The Problem:
Administrators see Rugby League not as a game but as a ‘product’ to be commercialised and monetised. To appeal to the marginal viewer rule changes have made Rugby League manically fast with homogenised over-coached touch-footballised style of play with homogenised powerful ‘athlete’ players.
Rugby league is being commoditised in an international market for sports viewing and gambling and has moved away from its traditional style of play.
Rugby league is losing its DNA developed over a century of play.
The Consequences:
Opponents of this campaign will say that evolution in a sport is natural and that many advances, for example in sports science, are good for the players and spectators alike.
Not all evolution is good, however, for players or fans, especially when it occurs in conjunction with and/or as a consequence of rule modifications which change the style of play away from the traditions of the game.
In modern day Rugby League the style of play now strongly favours attack over defence and it favours power over endurance of players.
While faster play may seem superficially more appealing, it actually makes the games boring as a spectacle.
Speeding up the game has meant that, to the experienced viewer, attack has become monotonously predictable. The risk-reward in attack has been shifted in favour of conservative low-risk – i.e. very simple mistake-free – football because attacking teams do not have to earn the right (gain field position through tough and/or creative play) to be within striking distance of the try line by the end of the set. The new rule-set almost hands the attacking team that opportunity from early in the contest. As such, creative play makers are afraid to chance their arm even mid-field because a turnover will lead to the opposition pressing their line within a tackle or two. In other words, the reward from creative play is reduced but the punishment (when the play does not work) has increased. Creative coaching is also greatly reduced with play from all teams homogeneous, e.g. the unique set play pieces which so entertained us in the 80s have been lost from the game.
Favouring attack over defense leads to many tries being scored which decreases their significance (value) in the game and results in a very stop-start game (which provides stoppages for advertising and suits gambling).
Then greater scoring leads to a higher likelihood of one-sided contests which rapidly lose their appeal through the second half of the game.
In short, while a brief clip of play may seem exciting, more often than not the game itself is boring and rapidly loses interest through scoring blowouts even though we also live in the era of the salary cap which should result in closer games through talent being shared more evenly than in past eras.
The following point should be made early before the sceptic turns off – those who want to point to the quality of game 3 of State of Origin this year in support of the strengths of the modern game should realise that the game was played at a significantly slower ruck speed than even the typical NRL game. This is in direct contrast to virtually every high profile game which came before it where the high profile games were always faster than the weekly club games, and this most likely is an indication that there was an experiment to see whether there was anything to this campaign that I have been mounting.
I would suggest that that outcome – a low-scoring, engrossing and dramatic game – proved my point in spades.
There are other consequence to the way the style of the game has changed since around the commencement of the ‘Super League War’ for the (commercial) control of Rugby League which specifically affect the players.
The increased speed and power through the whole game increases the chances of more frequent and more severe head injuries (concussion) which has the potential of shortening careers and causing long-term health issues for players and their loved ones to confront.
Furthermore, the changed style of play suits a different type of player and thus changes the market value of those players and affects the lifetime earnings potential of those people and their families; e.g. older props (30+ years) are struggling to prove their value in the modern game, and the skill of genuine ‘footballers’ and playmakers is lesser valued in comparison to powerful athletes, in fact Rugby League immortal Wally Lewis probably would not have had the impact that he did on the game if he played under current conditions.
Note also that this year we saw the ridiculous situation of the NSW State of Origin male captain spending on average 52 minutes of games 1, 2 and 3 rotated off the field onto the bench having played only the first 28 minutes of each game (averaged).
The Detail:
Now I know that the commercial interests in modern Rugby League are going to roll out all sorts of people in support of the modern game, and they have the power to give them voice. From what I have been seeing I would say it is already happening.
That’s good. I’m glad that I’ve concerned the commercial interests and that this is stimulating conversation even if it is one-sided.
I am also certain that very many old players agree with what I am saying, and I’m not talking about the ones who (are paid to) go on TV and talk about how good ‘the product’ is (hand me the vomit bucket!)
In fact, the first old coach I heard talk about how these rule changes would affect the game in a way he did not agree with was Graham Lowe back in 1996 when he was coach of the NQ Cowboys, as I said in my first article on the topic “On the 25 Year Bastardisation of Rugby League To Appeal To People Who Do Not Love The Game” in 2021.
Following are the specific changes.
10m rule with increased ruck speed
Two factors control the speed of play at any moment in the game, those being how far the defense must retreat each tackle and how quickly the attacking player is allowed to play the ball to start the next play. (The level of genuine fatigue will affect speed through the game). It was not so much the move to the 10m rule that sped up the game to manic levels but it was the determination to speed up the play the ball by ensuring defenders roll off the attacker extremely quickly (especially when the attacking player has ascendancy). This is the greatest factor in turning the style of play touch-football-like and it is the reason why defensive players are now taught to condense when attackers are coming off their own line, and tackle high first and then wrestle to tangle the attacking player up while the defensive line resets. This wrestling and other defensive tactics to slow the attack down under these rules has necessitated additional rules to try to stop the wrestling and the strange techniques, such as ‘chicken wings’, ‘crusher tackles, ‘canonballs’, ‘hip-drops’, etc, that have stemmed from it, to reduce the risk of injury.
