Mascord refused to watch ANZAC test

[RoosTah]

Anyone else see this?

Why I’m brushing the rugby league Test
Last year your correspondent wrote a reasonably well-received column on The Roar about not going to the grand final for the first time since 1985. I didn’t pick a good one to miss, did I? The greatest of all time, in fact.

But the story was about the changing face of the media, about how being at the game is now of dubious benefit to sportswriters given the expansion of television coverage and contraction of access by non-rights holders to athletes.

Despite missing the greatest grand final of all time by blogging from an office, I think I’ll be doing the same for the State of Origin series this year. Put simply, you can do a better job.

Tonight, I will not be at Hunter Stadium for the Australia-New Zealand Test. I had a gig – sideline eye for Triple M – a parking pass and media accreditation.

But the reasons behind my absence tonight have nothing to do with the changing face of the media. I won’t be at an office blogging. I’ll be at Iron Maiden, actually.
(Warning: this is where I start to sound middle-aged and cranky. Change channels now if you wish.)

I began to regret committing to run the sideline when Semi Radradra was picked. You’ve read enough about that.

To my way of thinking, Australian sports fans have not lost interest in the national rugby league team because they are no longer number one.

They’ve lost interest because in rugby league, Australia has almost no-one to play against. Fans have gravitated to sports with a better international scene.

The way to ‘make Test football great again’ (from an Australian perspective) is to fast-track other countries to competitiveness, not to assemble a team that will whoop the Kiwis’ asses.

The NRL’s complete rejection of the notion they are responsible for any national team bar the Australians leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The Evil That Men Do, indeed. But still, I was committed to the sideline gig.

The final straw was the succession of clubs, starting with Brisbane, then the Warriors followed by others, pulling players out of this weekend’s Test matches.

Here’s the thing: perhaps the Warriors trio shouldn’t be playing tonight. But ‘in my day’ (you have just witnessed the first time I have ever typed those words in that order; won’t be the last), national federations sat above clubs and clubs asked them to do things, they didn’t tell them.

Andrew McFadden would have said “we have some issues regarding those players we will be speaking the NZRL about. What happens, we’ll know when their team is read out”.

But those days, when clubs respected the authority of representative teams, are Caught Somewhere In Time. Kevin Naiqama passed a Fiji team medical and was withdrawn by Wests Tigers anyway.

We are now out in the open about something that has been happening for a decade: clubs can pull players out of internationals for any reason, or no reason.

Therefore, internationals involving full-time pros are not ‘Tests’ of anything except the sweet talking skills of the respective team managements.

The Australian team has cache, connections, power and money so they have a full strength team. The less of these qualities you have, the weaker your side is.

That’s not a Brave New World that particularly interests me. We achieved so much at the 2013 World Cup in terms of engagement, competitiveness and the strength of the teams. Now they look like Wasted Years.

So I’ve bailed on what Test football has become – I decided to Run To The Hills.

http://www.theroar.com.au/2016/05/06/why-im-brushing-the-rugby-league-test/

Thoughts?

 

[gUt]

Hard to argue

 

[Burns]

Comes across as a bit of a tantrum. Mascord can be a bit hit and miss.

Yes, there are some pretty glaring problems with this weeks Rep Round, but if you support the development/growth of the game, why not support it? There are enough detractors of international league as it is.

 

[morningstar]

Normally like Steve but wish he would let the Warriors thing go. Been whinging about it all week even on NRL360 after the story had come out it was a joint Warriors/NZRL desicion for them to be excluded.

McFadden, Doyle & NZRL were rightly or wrongly trying to protect the players and keep their indescretions out if the media. It backfired and it got out anyway, but that hasn't suited his NRL CEO overrules national body rhetoric.

 

[siv]

The issue is that we took 3 steps backwards

And may people have noticed

Now he is just saying what a lot are thinking

Its a small public protest against the Big 3

 

[DlEHARD]

Unfortunately, he made the right call.

