First things first - last week's Knights game in the NRL season re-start. Everybody's been telling me about what a triumph it was: an incredible fight-back to an edge-of-your-seat draw against the Panthers. There's been all the ravings about the courage shown by the players and the valiant defence exhibited by both sides ...
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I've felt like I must've watched a different game, because that doesn't much resemble what I saw.
'Courageous?' Of course it's courageous. It's the NRL. Anybody lacing on the boots and running onto the park has courage! Oodles of it. They are brave to the extent that the point at which such bravery crosses over into madness is, often, fairly hard to define. Courageous? - it goes without saying.
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But the important point of difference for me, as opposed to (it seems) everybody else, is that I didn't see the game as a 'triumph of defence'. I saw two teams, neither of whom could score.
With Cleary out 'disgraced,' and Mitchell Pierce injured in the opening minutes, what we had were two teams leaderless, deprived of their play-makers, and not a player on either side with the enterprise required to fill those roles.
It's a danger, in the modern game, with players trained, robot-like, not to venture outside their brief, that you end up with a shortage of creative players able to think for themselves and step up, when circumstances require, into the shoes of a Cleary or Pierce.
It's a danger, in the modern game, with players trained, robot-like, not to venture outside their brief
Great defence? Maybe. But I didn't see much in the way of attack, and I think that this demonstration was something that both clubs should be doing some considerable reflection upon.
My personal theory is that, in this modern game, you need to score more than 20 points in order to win. (the only side to win with less than 20 scored last weekend was the Warriors, who beat the Dragons 18-nil) You have to be able to score. You just can't defend your way to victories.
Any of the serious attacking sides would have mopped up either Newcastle or Penrith on the weekend and the possibility must be looked at that the distribution of these clubs' capped player salaries may be worryingly weighted towards a couple of heavyweights, which if removed (due to whatever) leaves them without any attacking teeth. It's a situation that Newcastle should be looking into remedying.
Chris Randall made his debut with the Knights and, apparently, made 71 tackles. 71 tackles?! I wonder how they count and allocate these figures? How many were unassisted? Surely that's what a real tackle is. There tends to be four people involved in most tackles these days - do each of the four get a point on their tackle count, or do they each get a quarter? Is there a 'primary tackler? Does being first there count for anything? I'll have to look into all this.
I prefer Jack Gibson's point of view. 'I don't care how many tackles you make; my concern is the ones you miss'
COUNTRY WOES
At a time during my playing peak I made a decision to go to Sydney. I'd been offered a not inconsequential amount of money to play with the Western Suburbs Magpies and had decided to take it. All that remained was the signing of the contract.
My wife and I drove down to Lidcombe Oval to watch Wests play. The game was a ten all draw (I remember Wests scored two converted tries, and Balmain's ten points were made up of five goals from Keith 'Golden Boots' Barnes... now, if only I could remember where I left my glasses...) and afterwards we left to drive to West Leagues Club at Ashfield for me to sign the contract.
I couldn't stand the traffic. We crawled towards Ashfield, crawled, (in our first ever brand new car - a '66 Vauxhall Viva) and halfway there I turned to Peg and said, 'I can't do this. Imagine going to work in this every day? I don't want to live here.' When we eventually got to the leagues club I told the secretary, 'thanks for your offer, but I'm going to stay with Maitland.'
From a modern perspective that seems like madness, But the thing is - and this is the point to the remembrance - at the time it wasn't.
The move from Country to City: you didn't need to leap at that leap in those days. I didn't need it. I was playing for one of the great Maitland sides. (I didn't know it at the time but we were about to play in five consecutive premiership grand finals!) You could be picked from Maitland to play for Newcastle; from there for Country, and from there NSW.
You could be chosen for Australia while playing the majority of your football for Maitland - as did Panno.
Country football was strong enough that you didn't have to, necessarily, head to Sydney in order to get anywhere in the game.
From a Maitland base I played, either with or against, the likes of Gasnier, Raper, Langlands, Fulton, Beetson, both of the Cootes, Freddy Jones, Billy Smith ...
The local comp may have been of the bush, but it was absolutely not a 'bush league.'
And, of immense importance, the process also worked in reverse: The best of the Sydney competitors, with their playing days coming to an end, would move to the bush.
Arthur Summons went to Wagga to captain-coach the Wagga Magpies. Locally we had Peter Dimond coming to South Newcastle; Johnny Raper came to Wests, Kel O'Shea to Maitland and Chicka Moore to Macquarie. Great players would leave the city, take a contract with a country club, set up a business (often a pub), and they would play with, coach and nourish the local leagues.
As a staunch Country Rugby Leaguer, the current state of Country Rugby League bothers me. It is, to all intents and purposes, dead. Which leads to the bigger question: can the NRL survive without it? It seems to be. Sort of. But not really.
What is the nature of the player feed system and what is the relationship of that with the spectators?
Do spectators really just want the spectacle? How many of the current Newcastle Knights are locals; players that grew up playing Rugby League for Newcastle feeder clubs. One? Two?
What are the supporters barracking for? The colours red and blue?
It seems to me to be an unacknowledged problem. And it's a big one. Right up there with the concussions.