THE RL1908 BLOG

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

No doubt, the objective of a salary cap system is that it closes the gulf between the top and the bottom teams.

As we often hear, "you can turn up to any NRL game and not know who is going to win".

The downside of that system is that there are rarely any games left where there can be a truly unexpected upset win.

Some of greatest victories in sport are those where a team was rated no chance of winning at all.

I spoke to Andrew Stevenson (the Herald) recently about why there appears to be no longer any hope of an upset victory by an "underdog" club in the NRL, and even if there was a mid-week Cup, there would be no hope of a "Western Division" repeat (1974 Amco Cup):
Chasm Robs League of Old-School Boilover

There's too big a gulf now between NRL teams and the rest, and it's been widening for decades. In the 1980s, we had horrendous scores in the mid-week cup, but if you go before that we had Sydney club teams playing country teams and getting beaten.

Sport on the playing ground is meant to reflect life off it - there are ups and downs, things you can and can't control - football was once simply a robust form of snakes-and-ladders, intended to teach young boys how to deal with what life could throw up against them; to take the hard knocks without complaint, to fight on against the adversity, to get back up, to play on - whether it was hard luck that put on you on the ground, or good fortune that scored your team a try or a goal.

For professional coaches rugby league at the elite level is not there to teach young men lessons about life - it is about winning, and ensuring that they (the coach) keep their job and career prospects alive.

I think coaches given a large say over rule reforms and interpretations are at least in part to blame.

Coaches are driving all the variables out of the game - if they had their way, I reckon they'd change the shape of the rugby football so it wouldn't bounce irregularly!

Seeking to rid the game of "grey areas" to reduce refereeing controversies (another pressure also imposed upon the game by modern coaches) has contributed too.

All of which gives rise to an interesting question - and clearly demonstrates why any mid-week Cup that includes non-NRL clubs has no hope of happening (unless it all about using them as fodder in the preliminary rounds)...

The rules of rugby league itself, and the way it is played - all of which favour the more athletic/powerful team over the naturally skilled and tenacious, half-fit and the fluke - give even less hope of victory for NRL teams missing their stars (Origin and/or injury), and clearly zero chance of a Western Division repeat if it ever returned to the calendar.

So, even on those occassions where you can find an NRL game where one team is heavily favoured over the other, and there truly is an underdog side, the expected result invariably now comes true.

What game do you reckon was last truly stunning upset in the NSWRL/NRL premiership? When a team truly given "no hope" actually won?

Was it the "Baby Broncos" team that beat Wests Tigers 28-14 at Campbelltown on May 31, 2002?

As Stevenson points out, during the 2008 NRL rounds where depleted sides akin to the "Baby Broncos" played, none of the teams full of youngsters aided by a few old hands even came close to winning.

At the NRL level I wonder if we will ever see another truly stunning upset win by an underdog team again.

I'm not whinging here - but I am wondering if another great aspect of our sport has quietly faded away without any of us noticing....the underdog is dead.