 

[strong_latte]

I reckon Mascord just doesn't really get it to be honest... Someone else posted an article in reply to Mascord that I reckon is way more on the money:
http://www.theroar.com.au/2016/05/06/will-watching-anzac-test/

 

[East Coast Tiger]

He's right as usual. I missed the first 50 minutes and didn't care. That would not have happened a few years ago. Between the farcical rules, boring Qld/Melbourne style of football, weak NZ side and the general disrespect shown to IRL by the NRL I lost interest.

As for not blaming the NRL, that's a joke. This shit about them being brilliant at running a club comp and therefore they shouldn't be expected to fix IRL is wrong on both counts. Yes the RFL have been just as incompetent but that only makes the NRL all the more responsible for stepping up. Instead they've done the opposite. These are the two biggest organisations in the game and are therefore the two most responsible for growing and developing the sport and they've both failed. But the NRL is much bigger, more responsible and more of a failure.

 

[RoosTah]

I reckon Mascord just doesn't really get it to be honest... Someone else posted an article in reply to Mascord that I reckon is way more on the money:
http://www.theroar.com.au/2016/05/06/will-watching-anzac-test/

Interesting. I missed that some how.

He makes a few good points, and he's definitely right about the comparison with Henry Speight and Semi - almost like for like.

The point about the RFL and London too sounds pretty apt - you really have to wonder what has happened in the UK for League to be such an absolute after thought.

 

[johnny plath]

So a lot of hand wringing and whinging, yet does anyone even know whether or not the RLIF has bothered to contact the ARLC to try to address all of the withdrawals. I can see as much as the next person that the NRL clubs seem to do what they want, but if no-one ie RILF is challenging them then nothing will change. This seems to be an issue where leadership needs to be shown, not blind eyes turned…. To me its clear that there is a slow refocus on internationals, and slowly but surely RLIF seem to be getting shit together, but there has to be support from NRL in terms of support. Surely if communications are open between Nigel Wood and John Grant steps could be taken to fix the problem. Blah blah blah NRL has power and money, but I find it hard to believe that a domestic competition would have the right to snub sanctioned international matches. I don’t really know what the leverage is, but if the RLIF/ARLC imposed sanctions/fines/suspensions whatever on clubs, attitudes would improve. It never seemed to be a problem back in the day for clubs to release players, so what has changed. NRL licences are issued with all sorts of conditions that have to be met by clubs, I don’t know why adhering to international responsibility isn’t one of them. To me, for what, it’s worth,its up to the RLIF to make its case to the ARL/NRL that they are members of the RLIF, and as such have to hold up there end of the bargain.

 

[deluded pom?]

Interesting. I missed that some how.

He makes a few good points, and he's definitely right about the comparison with Henry Speight and Semi - almost like for like.

The point about the RFL and London too sounds pretty apt - you really have to wonder what has happened in the UK for League to be such an absolute after thought.

He's wrong about Speight and Radradra. Two wrongs don't make a right. So if England had been ultra competitive for the last 45 years the writer of that article thinks international RL would get the support from Australia it needs and deserves? No. All the emphasis would be on beating each other and using anyone and anything to achieve that goal. The residency rule would have gone into overdrive. Like Mascord I too am becoming totally disillusioned with international RL. Instead of building the sport internationally the big 3 just seem to do the opposite, whatever can keep them at the top ad infinitum. The clubs generally don't want their players playing international matches if they can help it but rarely step on the Kangaroos toes when they wouldn't think twice about preventing one of their players being selected to play for one of the lesser nations. The international debate is all about lip service. I'll attend next year's WC, probably as a swansong of my interest in watching Australia, England and New Zealand step on everyone else to be top of the heap.

 

[RoosTah]

He's wrong about Speight and Radradra. Two wrongs don't make a right. So if England had been ultra competitive for the last 45 years the writer of that article thinks international RL would get the support from Australia it needs and deserves? No. All the emphasis would be on beating each other and using anyone and anything to achieve that goal. The residency rule would have gone into overdrive. Like Mascord I too am becoming totally disillusioned with international RL. Instead of building the sport internationally the big 3 just seem to do the opposite, whatever can keep them at the top ad infinitum. The clubs generally don't want their players playing international matches if they can help it but rarely step on the Kangaroos toes when they wouldn't think twice about preventing one of their players being selected to play for one of the lesser nations. The international debate is all about lip service. I'll attend next year's WC, probably as a swansong of my interest in watching Australia, England and New Zealand step on everyone else to be top of the heap.

