No Punching?

Dave Smith and the ARLC have blundered big time and it threatens to derail the jewel in the crown of domestic sport in Australia. The annual three game State of Origin series has grown into such a monster that the NRL season proper is effectively put on hold for six weeks and a recent ARLC directive threatens the contest to its gladiatorial core. 

After a fiery Game 1 Smith and the Commission handed down a blanket ruling that any punch thrown (not necessarily landed) would result in the sin binning of the offending player. At Rugby League Central in Moore Park much pocket pissing and back slapping was had at the ‘decisive’ action Smith had taken to rub out violence in our game.

In reality the decision opened a Pandora’s Box that is indicative of a wider problem emerging in the game. Remember for a moment that David Gallop, the former NRL Chief Executive, was sacked halfway through last season with the criticism that he was ‘too reactionary’. According to Chairman John Grant the game had outgrown Gallop’s reactionary ways and needed a new leader. After over six months of siphoning of resumes and interviews the job was finally offered to and accepted by Dave Smith, a Welsh banking executive. Whether you agree with the move or not is not important, just remember it was to move away from reactionary administration.

The timeline of events since the sacking of Gallop has seen, firstly a redrawing of shoulder charge punishments on the eve of the 2012 finals series. A mere weeks out from the business end of the season the CEO-less ARLC administration handed out a directive that the NRL was ‘not a gladiatorial sport’ and all shoulder charge offences would be subject to harsher penalties at the match review committee. Alarms bells were already ringing at the willingness to shift the goalposts mid contest in reaction of course to Greg Inglis’ hit on Dean Young. Young by the way played for St George Illawarra less than a week later.

During the off season the ARLC took this a step further completely banning shoulder charges. Despite the fact Rugby league has survived and thrived off the physical battle for over 100 years administrators saw fit to ban perfectly legal tackles because of the increased risk that those previously legal tackles could go wrong. The correct measure I feel would have been to strengthen the punishments for shoulder charges gone wrong but leave the risk and reward equation up to coaches and players to weigh up. At the end of the day a good hit should be a good hit and a dangerous tackle is a dangerous tackle. It’s really that simple isn’t it?

The 2013 season however has been truly alarming. It seems the mid 2012 season shoulder charge directive is just a toe in the water for what Rugby League fans can expect in regards to mid season rule changes. Firstly we had the obstruction rule changed over the off season and abandoned after only a few weeks. I realise I’m in the minority here but I was enjoying seeing how coaches and players would cope with the rule change hoping we would see some different attacking patterns and a willingness to move away from the tiresome sweeper play employed by every club from first to last. Instead we had whingeing coach after whingeing coach getting their own way and a return to monotonous attacking footy.

Then we had the shoulder charge rule re-drawn again to include incidental head clashes while attempting a shoulder charge and finally the dreadful response to the Gallen-Myles stoush in Origin 1. The directive handed down was misguided at best and plain stupid to most people.

Stevie Wonder could see it would blow up in our faces and take away from the very nature of our sport. If you think back to the first shoulder charge amendment last season the writing was on the wall. ‘Rugby League is ‘not a gladiatorial sport’ we were told. Just as a Labor leadership spill on origin evening demonstrated their disconnect with voters this directive shows the gap between fand and administrators. The gross over reaction could have been avoided if Daniel Anderson had come out and said that Gallen should have been sin-binned. It’s as simple as that. That way trent Merrin and perhaps Hodges would have been the only players sin binned in Game 2.

I know people say we need to think about the kids and parents but the facts are people love it. It is a significant strength of our game and particularly Origin. If little Johnny doesn’t know the difference between the TV and his own life, I lay the blame squarely at his parents and not Paul Gallen. And for the children stopped from playing league or pulled from sides in response, I say to parents’ good luck. Good luck stopping the kid you’ve taken away from Rugby League from loving the sport. He’ll grow up one day to become a lifelong fan and eventually probably play the sport and no amount of do-gooders will ever stop that.

The worst look for our game wasn’t the Game 1 fight but the AFL shirt grabbing and pandering that took place during the flashpoints of Game 2. Nobody wants to watch Origin and see grown men pulling each other’s shirts. Rugby League is not AFL or soccer and it doesn’t need to be. The game has its own strengths and marketing points and should never weaken those too become more like a rival code.

Here’s hoping for a final mid season directive from the new reactionary administration cleaning up a mess of their own creation.