Scheduling: Weird Science
And so to the aptly-named, oddly-scheduled “Rep Round” in which Australia plays New Zealand the same weekend NSW City plays Country in a selection trial for NSW to play State of Origin which was once a selection trial for Australia to play New Zealand but now isn’t. And for mine it’s all a bit weird.
Now, scheduling isn’t the sexiest topic and Schedulers aren’t awarded anything come the Dally Ms. And fair enough. We start handing out gongs about Schedulers we will indeed have gone to hell in a hand-basket.
But staging a Test match featuring, you know, Australia, several weeks before a three-match series between the two states of Australia that form the Test team of Australia … well. It’s quite silly.
I understand, I understand - it’s a long season and the demands upon the rugby league elite are high. These men earn their big-money. And Administrators are ever trying to find ways to place games and placate those most major of stakeholders, Channel Nine and Foxtel. And clubs don’t want their employees playing too much rugby league for someone else.
But, y’know … once upon a time there was the City-Country game from which the best players made their way into the NSW team. Queensland picked a team from Brisbane and the bush, and kicked back on their high verandahs. And then the two states played a three-match series from which the best players were picked for Australia. And that was considered quite an orthodox, upwardly-mobile and good system.
Today, not so much. In fact the orthodoxy is arse-about. And yet we, The People, continue to cop it sweet from Schedulers who put the Test match before the Origin series because that’s the only place They can think to put it.
But They are wrong. And not that They listen to me (well, maybe some do, The Minions, nodding along and thinking, yes, that makes a lick of sense) but when The Revolution comes, this is what should happen in terms of scheduling representative rugby league:
- Friday, March 13 - NRL Round 1.
- Wednesday, April 22 - City-Country. This means players would have six rounds to show off. Teams announced Sunday afternoon. Camp Monday, Tuesday. Wednesday play. Back with their clubs for that weekend’s footy. Tough schedule. Tough bikkies.
- Wednesday, May 6 - State of Origin 1.
- Wednesday, Jun 3 - State of Origin 2.
- Wednesday, July 1 - State of Origin 3.
- Wednesday, July 29 - Test match.
- Friday, July 31 - Rep players are bandaged up to get on with and NRL season keeps on keeping on.
- Sunday October 4, Grand Final
- From then … whatever. World Cup, Four Nations. Kangaroo Tour? Remember them? They were good.
Sound good? Then why not? Probably a few reasons.
Clubs would have the hump that their star players aren’t playing for them on four weekends instead of three. But clubs always have the hump about that. Or something. To club is to hump.
It would mean no international match nod to Anzac Day. But my, doesn’t rugby league already have a few nods to Anzac Day? There’s an entire round of eight games nodding to Anzac Day. Rugby league is a bobble-headed Elvis on your dashboard nodding to Anzac Day.
It would mean diluting talent in club footy on four weekends instead of three. And that’s a shame. But my … there’s no club footy on at all this weekend. It’s not like a glass half-full or half-empty situation, it’s just a glass. It’s not diluted, it’s filtered completely out. (Yes, apart from City-Country and the several Test matches, and they’ll be good, and we will say more about them in the following stanzas.)
The great Gods of Television might have their reasons why they’re okay with no club footy content this weekend. But you’d think they’d want content every weekend, as this Grand Master Plan allows, along with rep matches that are selection trials for ever-higher honours rather than the Test being a standalone Thing and subservient to State of Origin. Which for mine is arse-about.
Could be just me. Don’t reckon it is.
Martians v Crushers
The Test match? Should be good. Australia and New Zealand don’t play friendlies, our countries could play nude chess and there’d be blood-soaked violence. Maybe not blood-soaked violence. But they’d go at it, those nude chess-men and chess-women, and if that wouldn’t rate for the sport’s most major stakeholders, you’d give up spouting half-cocked ideas about scheduling.
But the game? Should be good.
The Kiwis hold no fear of the Kangaroos as they once did, indeed they’ve won the last two. But they haven’t won this funny little one-off April fixture since … wow, look at that - 1998. That’s like millennia ago. Still, a backline featuring Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, Manu Vatuvei, Kieran Foran and Shaun Johnson, and a bunch of big pigs in Jesse Bromwich, Sam Moa, Kevin Proctor, Greg Eastwood and one of my favourite martians, Martin “Kapow” Taupau, and yes … New Zealand will probably lose 30-12.
For even with Billy Slater out and Will Chambers in and Josh Dugan on a wing and James Tamou picked as if from Herbert Valley Rural Crushers, Australia has Greg Inglis, Cam Smith, Cooper Cronk and Johnathan Thurston in the 1, 9, 7 and 6. And those cats win more than Charlie Sheen.
Eyes of Thunder
Another fixture of interest this weekend is Tonga versus Samoa, in which great frothing legions of tribal-tattooed belters will go at each other for 80 brutal minutes. On the field the action will be big and fun, and there’ll be tongues out and eyes of thunder, and the ball carried in one giant mitt, while the other face-palms a player who’s launched himself like a Brahman bull at another Brahman bull. For whatever reason, Tongans and Samoans are most often big, fast, athletic humans perfectly suited to the physical combat that is rugby league. And their pre-match war dances are among the best things in sport. Go them.
Go Them 2
Many years ago The Voice of Rugby League, Ray “Rabbits” Warren, told me a story about commentating a midweek Panasonic Cup match between Balmain and Port Moresby under the lights of Leichhardt Oval. And not knowing any of the PNG players’ names much less how to pronounce them, he simply made them up.
So now, in your best Rabs’ voice, hear the man’s call in your head: “Magadow now, he passes to Mau-mau. Mau-mau to How-Tau. Oh! Big hit, Fagabagau! Penalty Port Moresby.” And so on and so on, earning rave reviews for his call from the director of sport the next day. “Incredible call, Rabs. Just incredible.”
Today, the Kumuls are made up mainly of players from PNG Hunters who play in the Queensland InTrust Cup, a grade below the NRL. You may have heard of Cowboys hooker Ray Thompson and their coach Mal Meninga. And that’s about it. How they’ll go is anyone’s guess. Their opponents, Fiji Bati (loosely “soldier bodyguards”), sport exciting outside backs Kevin Naiqama, Marika Koroibete and long-limbed wing man Eto Nabuli. In the forwards there’s Sharks belter Jayson Bukuya and Knights crazy man Korbin Sims. The rest are fringe NRL types, a prop from Wyong Roos and a centre from Wentworthville. The NRL’s press release advises that Tikio Koke, Osea Sadra and Timoci Ratulolo Dabea are from “Fiji”. Anyway. Should be a cracker, there’s something “exotic” about Fiji’s and PNG’s style of vigorous, loose, exciting and wholly unexpected rugby league. Go them, too.
Elsewhere…
… the Kiwi Ferns and Jillaroos will do battle before the men’s Test in Brisbane; NSW coach Laurie Daley will decide on the Blues halves in the City and Country Origin fixture in Wagga Wagga; and competitors in the Touch Football World Cup will run-and-dump in Coffs Harbour where it’s raining so much it’s like there’s something up with the climate.