I get the feeling the point about Radradra and Speight was just that you can't expect these guys to not want to play for the countries that are at the top of the pecking order; simple market dynamics just make that a fact of life.

Also, to be fair to the "big three" at least in the case of the NRL they do actually do a bit to involve the region; Fiji and Christchurch have been admitted to the NSW Cup and PNG are already playing in the Qld cup. So they've clearly identified them as growth regions.

The guy is definitely right about England though... I'd never realised that all those London teams were off-shoots of soccer clubs, sponsored by Brisbane, or run by Union clubs like Harlequins. Just madness not to have a clear and centrally managed strategy for a market that massive.

Can you imagine if the AFL were running League in the UK for the past 20 years? There's not a chance in hell they wouldn't have at least 2 London clubs that were sustainable and well supported. Heck, they'd probably have them in towns like Birmingham.

The entire RFL ought to be sacked for that failure.

 

[deluded pom?]

Fulham were run as an offshoot of the soccer team. Once they had outlived their purpose they were dropped.but then were a bona fide rugby league club. They became London Crusaders and were then taken over by the Brisbane Broncos who quickly realised the enormity of the task and passed the club on to Richard Branson. He too bailed out after the club moved to the Stoop and took the Harlequins name. As far as I'm aware they were never owned by Harlequins but were tenants at the stadium. The shared name was for marketing purposes. Of course more could and should have been done but as the Broncos found out London isn't an easy place to crack, even harder for some sport that has a low national profile and generally gets negative national media coverage. But for the SL war do you believe there would be a NRL club in Melbourne today? Who would have thrown the millions needed at Melbourne to make them viable? Where's the NRL presence in Adelaide or Perth? Why no second Melbourne team let alone a second Brisbane team? Glass houses. This isn't a defence of the RFL just an opinion that all the game's ills aren't their fault either.

 

[deluded pom?]

I get the feeling the point about Radradra and Speight was just that you can't expect these guys to not want to play for the countries that are at the top of the pecking order; simple market dynamics just make that a fact of life.

Does that mean all soccer players in the world should aspire to play for Germany?

 

[roughyedspud]

he's not right about the RFL though...league one in the uk is geographically spread throughout the uk,they get castigated for admitting clubs not from the heartlands...we have 2 french clubs in our system,2 welsh clubs..soon to be a friggin canadian club...

the fact that clubs like the london broncos did'nt kick on isn't the RFLs fault...ffs they protected london for 20 years.....and "all these london teams" you mean one london team..its not like theres been several...its ONE


PS...we are in birmingham..we'll next door in coventry..theres gonna be a 4 nations game there the end of they year..


but i would'nt expect you to know that cos you get your info from mystery mascord and take it as gospel...seriously i wish he'd stick to following shitty bands cos he does more harm than good "reporting" on rugby league

 

[East Coast Tiger]

Mascord didn't say anything about the rfl.

Tards who can't even read bitching about what others write..

 

[deluded pom?]

Mascord didn't say anything about the rfl.

Tards who can't even read bitching about what others write..

Maybe some 'tards need to read post #13 before shooting their mouth off.

 

[East Coast Tiger]

Precisely.

 

[RoosTah]

but i would'nt expect you to know that cos you get your info from mystery mascord and take it as gospel...seriously i wish he'd stick to following shitty bands cos he does more harm than good "reporting" on rugby league

lol actually Mascord didn't make that argument - it was that other random that latte posted the link to that was going on about how geniused the RFL must be not to have got their shit together in London.

Also, whilst it's great that League one is more wide spread, it's a bit of a worry that you've have 4 clubs win pretty well all the premierships in the last 30 odd years and that the talent is so thin at the elite level that you have gone down to 12 clubs.

 

[roughyedspud]

and the NRL won't expand to 18 cos of the lack of talent and the NRL is a near $2biliion business......so which league is being mismanaged??