for advantage and open space while protecting the ball). But most league players look like linebackers and tailbacks. You wouldn't find little fellas like Aaron Smith or Fumiaki Tanaka; there's no role in league open to what those sorts of athletes can offer.

Historically, I can see why league may have succeeded in Australia and gridiron developed in the U.S. If you look at old, leather-helmet-days games, American football looks more like league. But from an Aussie point of view, I can see them wanting to develop their own style of game rather than adopting someone else's adaptation of an English game. But the popularity of the NFL today must add extra pressure on the NRL to fight for popularity. The NRL won't really be able to attack the NFL -- the NFL isn't really paying attention. But at least in Australia, the NRL can punch down at the ARU and Super Rugby, rather than up at the NFL and AFL.

In that way, they're like the threatened kid who ends up finding a smaller kid to pick on. The problem is that smaller kid has a big brother that's bigger every place else except Australia, and that hints what rugby in Australia could grow up to be.

By the way, another thing that irritates me is the NRL media complaint about the rugby forwards being out of shape, simply because they're bigger than league forwards. Again, they're watching for the wrong thing -- league forwards are more like union back rowers, and how many heavy back rowers are there? Union forwards need to carry a certain size in order to anchor and move the scrum, kind of like how sumo wrestlers need to keep a certain size up. And it's no different in gridiron -- those guys have to eat 7 or 8 times a day to keep their size up, and when they stop playing, the shrink back down to size. Those sorts of complaints make me pine for more of those hybrid games, where union players can show league exactly why size matters in a scrum.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

I happened to tune in to a pre-season NFL match last week: completely sold out. Amazing.
I don't think the original differences between league and union were driven by anything other than a need to be different and professional: the "Northern Game" was not devised in Australia although nearly everything about it now is due to Australian influence.

 

[mxyzptlk]

I don't think the original differences between league and union were driven by anything other than a need to be different and professional: the "Northern Game" was not devised in Australia although nearly everything about it now is due to Australian influence.

Yep -- it was imported and perfected there, not created in Australia. But Aus jumped on league as a sport they could make their own faster than England did, for whatever reasons. Those reasons are probably class-based and located in the north of England.

 

[Braveheart81]

It's simple to understand. There is a lot of ball movement (as with the AFL, not surprisingly - they both suit the Australian sporting psyche). It is a code that, also like the AFL, is centred on Australia. Whatever the NRL wants, the NRL gets, the international dimension of the code is just there to provide a little bit of variety, and of course, a steady stream of PI recruits.


They also enjoy the momentum position, thanks largely to the ineptitude of rugby administrators. Not ours, the IRB, and their antediluvian predecessors.


We can do very little to change this, Chicken and egg. When the game is more appealing to the average sports fan, it will be on FTA. Until then, suck your thumb.

I don't think the appeal of NRL has anything to do with ball movement. I think if you took a person from outside with no allegiance or knowledge of league and union and you sat them down to watch both games for a while, most people would end up picking union as the better game.

Unfortuantely, rugby union is not in a position to compete with the NRL in Australia. There's not much we can do to change that though. We're so much smaller that we don't have the budget to grow the game at any level quickly.

Arguing that union should become more like league to try and appeal to NRL fans seems to be like saying that 7:30 should try and be more like A Current Affair and Today Tonight to attract more viewers. It's a different product and I don't think it really matters what is done, it won't attract that audience.

 

[Ash]

Interesting that someone mentioned MMM. Have an annecdote about they normally regard rugby from the last weekend.

Heard a bit of their radio program on Saturday, with some of the random hosts (Girdler, Sailor, Maroon (main host), and one other) all talking.

"One other" was asked if he had played and what position. He said he played rugby, as open side flanker. Sailor immediately segued to the Wallabies and they started asking if they had any chance vs the All Blacks tonight. Maroon, a rabid Souths supporter, cut them off and said no rugby on his show. Neither were happy, but Maroon insisted and that's where it ended.

The Rush Hour isn't so bad, it's league (or cricket) focused because most of the people on it are league (or cricket) people. They occasionally get Horan or Burke or some union person on and they talk about the Wallabies or Tahs, but the host (Dan Gunane) freely admits he knows nothing about rugby and doesn't watch it (he has no opinion on it either way from what I can tell) so he doesn't discuss it.

