THE RL1908 BLOG

News, Reviews & Opinion - Sean Fagan - RL1908.com

A new century, and new trends. One that is rapidly emerging is the growing number of modified and new recreational sports. People wanting to dabble in a sport want it fast, easy, fun, and not be a burden on their time, their wallet, or have a severe risk of injury.

While the media continues to tell us that the number of adults playing rugby league at the semi-pro and amateur level is in decline, I wonder if that isn't so much about rugby league not having the money to invest in park and bush footy, but potential footballers being wary of playing the modern game, and as a result drifting off elsewhere to get their footy fix.

The rules of rugby league are driven by the needs of the professional level - they have to be. Yet this is a game played by full-time footballers. Can the weekend-warrior of country and suburban parks put in the needed time to train for the game under a 10m rule? Can he sustain the risk of injury, is there adequate insurance cover if he can't work? Can he recover from 80 minutes of hard hits, bruising, collisions and tackling that modern rugby league presents? Is it fun?

No doubt there are hard heads outside of the pro level who love playing rugby league in its present rules.

But how does rugby league cater for those who want to enjoy of a bit of rugby league on the weekend, but not have to train to any great extent, and not have to be fearful of being unable to front up to work on Monday morning?

The risk that rugby league faces is that it evolves into a game that can only be played by the professionals of the NRL and Super League.

By way of comparison, it is worth noting that in American football, outside of the NFL, there are just 800 adult teams (semi-pro and amateur) in the whole of the USA (link). American football is immensely popular as a spectator sport, but not as a participant sport.

Is this the future for rugby league?

Does the code need to invent a safer and "more fun" form of the game to cater for the recreational footballer?

Or are we quite happy to let those footballers take up less physically demanding (in a brutal sense, not fitness) games such as rugby union, soccer or Australian rules?

Australian rules is an easier game to play at the social level than rugby league. It is also a sport, like soccer, that appeals to anxious mothers and cautious fathers when it comes to choosing a sport for their children.

Many kids want to play rugby league, but after concerns from their parents (rightly or wrongly) about injury risks, and even worries themselves about tackling teenage giants, end up in touch teams instead of the full contact version, or another sport. Is that what we want?

Having thought about this, I came to ponder a question - doesn't rugby league already have a mod/safe form of the game? And isn't it called touch football or Oztag?

These games aren't under the banner of the NRL, local NRL clubs or the ARL, but does that mean that they aren't playing rugby league?

When I read and hear that the numbers playing rugby league are behind some other codes, or in decline in the bush, or claims that it is only played in large numbers in NSW and Queensland, no one ever adds in the numbers or regions playing touch footy.

If they did, rugby league (in all its forms) would be up there as the greatest participant sport in Australia.

Indeed, in New Zealand, that is exactly the case. Yet, it is never portrayed that way. All we are told is that netball and rugby union are the major sports of Kiwis. Meanwhile, the New Zealand touch footy association boasts it is the nation's biggest participant sport (over 300,000) (link) .

In Australia, touch is played across the nation by more than 300,000, another 500,000 in school competitions (link). OzTag has over 400,000 playing. These numbers include a great bulk of them from outside of NSW and Queensland.

The game is played by men, women, youths, schools and includes "masters" teams.

Why isn't rugby league in Australia and New Zealand making a great noise about those numbers, and the spread of rugby league (in this modified form) throughout the major cities and towns across both nations? Why aren't we embracing touch in schools in states less familiar with rugby league, and using it to expand awareness of the code? (Note - this is beginning to happen in Victoria).

England's RFL is deliberately bringing touch football under its banner, to expand and grow interest in rugby league. The RFL evens points to the popularity of touch in Australia and New Zealand as an example to follow (link).

Showing their own initiative in a very competitive cross-code Riverina region of southern NSW, both Group 20 and Group 9 rugby league bodies have set up women and juniors Oz Tag competitions, with the clear purpose of winning over women to the code - a necessity given it is primarily mothers who decide which code their sons play.

The AFL identified in a 2001 study that it had no social equivalent to counter the immense popularity of rugby league's touch version, and invented "Rec Footy" (link) as a response, even though rugby league itself had not made the connection between rugby league and touch/OzTag and how it could aid the growth of the code.

Across Australasia the participant numbers and geographic spread of touch, OzTag and the other derived games are never connected to rugby league in presentations of how popular the code is. Other codes have no compunction adding in numbers of participants who play modified forms of their games.

The Federation of International Touch, holds a current membership of 34 nations (link).

Anyone who reads the playing laws of Touch Football, "Touch Rugby League", "Kick It Touch" and OzTag will see all are simply six tackle, non-contact rugby league.

Touch football was born amongst Sydney's first grade rugby league clubs in the 1950s and '60s. It was used a tool to develop players passing, positional and ball-running skills, without risking serious injury.

Touch football was first formalised as a recreational game under the South Sydney RLFC district by Robert Dyke and Ray Vawdon (members of the South Sydney Juniors), and the initial competition was held in 1968.

In 1977, after the St George v Parramatta Grand Final was drawn, the NSWRL invited the recently formed "Touch Football Association" to provide the curtain-raiser for the Grand Final replay.

In his book, "The Story of Touch", Bob Dyke points to the playing of touch in front of the 47,000 Grand Final crowd, along with a spectacular match a year later between the British Lions and a "Sydney Metropolitan" rep touch team, as the primary impetus for the rapid growth of touch footy in the late 1970s. (History of touch in Qld)

Dyke also makes the point that touch football's founding purpose was to widen and grow the social and recreational appeal of rugby league.

So, part of the reason the game of touch football was invented at all, was to assist the growth, appeal and awareness of rugby league in the wider community - all of which (if successful) ultimately produces future generations of rugby league fans, players, officials and sponsors.

Touch football subsequently spread across the globe, but "the rugby league message" failed to go along with it.

I wonder if the thousands playing touch in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth have any awareness at all that they are playing a modified form of rugby league? Do they relate touch footy to the NRL, Origin and the Kangaroos?

Meanwhile the other football codes are boasting participant numbers based on modified forms. The AFL quotes Auskick participants, yet that is merely a schoolyard training session, and not a game at all. Soccer's FFA quotes indoor soccer numbers. Cricket numbers are boosted by indoor cricket, beach cricket, and Twenty20.

In the cross code media and public pereceptions war, rugby league seems to be lagging behind in growth and participant numbers at the adult level, yet, how hard is it to merely point out how many are playing touch footy?

What should happen now is that the NRL/ARL/NZRL (and everyone else who loves RL) do what they can to reinforce that people playing or watching touch football (in all its forms) are in fact playing or watching a non-contact form of rugby league.

Should each NRL club hold club branded touch footy tournaments with matches on their home grounds, offering fans a chance to play on the same field as today's NRL stars and those of the past. Perhaps in summer each NRL club could play in a touch football tournament (with enough NRL players of their own to form 3 or 4 teams). How about bringing back the World 7s or a world club 7s, but play it using touch rules and not 7s.

Even if the touch footy and Oztag associations want nothing to do with the rugby league bodies, it doesn't change the fact that over a million people across the globe are enjoying playing rugby league (in its safe and recreational form).

Why isn't rugby league shouting about that?

And if we don't make that connection soon, you can bet the IRB and every other RU body will, even if the game has six tackles and a play-the-ball "dump" (for example).