The manic speed that the defensive line must maintain, its condensed nature, and the high tackling technique also increases the likelihood of head injury to both attackers and defenders.
Prior to the introduction of the 10m rule and the speeding up of the game (i.e. ruck speed) causing the condensing of defense lines in an attempt to prevent the attacking side getting a roll on, it was not uncommon for there to be 3 lines of defense – instead of the 2 of front line and the fullback – where a smaller half would roam a few metres behind the front line and close down any half-breaks. Teams could afford to do this because attack was not favoured so greatly over defence.
It might even be reasonable to say that at times in the past defence was over-favoured. But, to the enthusiast, there was always interest and value in a low scoring, tough, chess-match/arm-wrestle game of field position.
Clearly things have gone much too far in favouring attack over defence now.
Zero tackle/rapid restart from quarter line
With the manic speed in the game, the opportunity to have a rapid restart from the quarter line (after the ball goes out in the in-goal area or is caught on the full in there) gets the attacking set off to a flyer, and might even result in a (boring) solo length of the field try if the defensive line is slow to reset. Moreover, together with the minimum (see ‘tackle count resets’ below) 7 tackle set, the roll on this provides means that very often the offense will be attacking the try line by the end of that set.
Again, gaining field position so easily is the antithesis of Rugby League DNA.
Interchanges instead of replacements
Through the early history of club Rugby League in Australia the team consisted of 13 fresh players with replacements permitted if they played already in the lower grades. In 1981 the number of replacements permitted in a game was increased from 2 to 4, and then in 1988 up to 2 fresh players of the total of 4 replacements were allowed. Note that replacement means just that in that the player replaced did not participate further in the game and the replacement remained on until the end of the game unless they were also replaced.
Remember, however, that this was the era of the AIDS pandemic so there was initial confusion on how to deal with bleeding of players. In 1991 unlimited interchange (bench of 2 fresh players and 2 who had already played earlier that day) was permitted to address this but a fan outcry led to the number of interchanges being capped at 6 excluding players sent to the ‘bloodbin’.
Then in the Super League war the Australian Rugby League moved to unlimited interchange in 1996, which in the NRL era was wound back to 12 interchanges in 2001, 10 in 2008, and the current 8 in 2016.
It is clear that prior to the extreme commercialism of Rugby League kicked off by the Super League War, the game was more about endurance than power. Afterall, even the replacements permitted through the majority of the history of the game had to be somewhat fatigued already from having played earlier that day.
With full time professional athletes, interchanges still being abundant since some forwards will only play just over half the game with a huge rest between, if coming on for a second stint at all, and with frequent breaks in play for the many tries scored, power has predominated over endurance to a point so much so that fans often express frustration at how fresh their team players appear at the completion of the game as if they have not given their all.
They express this frustration because, again, this is not what Rugby League is.
6-again, tackle count resets
Tackle resets were implemented to prevent defensive teams from slowing down play by intentionally infringing so that prior to implementation the referee would stop play for the penalty. Players knew that, especially in high profile games, referees were loath to stop the play too much for penalties and could push the limits of the rules in order to slow the game one way or another.
The sin bin for repeated infringements addressed this successfully. The implementation of repeated tackle count resets, marked with the chiming of a bell on broadcasts to alert viewers, in addition to the shaking of the arm by the referee, has probably been the step too far for many fans leading to the realisation that administrators have taken the speeding up of the game to ridiculous levels.
While incessant 6-agains exemplifies the speeding up of the game and favouring of attack over defense in defiance of the DNA of Rugby League, the reality is that it is just the straw that broke the back for many and it is the full suite of rule changes that got us to this point that needs to be examined.
Taken together this continual speeding up of play through rule changes and refereeing/adjudication of play has turned a deeply tactical game into a try-a-thon.
This speeding up of play promotes simplistic one-out running off dummy half to create a roll on, much like touch-football, with a potential wide movement late in the set with players running block plays and fast players running in an arc around the defensive line, so it diminishes the value of playmakers able to play what is in front of them in an off-the-cuff, split-moment decision (i.e. ‘x-factor’).
If a referee from the 70s or early 80s were transported to ‘the bunker’ today to watch tries from ‘block plays’, nearly every one of them would be ruled a ‘shephard’ (or obstruction). And even though many are still denied through video referee analysis, causing much confusion and complaining, block plays are still used so extensively because it is worth risking the try being disallowed because opportunities to attack the try line are nowhere near as precious as they were in the past.
