Steve Mascord: International Comment.

[Jeff Card]

Rugby codes still look at each other across great divide
Sydney Morning Herald. www.smh.com.au
By Steve Mascord
November 19, 2003

It is just as well NRL chief executive David Gallop and ARL chairman Colin Love checked out of their Leeds hotel early on Sunday.

No, the players didn't go on the rampage in their absence. But the pair will have arrived home in time to see their game's fatal flaw exposed in the most gruesome fashion during the next week.

Andy Farrell's kick out on the full didn't just give Brett Kimmorley a crucial try at KC Stadium on Saturday night. Along with a woeful British set of six early in the second half, it has given rugby union one hell of a free kick, and the ball will be in the air all summer.

Gallop and Love can skite all they like about TV ratings and sponsorship and crowds and how they employ 200 or so full-time professional players more than the rah-rahs.

But here is the stark truth: international rugby league can only make money in Yorkshire and Lancashire, while international rugby union has dwarfed even Premier League soccer in the British media these past two weeks. Every time you turn on CNN, it's there.

Here is where we stand: rugby union is an international sport, rugby league is a club sport.

Both want what the other has, but who wants it more?

Will rugby union even bother with its proposed national club competition when they can make so much money out of marquee events like the RWC?

And will league bother getting serious about international development when the NRL and Super League Europe each draw nice sums from the pockets of Messrs Packer and Murdoch?

This Mungo never thought he'd say this but, perhaps the Wallabies should follow the lead of some island countries and start picking their team from both codes. A real Australian "rugby team".

The Kiwis have tried twice to select Henry Paul from union this year, after all.

What's the big deal? Andrew Johns plays for the Wallabies, a second-string league side goes to Bolton and Huddersfield and the games are sell-outs because the Poms think they can win.

On one side, let union give up on trying to run professional club competitions - their clubs are going broke trying anyway - and on the other, let the Lebanon Cedars and the US Tomahawks fade into trainspotting history.

Unfortunately, A.H. Baskiville, who took away the first touring league team in 1907 and died on the way home to New Zealand of a virus easily cured today, might as well have stayed home and lived to a ripe old age. Hard luck.

That's the way forward, as things stand.

Or Love and Gallop could give the International Federation some teeth, let it sell sponsorships and television rights and have some authority over the clubs.

More than one employee and an office would be a good start.

They could give salary cap exemptions for NRL clubs that have trainees from New Caledonia or France or Canada. They might even give us a World Cup every four years with qualifiers in between and make it compulsory for clubs to release players for three internationals a year, whether it's to play for Australia or Greece.

Oh, it would cause a lot of trouble, of course. Things are going swimmingly in Penrith and Bradford, after all.

Messrs Gallop and Love, enjoy the World Cup final.

Have a couple of beers, and give us your decision.

 

[ibeme]

Was Steve Mascord struggling for ideas? Did the SMH instruct him to write a pro-rugby column? This is a pathetic attempt at journalism, and destructive to the game that he's earnt his living out of as a journalist.

 

[roopy]

Was Steve Mascord struggling for ideas? Did the SMH instruct him to write a pro-rugby column? This is a pathetic attempt at journalism, and destructive to the game that he's earnt his living out of as a journalist.

I think it has to be said and has to be faced up to.
If we put a big effort into international league we could reap a huge reward, and if we don't we might as well forget about it.

The situation at the moment where we pay lip service to wanting the sport to grow, but do nothing about it, has no future - we either do it, or don't do it, and we must decide which way to go.

I think League could survive and even grow as purely a club sport, but Union has shown us there is big money in becoming an international game.

 

[Fampa]

I don't think it's pro-union. It's not as if he has made an unfounded conclusion that union has a better international game. But I do think league administrators need to make a decision as to whether they will support or shoot the struggling international league scene.

 

[ibeme]

Was Steve Mascord struggling for ideas? Did the SMH instruct him to write a pro-rugby column? This is a pathetic attempt at journalism, and destructive to the game that he's earnt his living out of as a journalist.

I think it has to be said and has to be faced up to.
If we put a big effort into international league we could reap a huge reward, and if we don't we might as well forget about it.

The situation at the moment where we pay lip service to wanting the sport to grow, but do nothing about it, has no future - we either do it, or don't do it, and we must decide which way to go.

I think League could survive and even grow as purely a club sport, but Union has shown us there is big money in becoming an international game.

I agree with your point, but my comments were more to do with his suggestion that rugby select league players from both codes to play for the wallabies, and league gets relegated to a second string side playing in Huddersfield. I probably took it out of context, but these comments riled me.

 

[ali]

I'm sure the first half of the column was just his frustrations coming out over a lack of insight and progress from our administrators. The bloke is like all of us, just wants to see International league do well and he makes some good points towards the end.

 

[zulu]

You can't deny Mascord. He's a very passionate league journo, probably the most passionate and dedicated there is. Those sorts of articles must be written so the jerks running our great game take more notice.

