I predominantly watch NH RL (St Helens) so I wasn’t that aware of how inhibited/safe/low risk the game in Australia is. The RLWC final I was expecting a lot more from the Aussies than an 80 minute arm wrestle. Melbourne being so succesful, and doing so employing wrestling tactics, I found quite shocking to be honest. A few who do watch more NRL than me have said super league is more attractive to watch (albeit lower in quality).
Given how much apathy there now is in Australia to RU due to the game itself being more attritional, less expansive/open, I’m suprised this hasn’t hit RL in Aus (if the wrestling aspect of the game really has had such an affect as has been stated).
Mate, you're a soccer fan, so why is this remotely surprising to you? You're in love with a game that is famous for being the only major sport in the world that regularly ends with no scoring and no result... soccer fans seem content to watch 0-0 draws for weeks on end and never question whether the rules might need tweaking. Why? Incumbency and tribalism; it's nothing more than the power of group identity and it's as simple as that.
If you'd watched Super Rugby this year, you'd know it's the the most open and expressive football the code has displayed in its history. Yet the NRL still shits all over Super Rugby from a great height despite having more penalties and less tries than Rugby - a reversal of the traditional cliches of the codes.
To my mind you are continually misdiagnosing the problems of all football codes - fluidity and openness are a factor in some sense perhaps, but the most valuable football competition on the planet is and remains the NFL. The Americans are aware of other sports, but the NFL is woven into the American identity and crosses ethnic bounds more than any other sport there (it shits all over the NBA for ratings as the NBA has a much more urban demographic). THAT's why it's dominant and ironically that's why it's suffered recently; because it has inadvertently waded into broader political identity debates.
Sure, participation will be affected by concerned mothers, but ironically from a business and vierership standpoint, the increasing visibility of soft, weak sports like soccer that typify our cultural shift toward risk aversion and over-protectiveness are arguably driving the popularity of more brutal and kinetic sports like the UFC, which is booming despite being about as barbaric as it gets. Sure, the barriers to entry are massive, but that adds to its appeal, as young men instinctively admire toughness, and toughness just isn't something people associate naturally with sports like soccer - least of all in countries like Australia, the US etc.
Getting back to Rugby - collisions and a lack of openness aren't what hurt it; exclusivity in access via an excessive focus on private schools, limiting viewer access to Pay TV (which only has 30% penetration in Aus) and spreading super rugby across 3 time zones is what has killed the sport.
The problems with Rugby in Australia are in short a classic example of corporate mismanagement driven by nepotism, complacency and incompetence in the midst of a fast evolving and increasingly competitive football market place. Ironically however, it's been the AFL that has hurt the code the most - not soccer, which from a viewership standpoint actually competes with Cricket in Australia far more than it does the big football codes.
This, incidentally, is also why the A-League has suffered. The chose to play in summer to avoid head on competition with far more 3 established football codes, but then Cricket decided to expand its footprint with the BBL and that competition has become the A-League killer in the summer over the past few years.
It turns out that from a viewership standpoint, most Australians would much rather tune into the fast paced and high octane thrills of BBL, than the mostly low scoring, low quality A-League. Both competitions are quite new and lack history, but Cricket has an established relationship with the Australian identity, and the competition actually attracts world class talent, whilst the A-League has none.