FYI, The Rush Hour is currently (or was just) sponsored by Channel 10's coverage of the Bledisloe,

For the record, before the first Bledisloe Gunane and Ray Warren interviewed Nathan Charles. I don't like Rabs (I think he's a bit slow, to be honest), but they both called their interview of Charles the best they had ever done and talked about it for ages.

I think that the amount of coverage MMM gives the NRL is over the top and suspect they will scale it back. I think they spent a fortune on radio rights though, so are heavily invested in it.

MMM in Brisbane actually also gives quite a bit of air time to the Reds.

 

[mxyzptlk]

Interesting that someone mentioned MMM. Have an annecdote about they normally regard rugby from the last weekend.

I heard both of those segments you're talking about. They've gone back and forth about covering anything other than league -- it's kind of a joke now. Whenever someone brings up some sport that isn't league in regular conversation (meaning outside of a news story), someone tries to reel it back in to league, and the others grouse about it. And every now and then someone will try to get Sailor to talk rugby down, and he doesn't take the bait (unless he starts it).

One thing I was surprised by was Gorden Tallis after the Eden Park game. I can't remember who brought it up, possibly Ginane, but the general response was "So much for rugby being back in Australia." Tallis was the one who stood up and said that they tied the All Blacks the previous week in terrible conditions, the All Blacks are the best team in the world, and Australia hadn't won in Eden Park for 26 years, so it's not like you can expect the Wallabies to just dominate the All Blacks yet. And overall they've been playing much better in the past year. It was a surprisingly measured response, and seemed almost out of character for Tallis.

 

[I like to watch]

I think MMM view their demographic as heavily Mungo weighted.
Matty Johns & Mark Geyer are on their breakfast show as well.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

It was a surprisingly measured response, and seemed almost out of character for Tallis.

Geez you're hard on Tallis - he seems to be a principled guy who calls it as he sees it, almost regardless of cost: called out Rabbie farrah for a two faced crap and went public on Bennett being a problem going to back to the Broncos.
Neitiher popular moves.
Not that I follow the game.

 

[Ash]

Tallis has said a few things about rugby now that makes it clear he watches it, and has watched it for a while. Which has totally surprised me, as I would've thought he just would've said an odd snide remark and left it at that.

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

Tallis has said a few things about rugby now that makes it clear he watches it, and has watched it for a while. Which has totally surprised me, as I would've thought he just would've said an odd snide remark and left it at that.

Doesn't he have a son who plays 1st XV for one of the higher-decile Brisbane High Schools? Maybe rubbing shoulders with the other boys' parents is having a positive effect on him.........

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

MMM in Brisbane actually also gives quite a bit of air time to the Reds.

As much as I can't stand him, Marto's morning show really pushes the Reds barrow, to the point of giving away tickets to the last coupla Reds home games, an interview with a different Reds player every day of the week prior to the 'tahs game & a live cross to a Reds pre-match breakfast or some such. Given the contempt the rest of Brisbane's media seems to have for our game, that's a pretty fucking good effort.

 

[mxyzptlk]

I blame Tom Carter for all of this!

The original read

Tyro Governor Jimmy Carter Tipped to Face Incumbent Gerald Ford in 1977 U.S. Presidential Championship Opener.

It was still inaccurate.

 

[mxyzptlk]

Geez you're hard on Tallis - he seems to be a principled guy who calls it as he sees it, almost regardless of cost: called out Rabbie farrah for a two faced crap and went public on Bennett being a problem going to back to the Broncos.
Neitiher popular moves.
Not that I follow the game.

A few months back he seemed stuck in rugby critic mode, and it was a weird critic mode. He kept banging on about the dangers of clearing out at the breakdown; and how when he had a chance to play rugby, seeing players getting rucked made him wonder how any mother would ever let their child play rugby. For someone who trades on his toughness, this seemed particularly weird.

No problem with Tallis calling out Bennett for being a prima donna, but the Farrah thing was just dumb on everyone's part. First, Tallis was being a knucklehead when he kept pushing the line that what Farrah said 15 months earlier must be what he still believes, as if no one ever changes their mind. Rather than calling Farrah out for that, he should have started by asking if his opinion had changed.