More power to him!

 

[roopy]

I think most of us are writing our thoughts in an international section of a rl message board because we can all see that the international game is where we need to expand.
If truth be told, we are making good progress over the last few years, but a bit of money would make the progress a lot quicker.

 

[Mr Angry]

Nobody is interested in a Hybrid game are they???

Take the best parts of each, drop the crap parts, and end up with a game people go to for both the skill and the atmosphere.

 

[expansionist]

Good on steve Mascord. It is unusual for him in that he is actually being quite pointed in his comments.
However, as usual, he has hit the nail on the head. There are 2 rugbys - one has an international board and the other effectively doesnt.
the final point is this - International RL can only ever be as professional as the board that runs it. At the moment the RLIF is a spineless group run by the NRL.

 

[Jeffles]

Constructive criticism from the greatest RL journo today.

An unusual approach that got some people offside. But they missed the point. Mascord is just urging the RLIF and the men behind it to pull the finger out. ood for him.

 

[dimitri]

great constructive criticism

we need to get the rlif into order

more than one full time employee

sell sponsorship etc etc

 

[Eskimo Sharkie]

True, but it needs to be put into context. The British media have been jumping on the bandwagon of the RWC because it is one of the few sports that England actually has a chance of winning. It is quite understandable that they'll go all out to fill their papers with content on the English team as it leads up to Saturday's RWC Final.

Britain, more specifically, England, have been crap in just about every sport for a long, long time. Even our bunch of nuffy soccer players could give them a thumping 3-1 on their home turf, prompting the England manager to make a full team change at half time just to make it look like they were treating it as little more than a practice match.

Their cricketers are rubbish and were bowled out by Sri Lanka earlier this week for a paltry 88 runs, with only two players making double figures. England ended up losing the match by 10 wickets after Sri Lanka managed to belt the required runs in less than 14 overs. Why would the press want to focus on such an embarassment?

I haven't seen any British papers, but I would lay money on Jody Morris' recent rape charges filling up the sports pages (he plays EPL for Leeds) just as much as the RWC. If England win on Saturday, the British papers will skite for as long as they can, before another soccer scandal hits the press, before fading to the obscurity that rugby union belongs. If Australia wins, there'll be a big hoo haa about how they were robbed by some shoddy refereeing and there will be massive media coverage on Sunday, but then it will be brushed under the carpet quicker than Adrian Morley being around for the 1st Test.

 

[suburbanknight]

True, but it needs to be put into context. The British media have been jumping on the bandwagon of the RWC because it is one of the few sports that England actually has a chance of winning. It is quite understandable that they'll go all out to fill their papers with content on the English team as it leads up to Saturday's RWC Final.

Erm, no. Our sports pages have been filled with the RWC because its a sport. And just to enlighten you douche-bag, the majority of our sports pages have still been filled with football over the past month. It wouldn’t matter if Jonny Wilkinson spanked his monkey and shot his load over the posts during a game at the Telstra, our papers would still be full of football.

Britain, more specifically, England, have been crap in just about every sport for a long, long time. Even our bunch of nuffy soccer players could give them a thumping 3-1 on their home turf, prompting the England manager to make a full team change at half time just to make it look like they were treating it as little more than a practice match.

Thats because it was a practise match and Ericsson normally does take half the team off at half time. Come on fella, you can do better than this.
And whilst we’re on the subject of football, just remind me……..what was the last world cup you qualified for? You cant even beat Uruguay and Iran over two legs to get to a finals. That’s after playing Samoa, Fiji and any other bunch of Polynesian’s with a pair of footy boots and some goalposts.

Their cricketers are rubbish and were bowled out by Sri Lanka earlier this week for a paltry 88 runs, with only two players making double figures. England ended up losing the match by 10 wickets after Sri Lanka managed to belt the required runs in less than 14 overs. Why would the press want to focus on such an embarassment?

Shock, horror. Our cricket team is shite. You don’t say. Our thrashing still got as much coverage as it normally does. You see, after years of abject failure we can cop a beating. The headlines in the papers included things like ' What a bunch of Lankas'. You see we can laugh at things, we Brits have whats called humour. Unlike you bread stealers who can still find something to moan about when winning and lets not even start on the humour by-passes!! Whinging poms? Do me a favour. You lot are the world champions at it.

I haven't seen any British papers, but I would lay money on Jody Morris' recent rape charges filling up the sports pages (he plays EPL for Leeds) just as much as the RWC.

Guess what douche-bag. Wrong again. Any alleged rape stories are in the news sections and the Morris story filled all of, half a page in all the papers. Our sports pages are full of sports. Including the RWC, as well as Euro qualifier news, cricket etc etc etc

If England win on Saturday, the British papers will blah blah f**king blah English are whingers blah blah blah.

Do us a favour twatto, put another record on.