In todays australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23897153-2722,00.html
The code that is sitting on death row
Stuart Honeysett reports |
June 21, 2008
SENIOR rugby league figures have predicted the death of the game if it is forced into a Darwinian showdown with rival code rugby union.
That is the grim forecast less than a week after Australian Rugby Union boss John O'Neill said there would soon be no room for both in the sporting marketplace.
While NRL chief executive David Gallop remains optimistic, it is not a surprising summation of league's standing given the current problems afflicting the code.
The NRL will gather all of its club bosses together on Tuesday in Sydney to devise a long-term plan for the game.
Gallop himself had already forecast the extinction of some Sydney clubs unless new revenue streams are uncovered for the code.
The cause of the financial hardship is the NSW Government's decision to increase poker machine tax, which has cut into the grants that leagues clubs provide to help prop up football clubs.
Parramatta chief executive Denis Fitzgerald became the latest official yesterday to suggest the two codes should merge to repel the growing threat of AFL, while Brisbane coach Wayne Bennett revealed to The Australian in March his vision for a hybrid game at the junior level.
While a hybrid game sounds like a good solution in theory, in practice there is plenty of opposition to such a plan.
Former Australia coach Chris Anderson has told The Weekend Australian reunification - league began after breaking away from union in 1908 - could never work anywhere but Australia.
"I don't think any other country is going to accept it (a hybrid game)," Anderson said.
"I don't know if it's an argument about a hybrid game anymore. I think money in the end is going to dictate what survives. There will be a fair cross over and money is going to be the dictating factor.
"What you're looking at there is that our strength is their weakness and their strength is our weakness.
"We've got a good club set-up and they've got a pretty ordinary domestic set-up, but they've got a great international set-up." Having played and coached in premiership-winning league teams and also been at the helm of Welsh rugby union club Gwent Dragons, Anderson is well qualified to comment.
The veteran coach was critical of the NRL's direction during his stint as Sydney Roosters coach last year, and he fears that league will eventually be swallowed by union if the economic forecast for the code doesn't improve.
"If we can't keep the money up to our clubs then (the ARU) can start pinching good players and then one is going to become a second rate game," Anderson said.
"I think that's what will happen, that the league competition will become a union competition just like it is in New Zealand and England and France and South Africa and Argentina and Italy. That makes it a fairly strong international competition and we're struggling to have any international competition."
While Anderson was concerned about the long-term outlook for the NRL, he was under no illusion which game was the better product.
"League just relates well to TV and it's an easier game to follow," Anderson said.
"Rugby union is very much an insiders' game and it's very hard to grow because you need to understand it from within.
"Rugby league is transparent in its rules and the way it goes about its business and it evolved that way from union.
"The reason that it became professional meant it kept going in its evolvement. Union hasn't evolved a great deal."
Canberra chief executive Don Furner agreed. He said rugby union was still about 30 years behind league in terms of rule changes, pointing to areas like the ruck and defensive lines.
Like Anderson, he also fears for the future of the NRL if it does come down to one code making way for the other.
"Realistically, league would get swallowed by rugby union," Furner said.
"I don't know that France, New Zealand or England would need to merge.
"Union is becoming a lot better game to watch because it's more like league. It's closer to league than it's ever been."
While Anderson and Furner painted a gloomy future for the game, dual international Wendell Sailor believes the NRL could triumph in the long run - provided certain aspects of the game are changed.
Like Gallop, Sailor believes there are too many clubs in Sydney although the injured St George Illawarra winger wouldn't be drawn on which ones needed to go to ensure the code's survival.
He also said the league needed to relax its salary cap rules on third party arrangements so players wouldn't be tempted to switch codes.
At the moment, Dragons centre Mark Gasnier hasn't ruled out making a switch to play rugby in France while Bulldogs' backrower Sonny Bill Williams is also contemplating a rugby career overseas.
Gasnier and Williams have become disenchanted with the limited earning capacity in league, whereas rugby union has no restrictions on sponsorship dollars being used to help fatten up ARU contracts.
"What we have to do is if someone like Mark Gasnier or Sonny Bill Williams can make extra money or third party, deals, let them," Sailor said.
"If Sonny Bill Williams can attract a sponsor for an extra $100,000, well so be it. Don't put it under the salary cap.
"That's what they do in rugby union and that's why Lote Tuqiri and Matt Giteau get paid $1million. It's their brand and full credit to them.
"That's something that players should be able to capitalise on and that's where we fall down a little."
However, Sailor also said he believed league was a much tougher sport physically and mentally and if push came to shove then it would be the NRL which finished on top.
"I think rugby union is a more corporate game but rugby league is the people's game. And I think we can see that," Sailor said.
"It's a working class game and it will always survive."
HAS ANYBODY THOUGHT OF WHAT THE RULES OF THIS MERGED GAME WOULD BE
and if you have post a bit about it
how many players on the field 13 or 15 or ?
what would the rules be
would there still be a play the ball with a tackle count of 6 tackles or more or a no tackle count would there be lineouts and what other rules would there be.