But Farrah didn't repeat what he'd already said earlier -- that he and some others on the team had asked to remain out of all public coaching discussions, positive or negative. Both Farrah and his manager were knuckleheads for not clearly explaining Farrah's position to Tallis.

It was an easily-avoided teenage drama that served little purpose beyond spilling ink. Fuck's sake, I'm an American listening to this stuff on podcasts, and I pieced it together in the first day -- Farrah said he wouldn't talk one way or the other, so he didn't feel he could answer Tallis's question. 'Nuff said. Very few in the NRL media bothered follow the argument that far. If Tallis was better-prepared, maybe he'd have known Farrah's position -- Farrah being the big name of the club and all -- and would have had second thoughts about the appropriateness of the question.

Instead they both bit down on their positions and wouldn't let go, and it made them all look petulant. It took about a week before Rabs finally suggested on Dead Set Legends that maybe Farrah couldn't answer Tallis's question because he asked to be left out of those discussions.

I'm sure it sold some papers, though. What's the better soap opera in Australia, the NRL or Neighbours? Honestly, I first tuned in for the news, but I stay for the manufactured drama -- it's better than pro wrestling.

 

[Bardon]

Tallis has said a few things about rugby now that makes it clear he watches it, and has watched it for a while. Which has totally surprised me, as I would've thought he just would've said an odd snide remark and left it at that.

That sparked an image in my head for what I thought would be a funny promo for Aus rugby.

It starts with a guy in the shirt of his favourite league team seeing his wife off at the door. Then his league mates turn up and ask if she's gone yet. When he nods they all pile into the house.

The next scene is the guy looking for something in the clossett flipping through her dresses. Then he's going through her make up and you see a silhouette of them applying make up to each other.

It would then end with the wife coming home earlier than expected from her shopping trip, lots of paper bags in each hand. You see her make her way into the lounge and she has a look of horror on her face and drops her bags. The final shot is of the guy and all his mates in Wobs shirts and faces painted watching the test match on the TV.

The tag line could be something about not having to be embarassed about liking Union too.

Well I thought it was funny anyway.

 

[Omar Comin']

Well I thought it was funny anyway.

I liked it. Targeting league fans in a sort of fun, humorous way is really not a bad idea IMO. League is the most similar sport to rugby on the planet. Almost every skill involved in rugby league is also involved in rugby union. The challenge is to then get supporters to appreciate the other aspects of rugby. But I don't think this is impossible and there are plenty of rugby league fans that at least have a casual interest in rugby.

I think it's even more possible now with the NRC and the law changes to reduce penalty goals and speed up play a little. In an attacking game of rugby you see a lot more line breaks, end to end passing, counter attack and unpredictable play than you do in most games of NRL. And those are the things NRL fans would definitely appreciate.

The biggest problem I guess is the 'rivalry' between league and union, which means some people view their favoured code as their team and the other code as the cross town rival. Those people are pretty hard to win over.

 

[JJJ]

Another ad idea would be to have a sequence of some big bastard phoning his boss. Maybe the boss could be a brickie at a construction site.
Conversation 1 (while wearing neck-brace): "Yeah sorry mate, I can't come into today. Busted my neck in a scrum."
*show scrum porn*
Conversation 2 (arm in sling): "Yeah me again. Can't come in because I munted my shoulder cleaning someone out of a ruck."
*show ruck porn*
Conversation 3: "Yeah Glenn? Davo here. I got trampled in a maul and broke 3 ribs. So I can't come in again."
*show maul porn*
Boss: "Bloody hell Davo, look what you're doing to yourself. You know rugby isn't a working man's sport!"

Final frame: hazard sign with the words "Rugby: play at own risk!"

 

[MajorlyRagerly]

Above idea sums up the Wallabies on Saturday. Soft!

 

[Aussie D]

JJJ, interesting idea but we actually want blokes to start playing rugby, that ad would turn many of them off out of fear of losing their job.

 

[Braveheart81]

JJJ, interesting idea but we actually want blokes to start playing rugby, that ad would turn many of them off out of fear of losing their job.

It probably also wouldn't help many people win the argument with their spouse that rugby is a good idea for their kids to play.