League in a sad, sad state
Posted On 23/11/2008
By Kevin Airs
Hi Rebecca...thanks for the inspiration.
Australia was comprehensively humiliated by New Zealand in the Rugby League World Cup this weekend.
In what can only be described as an embarrassing performance, the carefully constructed masquerade around rugby league was fractured.
The truth is that Australian rugby league is not up to scratch and not even those dozen or so players who represent Australia are good enough to compete on the international stage.
Scratch the surface of the sport at every level and you come up with a code that is in grave danger of going the same way as basketball did a decade ago.
The NRL has served to make the sport's problems even worse. The NRL have created more teams at a time when crowds are already thinning and they are looking to add even more.
Creating more teams will dilute the talent even more, annoying fans and ensuring the demise of the entire competition.
The existing sides have barely enough talent to field a good team.
Australia as a whole has no real league culture. Sure, there are pockets of the country that live and breathe it but it is not systemic. Unlike football, league does not have nationwide coaching structures in place that ensure the development of good players with finely honed skills.
It is no coincidence that the best Australian players leave the country and/or the code. The likes of Lote Tuqiri and Wendell Sailor fled to Union, knowing they would be taught technical skills that simply are not taught by league coaches.
Many more like Sonny Bill Williams are now not only switching to Union, but moving to Europe, leaving the NRL seriously depleted and lacking in any real talent.
One father I spoke to during the week will travel with his 16-year-old son to face a rape trial after following the example of some of his league idols.
His risk-taking style of foreplay was just what the selectors wanted in a young league star, he thought. These blokes obviously have no idea.
Eleven men and one woman are now on jury service to select him from amateur home video of his off-field prowess. They can't all be wrong.
Those young blokes travelling to Europe rarely return to the NRL. Only a handful of players in the domestic competition learned their trade overseas. They are home-grown and home-coached, which is why their skills are seriously lacking.
The capitulation by Australia against New Zealand showed us just how far behind the rest of the world the NRL clubs are. The sport must surely realise there are gaping holes in League coaching and management that must be addressed.
Switch from an NRL game over to any other code and the contrasts could not be more marked. The game played everywhere else is fast and skilful. By contrast, NRL reporters and commentators are stodgy and slow.
The reality is that, while the other sports produce dozens of international stars year after year, very few young Australian blokes emerge from local league competitions as international star players.
The NRL is not the only winter football code in Australia and it may be a good idea to move it, as crowd figures must surely be telling the sport's bosses that something is wrong.
Either the game does surgery on itself here or league faces a future that is very bleak indeed. This crop of Kangaroos don't look too flash.
The juggernaut that threatened to come from the last World Cup campaign has failed to materialise. League is in crisis and Australia's horrendous loss proved once and for all that something has to be done to fix it.
Thanks again Rebecca...it's almost like this wrote itself.
(And this is no more true than yours was [or is it?] - but at least I admit that.)
