RL1908 - Rugby League Football History

Rules For The Elite

Here we go again - blowout scorelines and "not enough quality first grade players."

If you sat down to write the rules for a new football code, would you design it so that only the top five clubs in your elite competition could play it?

Because, effectively, that is what the NRL rules and interpretations have achieved.

Funny though, no one is saying there is anything wrong with the playing rules - they all point to poor player techniques and development, players' poor attitude and that there aren't enough quality players. They will even trot this out as a reason not to expand the competition.

But all this has happened in the so-called professional era where teams spend hours and hours on training, technique and application.

Footballers who ran alongside garbage trucks all week long never got flogged by 50 points each weekend.

It is time to face the facts - only the most elite of our players can consistently deliver the goods on the field. So why have we now designed NRL rugby league so that it can only be played by the teams with the best players? "They should bring themselves up to our standards, they are lagging behind etc" is what I hear from the coaching staff of some NRL clubs.

This is the same attitude that has degraded international rugby league.

Why is it in soccer's FA Cup that Premier League teams don't beat lower division teams by 12-0 or 15-0? There is obviously something in the rules of rugby league today that ensures the Kangaroos and the top 5 NRL clubs can consistently flog everyone else.

One of the primary causes is the rules have been changed to ensure fast and open play, with plenty of tries. That is fine when two teams meet each other and are 100% switched on, such as in State of Origin or a Grand Final, but if teams are just a little 'off' or less talented, they will get flogged.

The only apparent solution is the salary cap to spread around the talent. Well, we all know the problems with that method.

Here is a thought - get rid of the 4 men on the interchange! All of a sudden there would be a total of 20 players from the top 5 clubs on the market looking to join a lower club to stay in first grade.

Maybe we could tweak the playing rules of rugby league so that there would not be such an enormous gulf between the top and the rest. Then, the pressures to buy the best players to gain success might actually diminish. You could even lessen the reliance on the salary cap to equalise the competitiveness of the clubs.

The NRL has problems with the rules of the game - maybe they can't see it yet. But the fans of the clubs outside of the top five can see it. Even a casual watcher of NRL on TV can see it - how many Friday night games are over in the first twenty minutes?

I know there are plenty of people who say I am talking rubbish - but all anyone has to do is look at the stats. All the big points-scoring in the history of the premiership has occurred since the NRL began in 1998. Prior to that we had part-time players, training three times a week, no inter-change and coaches who actually let their teams play football (instead of programming their every move).

Club CEO's blasting their flogged teams in the post-match dressing room won't change anything. Quite frankly, I am surprised players aren't telling us what they think the cause is. Then again, they are not allowed to be critical.

We introduced the salary cap to stop clubs dominating others. The coaches of the elite clubs have worked out another way to dominate. The problem is so ingrained in the playing rules that even the top five clubs can belt each other by 50 points on any given weekend.

It is time for a serious evalutation of what sort of a game we want rugby league to be.