The long and tortured wait for the NRL draw is finally after. It has been released – after much consternation and seemingly constipation – more than 45 days after the AFL released their’s for a competition that starts a month later. Better late than never. It seems that the NRL will actually stage matches in 2015.
The draw has been met with the typical criticism, some fair, some not.
The usual gibberish about fixture parity deserves to be thrown out with the stale bread and the off milk. Few competitions in the world have teams play everyone the same number of times home and away and the NRL is no different and nor should it be. Unless fans are happy to dump three or four teams or add another eight it simply won’t ever be the case that every team will play every other team at home and on the road.
The League should be applauded for expanding its Anzac Day card, staging five games over 10 hours in what will be a fiesta of footy.
Opening the season with a parade of blockbusters will put the League on the front foot from the start. Including Queensland in the season opener was a smart play while the first Friday features the Parramatta-Manly rivalry which will only be fuelled by the defection of Anthony Watmough to the Eels. Playing out epic feuds like the Roosters-Rabbits, Storm-Sea Eagles and Bulldogs-Eels in Round 2 brings the year to a boil early. The Grand Final replay on Good Friday could draw 60,000 and is an example of the type of scheduling the AFL has used to build tradition and subsequently crowd numbers while the NRL has continually missed the opportunities.
Centralising byes in the week before the three Origin contests, reducing the number of forced omissions from club football, will have the crowd-drawing talent on the field longer. The NRL has again failed to heed the lessons of yore though by scheduling quality rivalries like the Tigers-Rabbitohs, Storm-Eels and Sea Eagles-Sharks, as well as a Penrith-Souths match between two likely Top 4 teams, in matches sans Origin stars. There are too many other big matches wasted after Origin and during a time that is virtually a club football dead-zone.
The domestic season has not become any shorter and there will be no representative byes over the Origin weeks, keeping the players and HQ on a collision course that will be solved by money and end in nothing but a cacophony of barking and posturing.
Left-field ideas like introducing a knockout cup were, as usual, thrown in the too-hard basket.
The NRL has once again decided to let other codes get a free run of it. The Swans will open their season without any Rugby League in Sydney that day. It is the same deal when the Swans and Giants clash in mid-April at the SCG. The NRL isn’t lifting the foot off the throat of the AFL. It is letting a snake into the hen house.
There is no reason clubs should play some teams twice in a matter of weeks yet wait nearly all season until meeting other rivals for the first time.
The international game has again suffered. While it was wonderful to see a second Pacific Island Test added to the Anzac Test weekend, a proposed tour of Australia by Great Britain was scrapped, along with the dreams that the Ashes could return to the schedule for the first time in a long time.
In terms of draw difficulty – and fixture complications – it is Parramatta who have been dealt the short straw. On the back of losing reigning Dally M Medal winner Jarryd Hayne to a near-certain failed flirtation with the NFL and all things Americana, the Eels face the toughest draw as the only team to play 14 matches against teams that finished in the Top 8 last season (and are one of only four teams to play seven games against Top 4 sides). The draw is made more difficult by their decision to sell off three home games and play at ANZ, where they have an abhorrent record, and in Darwin, bringing a week of travel and break with routine. They are one of only three clubs who will play three matches without their Origin players though they will likely be advantaged in all three contests.
The Storm have been done absolutely no favours with five five-day turnarounds in the first 20 rounds to go with just eight seven-day-or-longer rests, both worst in the NRL and exacerbated by having arguably the third biggest travel toll after New Zealand and North Queensland. To put Melbourne’s turnaround disadvantage into context, just three other teams have four short turnarounds while every club has 11 or more long breaks between games with the exception of Melbourne and Canterbury (nine).
Ricky Stuart, a man who can pass the blame around like a bottle of tomato sauce at a BBQ, can certainly find no excuses in an exceedingly favourable draw that sees Canberra as the only club
without a five-day backup, the team with the fewest Top 8 games (10), 13 seven-day breaks (second most) and the benefit of getting Canterbury without their likely five- or six-strong Blues contingent in Round 11.
Newcastle and New Zealand were also big-time winners. Both play only five games against Top 4 teams from last year (fewest in the NRL) along with just 11 Top 8 matches and both get favourable matchups during Origin-affected weeks.
St George Illawarra, already in salary cap trouble and with a recruitment drive that can best be described as pungent, have done themselves no favours with their 12 home games spread over five home grounds. Souths will play home matches at four different venues but have had few issues making Perth and Cairns winning homes-away-from-home in recent years.
Defending minor premiers the Sydney Roosters have been handed the easiest slate of all Top 4 teams from last year, playing the fifth easiest draw overall with only two five-day turnarounds.
The NRL should have been more timely in releasing their draw. They should have paid greater heed to the international game, thought more laterally in dealing with the Origin problem, taken more care not to give the AFL any air and done more to ensure rivalries and blockbusters aren’t played sans stars.
But this draw is vastly improved on recent years. The fixed schedule is critical. Traditions are being built. Blockbusters are being respected. The game as a whole is generally being thought of when the slate is manufactured, something that certainly wasn’t the case under the previous administration.
And on that front, David Smith and his team are at least heading in the right direction.