Tries are simply not as valuable as they used to be when they were rarer!
Following is what I consider the best form of Rugby League play.
The ideal Rugby League game, which respects traditions, favours fit but not overly muscled footballers over power athletes so that all of the great players of the game, including forwards, can and do play over one half of the game continuously if not the whole game.
Bill Harrigan is commonly said to be the best referee ever, and as such was recently inducted into the Rugby League hall of fame. While this recognition was very well deserved, it should also be noted that he was fortunate to referee in a period where the game – as it was played – was at its peak (and so soon after its peak that the decline was not yet widely apparent).
Bill Harrigan’s interview on Channel 9’s “Sunday Footy Show” ahead of his induction was especially interesting and he supported many of the points of this campaign. He spoke of how he opened up the game by taking the defense back 8 to 10m, even when the 5m rule was still in effect, and he made the point that it is the defenders trying to slow down the ruck speed in the modern game that is leading to wrestling and twisting of players causing injuries. Bill also highlighted the importance of players being made to play the football like Rugby League players not just rolling it through their legs like touch football players.
Almost all of the change required to achieve greater balance in the game can be achieved by refereeing which allows defenders more time to get off tackled players so that ruck speed is reduced, and by restricting interchanges to a set number of replacements/substitutions (though potentially needing additional players on the bench for head injury assessment).
The 10m rule can be kept, even in standard – i.e. lower intensity – club matches as long as the ruck speed is controlled according to the standard of the game. Ruck speed should be much slower than the current speed for typical club matches, and it is natural that it would be faster in higher profile games, to around the speed of game 3 of State of Origin 2024 (again, it was significantly slower than is usual in the NRL now).
In preliminary rounds of the NRL season the same can be achieved by setting the 10m at around 8m, in a similar way to how Bill Harrigan set the 5m at 8-10m when ruck speed was kept that much slower.
Either way the balance of ruck speed and where the defensive line is set must be altered to slow down play and eliminate the touch-football style of play from Rugby League.
This will give the bigger bodies playing in the middle of the field time to defend properly with good technique (reducing high impact head injuries) and make advancing down the field more challenging and rewarding to tough and skillful play. The forwards will relive the lost era of a softening up period where they vie for dominance which was one of the most eagerly anticipated aspects of games in the golden era of Rugby League. As players fatigue opportunities for attacking players increase giving excitement to the ends of each half of the game. And as exhausted players late in the halves have lost much of their power, tired off-target tackling technique will cause less severe impacts.
The ultimate goal should be to return Rugby League to a game where:
– defense is more in balance with attack so that we have fewer tries and closer games, more entertaining creative rugby league rather than one-out touch-footballified style play;
– there is none of this ridiculous wrestling (spawning phenomena such as the ‘chicken wing’, ‘crusher tackle’, ‘hip drop’, ‘Canon ball’);
– there are ‘softening up’ periods at the start of the half where the forward packs struggle for domination;
– there are few over-coached, highly choreographed block plays which continually stretch the interpretation of what is a shephard or obstruction;
– where players run straight into and through defensive lines not in an arc (like in under 9s) around highly compressed defensive lines;
– where endurance in our players is as highly valued as power, and where the stars of our game play 80 minutes or near to it;
– where coaching of tackling styles is not done with the aim of keeping the attacking player off the ground and wrestling with defenders as long as possible, requiring defenders to be more upright in defense which increases the chances of more frequent and more severe head injuries (concussion), so that instead players are taught and coached to tackle low first; and, for the good of our players
– high tackles are punished very severely.
Following are a few other suggestions which mainly surround guarding against head injuries.
Very many head injuries occur during powerful collisions into compressed defensive lines. Often they are described as gang tackles involving one attacking player running full-pace into 3 or even more (mostly) upright defenders. It is usually a ricocheting/pinball effect off several defenders that causes the head injury to occur and it might just as likely be a defender as the offensive player who is injured. This is commonly from kick offs but gang tackles also happen in general play.
There are a number of issues with gang tackles most notably that it will almost certainly involve an outlawed shoulder charge by at least one of the defenders since it is virtually impossible that three or more defenders all impacting high simultaneously could all be seeking to wrap their arms around the ball runner.
So gang tackles should be removed from the game where possible by rules such as enforcing the shoulder charge law whenever one occurs and potentially with new rules.
In general play, condensed defensive lines are most common when attempting to slow the progress of attackers coming out of their own half. To prevent compressing of defensive lines there could be a rule that said that when the attacking team plays the ball in their own half there must be at least one defender within 10m of both sidelines at the play the ball. This should force the whole defensive line to spread out across the width of the field, as it is when defending their own half, rather than compress up to allow gang tackling.
