9s...what did you learn?

[siv]

Crowds are down

It needs to move to new venues

It does need to rotate into Sydney every few years with 9 teams located there

Not sure if Qld is a good venue due to summer heat

But its the sort of event you take to expansion sites in southern Australia and NZ

 

[Perth Red]

What was the crowd Sat/Sun
what was Tv audience?

 

[T-Boon]

Its a great format just don't have the NRL clubs involved ruining it with their usual halfarsery. Make it like its own code like Rugby Sevens.

 

[DiegoNT]

What was the crowd Sat/Sun
what was Tv audience?

183k on Saturday
160k saturday

Far less then your average boring old regular nrl game gets on fox

 

[POPEYE]

Needs not to have provisional rules placed on participants, the 'designated high paid player' input rule was made f**king laughable . . . when Hayne and others made token appearances with a fake bandage adding insult.

Jarryd, JReynolds and co took the place of someone who really wanted to play . . . typical NRL

 

[Panther91-03]

Are you 3. Panther?

Nope. I predicted that anything can happen

 

[steggz]

An enjoyable weekend for what it is.

Needs a rotating venue system.

Too many people trying to say that certain players will have a great NRL season based on a mini-format.

 

[POPEYE]

An enjoyable weekend for what it is.

Needs a rotating venue system.

Too many people trying to say that certain players will have a great NRL season based on a mini-format.

Your mob will be living in hope like a few others . . . at least its a start

 

[Nice Beaver]

Crowds are down

It needs to move to new venues

It does need to rotate into Sydney every few years with 9 teams located there

Not sure if Qld is a good venue due to summer heat

But its the sort of event you take to expansion sites in southern Australia and NZ

Could have sworn Sydney has been in the news every day the past fortnight for its incredibly hot weather.....

 

[AJB1102]

So much this.
Its actually boring seeing so many tries. Most were far to easy anyway. I know people have a problem with so called 'boring' football played in an origin or finals match, but that tension created by 1 team throwing everything at their opposition and the other team fighting tooth and nail to hold on just can't be beat. It makes those long range tries and freakish plays even better when tries are hard to come by and earnt. 9s is fun but boring. 'Oh wow another length of the field try, that's the 4th one I've seen this hour'.

The best 9s game I've seen was the final a few years ago between Souths and Sharks. Its also the closest I've seen a 9s game play out like an NRL game. Not as memorable though cause I'm a bit scratchy on the details but Souths on the back of Reynolds' kicking controlled field position, and Sharks defended something like 6 back-to-back sets and it went to over time.

RL at its best is a perfect balance of attack and defense. Good defense encourages better attack and vice versa.

Best player in the game in JT. Best forward in the game in JT. Hayne is probably the biggest name in the game or very close to it plus all these other stars, and the MVP ends up being a young kid. Last years MVP was uncapped and in this years team of the tournament did not feature one current international from aus/nz or origin rep.

Without taking into account that a lot of the 'stars' probably didn't play a whole lot that is still pretty telling.

I don't think being good at 80min RL means you'll be good or better at 9s. I remember Blake Ayshford killing it one year and picking up player of the tournament too I think. Enough said.

Could have sworn Sydney has been in the news every day the past fortnight for its incredibly hot weather.....

Yep. February in Australia = f**ken hot or f**ken wet & hot so ya can't really factor the weather into it apart from ruling out NT/Nth.QLD and considering Tasmania.

 

[T-Boon]

One good thing about the Nines is you don't hear any complaining about the refs because there is so much play making going on. The refs call the occasional penalty but you tend to forget that because "whoa! look out someone just did something"...
It highlights the big problem of too much of not much going on in an NRL match which means 1. refs almost feel obliged to be difference makers (to generate some field position) and 2. you feaster over ref decisions for a long time because nothing much is going to happen for a while.

 

[POPEYE]

The best 9s game I've seen was the final a few years ago between Souths and Sharks. Its also the closest I've seen a 9s game play out like an NRL game. Not as memorable though cause I'm a bit scratchy on the details but Souths on the back of Reynolds' kicking controlled field position, and Sharks defended something like 6 back-to-back sets and it went to over time.

RL at its best is a perfect balance of attack and defense. Good defense encourages better attack and vice versa.



Without taking into account that a lot of the 'stars' probably didn't play a whole lot that is still pretty telling.

I don't think being good at 80min RL means you'll be good or better at 9s. I remember Blake Ayshford killing it one year and picking up player of the tournament too I think. Enough said.



Yep. February in Australia = f**ken hot or f**ken wet & hot so ya can't really factor the weather into it apart from ruling out NT/Nth.QLD and considering Tasmania.

RL needs more Phil Blake, any side show that finds more of him I'm all for

 

[Bobby DIGital]

I learned that Jordan Kahu is an even bigger bum than I thought he was.

 

[Captain Apollo]

I learned that Jordan Kahu is an even bigger bum than I thought he was.

....and you can add he doesn't know how to read a clock

 

[Haffa]

1. Nines is a decent format to watch live. Fantastic long weekend in a City I probably wouldn't have visited otherwise.
2. Jordan Kahu is a decent comedian.

 

[God-King Dean]

Says someone with an NFL avatar

And your hero loved it

 

[PARRA_FAN]

One good thing about the Nines is you don't hear any complaining about the refs because there is so much play making going on. The refs call the occasional penalty but you tend to forget that because "whoa! look out someone just did something"...
It highlights the big problem of too much of not much going on in an NRL match which means 1. refs almost feel obliged to be difference makers (to generate some field position) and 2. you feaster over ref decisions for a long time because nothing much is going to happen for a while.

Lets hope some of those quick decisions are used more in the NRL, the referee's trusted the touchies in those calls and I swear all of them were correct.

 

[Snoop]

This is why I say go to 11 aside. More space = more passing and running and less wrestling so more one on one. With 11 men you could play over 80 minutes. So long as you had quarter time breaks as well.

And then you could have breaks when the ball is turned over too. And unlimited interchange so you could even have specialised groups like attacking teams and defensive teams. And imagine the space, the one on ones, if we allowed forward passes. Yes, this 11 a side thing has merit.

 

[The Engineers Room]

I was enjoying it and thought the refs were doing well until they allowed Penrith to hold Parramatta down after every half break they made.

They got away with it in that game.

 

[T-Boon]

And then you could have breaks when the ball is turned over too. And unlimited interchange so you could even have specialised groups like attacking teams and defensive teams. And imagine the space, the one on ones, if we allowed forward passes. Yes, this 11 a side thing has merit.

Obviously you are being sarcastic. But in all honesty I'd rather the game be more like American Football than the snooze fest Union (which we don't have the guts to move away from ((see scrums etc)).