The NRL has chosen to look backwards in planning ahead – and you can hardly blame them for that. Not to hang their 2016 advertising campaign on the 2015 grand final would have been as foolish as finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, overturning it and strolling off with the empty pot whilst blessing your luck. It was that kind of game; rugby league at its athletic, theatrical best. Critics of league who pause to wonder just how this game has survived as long as it has need look no further for the answer.
The glow of the Cowboys’ last-gasp win lingers still, enhancing a sense of optimism ahead of the coming season, which commences on Thursday night. And this is how it should be. If there’s any time for optimism it is now, before a game has been won or, more pertinently, lost. Every team shares the competition lead, and everything is possible. Well, except a Gold Coast premiership, obviously.
Rugby league being rugby league, however, it hasn’t been an entirely uneventful off-season (and there’s no need here to rehash the Mitchell Pearce ruff-housing video shocker or Shaun Kenny-Dowall’s domestic violence trial). We saw the NRL CEO, Dave Smith, step down in late October leaving a seat that is still vacant, with the league’s head of football, Todd Greenberg, seen as the likeliest candidate to fill it. Bidding us adieu, too, were chief operating officer, Suzanne Young, and head of strategy, Shane Richardson. Their positions are also unfilled as yet, which is a reminder to us all to get our CVs up to date.
The fans, of course, don’t care about who fills the suits in head office. They care about the game itself, and on that front the NRL is hoping to improve the “product” in 2016 with a number of initiatives: a reduction in the interchange from 10 to eight, a shot clock on scrums and goal-line dropouts, and the establishment of the video referee’s much-heralded central command centre; aka “the bunker”.
Each of these, Greenberg has said, has been put in place, at least in part, to speed up the game. While this makes nobody worry that we’ll see fewer advertisements for fried chicken during free-to-air coverage, it does come with the byproduct of enhancing the influence of fatigue. A nod – like the moustache – to the retro appeal of the 70s and 80s.
The idea, Greenburg floated, is that the shorter stoppages and reduced interchange will, as the game wears on, slow down the giants; enough, at least, to allow more mischief to be made by the game’s smaller, nippier players (who the NRL don’t want to see become extinct, for it’s in the game’s best interests that league caters to a wide range of body types).
Whether an eight-man interchange is enough to accomplish a notable change in the game, however, remains to be seen, and the players themselves are uncertain if it will succeed or not. If it doesn’t, the NRL might contemplate reducing the interchange further, though it’s a near certainty we’ll never return to the days of pre-1960s league (which would make a player welfare officer hyperventilate) when there were no interchanges, or even replacements. Back then, if you were selfish or negligent enough to have your leg or jaw broken you’d be leaving your team a man down if you decided to go off.
The video bunker is arguably the most promising of the new initiatives – and sub-editors, for one, will enjoy the opportunity to make gags about fall-out shelters and panic rooms when things go wrong. Even taking into account the NRL media’s inclination to whip up controversial refereeing decisions into towering soufflés of scandal, the NRL officials do have a knack of stealing the attention with some truly baffling decision-making. The kind that used to turn Geoff Toovey into a pulsating tomato.
Perhaps the best thing about the new bunker (“the most state-of-the-art video referral technology in Australian sport”, says Greenberg) is that it gives the video referees independence from the broadcasters, who have enough say in the running of the game as it is. Previously, video referees have relied on broadcasters for replays and the speed at which they were played. Not any more. With extra camera angles at their disposal, video referees will now run the show and, in a reversal of usual practice, the camera angles and replays they select, as well as their accompanying explanations, will be beamed to broadcasters and then on to viewers.
This should ensure more transparency in the decision-making process. However, human interpretation will always be required, and thus controversy cannot ever be eliminated. Was that ball really grounded properly? Wasn’t that the tiniest of knock-ons in the lead up to that try? Wasn’t that last pass forward? Oh, that’s right, despite the bunker, the video referee will still not be used to rule on forward passes – despite them seeing it, seemingly, from even more angles than usual.
In terms of the action on the field there’s plenty to look forward to – and not just in the premiership. Origin will demand our attention as always, while in October and November we’ll be treated to the Four Nations tournament in England and Scotland. Australia will be desperate to reclaim the title from a recently dominant New Zealand, while England will have Wayne Bennett in their rooms, which certainly won’t do their chances any harm. In a plus for the international game, the Australian team still looks caught between generational change and for that reason they remain vulnerable.
In the NRL, where the athleticism of the players continues to reach new heights, it’s as hard as usual to pick a winner with any confidence. And that’s to the competition’s credit. Yes, some teams have advantages others don’t despite the so-called levelling effect of the salary cap, but there are no gimme games in the NRL. On any given day anyone can beat anyone, and they often do.
That said, last year’s grand finalists look good for another run into October. The Cowboys’ premiership-winning team is intact and Johnathan Thurston is in his pomp, while Justin Hodges is the only notable omission from the Broncos. His replacement, James Roberts, is defensively inferior (as is a brick wall compared to Hodges), but he has lightening in his boots. As defensively-minded as Wayne Bennett teams tend to be, the Broncos have points in them.
Outside of these two teams there are a number of others on a similar level. The New Zealand Warriors look lively, having added Issac Luke and Roger Tuivasa-Sheck (replacing Sam Tomkins) to their already decent roster. But the Warriors often look good on paper only to be picked up by the winds of reality and blown through the cyclone fencing and into the ditch of perpetual disappointment. Where Cronulla always make room for them.
To be fair, the Sharks look like top-four potential this year, and I’d bracket them with the Warriors, Melbourne Storm and Manly. What with losing Tuivasa-Sheck, James Maloney and Michael Jennings, the Roosters look to be outside of this grouping, as do the Rabbitohs who, despite Sam Burgess’ return, may struggle without Issac Luke, Glenn Stewart, Chris McQueen and Dylan Walker. They and the Roosters could find themselves fighting for seventh and eighth alongside Canberra, Penrith, Canterbury and Parramatta, with St George Illawarra a chance too if their key players stay healthy.
About the only side I’d be confident of discounting from finals contention are the Gold Coast Titans who, regrettably, are struggling at the moment. They go into the season with a skinny roster and, much worse, the knowledge that outsiders in Bear suits are circling the club, which has been under the ownership of the NRL since the Titans were placed under voluntary administration last year.
But like the other 15 teams in the competition the Titans will be telling themselves that the future is what they make of it on the field. In that respect, the future begins on Thursday night.