The most discussed time for gang tackles has been the run back from the kick-off. Just as backs taking the first 3 hit ups off their own line is a relatively new style of play to counter the fast moving, compressed defensive lines nowadays, the front rowers taking that long run off the kick-off came into the game in the 90s. Before that it was the back rowers or the backs who typically received and ran the ball back from kick-offs (front rowers lined up on the 10 yards line from placed and drop kick restarts).
So while everyone wants to say this can’t be changed, and that this is a long standing tradition in the game, that is simply untrue. Moreover, it certainly can and will change if coaches see an incentive to do so or if they see a disincentive if they are not to do so.
Finally, when we think about the iconic collisions of the big, powerful players off the kick-off, more often than not they are for the injury done to the players, e.g. the knocking out of Paul Harrigan from contact with Mark Carroll, or the breaking of Sam Burgess’s jaw in the 2014 Grandfinal. These are the incidents we are actually trying to protect the players from.
And as this whole discussion shows, contrary to the rubbish some current and recent ex-players go on with, it is not the managed reduction of head knocks that has turned rugby league into touch football, it is the manic speed and the favouring of attack over defense in the rules and adjudication of those rules that has done it.
I would also scrap the top 8 which frankly is a joke that a team that has squeaked into the 8 by winning barely more than they lose has a chance of winning the Premiership and going down in history as the top team for that year. This is clearly all about commercialism – bums on seats, eyeballs on TV screens, and betting on more games – and it adds nothing to the game.
Opponents will say no team outside the top 4 has ever won the Premiership. That just proves the point! This year I don’t think anyone seriously gives any team outside the top 2 a chance. Personally I dislike my team scraping into the 8 because I know it is wasted emotion.
We should go back to a top 5 final series. If acceptable to the fans, instead of a single Grandfinal there could be a best of three series to determine the Premier. This would give at least one if not two extra games and it would be a more fitting way to determine the best team for the year.
The undeniable conclusion:
The strategy for playing Rugby League has always been simple: Send strong players up the middle to wear down the middle defenders and punch a hole through, as defenders tire, for the fast players to go through and score, or at least drawing in edge defenders so that the ball can then be sent wide where the spaces have become wider for attacking players to go through and score.
That has not changed.
What has changed is that the speed of the game has been continually increased over an almost 30 year period of intense commercialism to intentionally tilt the game in favour of attack over defense so that with the game now manically fast this strategy achieves success very early in most games leading to many tries being scored and frequent score blowouts even though a salary cap to even talent between clubs has also been in place.
As just one of very, very many examples, at the 5 minute mark of an NRL game the week before the 2024 finals, 4th v 7th, the attacking team progressed the length of the field in 7 tackles to score (zero tackle from 20m line, tackle reset on 3rd tackle). Then the opposition scored a few minutes later.
That is not the Rugby League I knew as a young person. That is not the game I loved.
For many of us who have observed as our game was changed to this style of play – essentially touch football with collisions and wrestling – this is not attractive or entertaining because the style of play is predictable, simple and boring, and contests are rarely genuine arm-wrestles as they once were when the forwards battled through a ‘softening up’ period for supremacy to lay a platform for a win.
Even fans who do not fully understand how this style of play has changed the game express their discontent with it in other ways, for example the way in which they complain that players don’t seem to care enough about the result and are all smiles talking with the entertainers (i.e. players) from the other team after the game.
Rugby league has always been a game where mates become enemies during the game. If the fans saw the players go through a ‘softening up’ period in an arm-wrestle style of game where attack is not greatly favoured over defense this feeling of the contest missing heart and meaning would not exist.
It’s not the ‘biff’ nor the ‘head-highs’ the fan wants back. It’s the genuine grind of a hard and tough-fought contest where their heroes are exhausted to the point of being totally spent at its end.
As the style of play has become homogenous, the style of player has become homogenous with most player positions interchangeable with just a few specialist positions in the ‘spine’.
Scoring even more tries than the opposition is often the name of the game as defense takes a back seat to attack. The top teams do understand that defense can still win matches so that the style of defense has changed radically in an attempt to counter the manic speed of attack spawning all sorts of strange and dangerous tackling techniques which increase the likelihood of soft tissue and skeletal injury as well as high impact head injuries.
Short-sighted administrators and ex-players profiting from the commercialism of the game seem unable to see past the revenue streams and their own high salaries to understand our once great game is being ruined.
Vulnerable players who have the potential to earn regular income massively beyond what they otherwise would, and that their non-Rugby League peers do, but for only a short period of their lives (getting shorter for many ‘types’ of players), have little choice but to go along with what the administrators want.
I say enough is enough.
It’s time to make Rugby League Great Again for the sake of genuine fans and the players before it is damaged beyond repair!
Gained value from these words and ideas? Consider supporting my work by contacting me on LinkedIn.
© Copyright Brett Edgerton 2024
MacroEdgo 
You must be logged in to post a comment.