Rugby League really gives me the shits

[Hugh Jarse]

To continue on the theme of the international bankruptcy of Fivekick.

This web site is a classic in hype and could almost qualify as out-Americanising the Yanks in terms of shamelessness hi-jacking of the concept of the title "World". http://www.rlfowc2013.com/

Festival of World Cups - indeed.

Police RL World Cup had 3 teams participate: England, Australia and Fiji

Armed Forced RL World Cup had 4 teams: Australia, UK, NZ and Serbia

Wheelchair RL World Cup had 6 teams compete: England, France, Australia, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Student RL World Cup saw a total of 8 teams participate: Australia, Scotland, NZ, Russia, England, Wales, SAF, and Ireland.

Women's World Cup saw 4 teams compete: NZ, Aust, Eng and France.

They say that the World is a small place. In Rugby League, it certainly is. A sum total of 10 different National teams took part in the "Festival of World Cups".
I reckon even Sydney Junior Rugby Union would be able to organise a Festival of that magnitude without too much difficulty.

 

[AdelaideRugby84]

I live in England and can tell you that League is basically dead up here. League is often cited as being popular in "northern England" but it isn't, football/soccer is king in northern England, and outside of wigan, widnes and err hull, league has no presence, local rugby in rural northern England is union, in the towns it is soccer/football (aprt from wigan widnes and err hull).

League fans always bang on and on about crowd figures, bagging union for no reason, and the state of origin, which is the pinnacle of league as a global game.

Rugby in Europe is massive, and is comfortably the second biggest sport in England (Cricket being the biggest summer sport, of course), Scotland, the biggest sport in Wales (where it is followed with the passion matching NZ), is arguably bigger than soccer in France (domestic club games sometimes get 80,000), Ireland and growing well in Italy (Italy rugby cool par excellence these days, 70-80,000 for internationals, oh yes what a great place to watch rugby too).

I've met so many arrogant and bitter league fans it is unbelievable, but outside of NSW and Qld League is a complete joke, it has no presence.

People just don't like league, simple end of.

You're forgetting the city of Leeds there, Badgers.

I've got quite a few mates from Leeds due to being a Leeds United football fan and part of the NSW Leeds members club and they all follow the Rhinos, they don't mention Carnegie at all.

I would be comfortable in saying that league is still popular in Leeds.

 

[It is what it is]

Want to upset a rugby league fan?
Just drop into the conversation at some point: "Oh, you're talking about the local game, sorry I was talking about Rugby, the global game"....they love it.

 

[terry j]

they can talk?

 

[AdelaideRugby84]

they can talk?

I grew up as a league fan and I'm starting to wonder that myself.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Fivekick prides itself on appealing to the lowest common denominator.

Much of the NRL marketing, and media fanboy columns and comment are based on that concept.

Vince McMahon from the WWF would be proud of what Mungodom has achieved. Plastic sport that draws the punters in, where they don't need to think too much.

 

[AdelaideRugby84]

Fivekick prides itself on appealing to the lowest common denominator.

Much of the NRL marketing, and media fanboy columns and comment are based on that concept.

Vince McMahon from the WWF would be proud of what Mungodom has achieved. Plastic sport that draws the punters in, where they don't need to think too much.

WWF? That was 12 years ago HJ.

Unless McMahon has got a job at the World Wildlife Fund.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Ha ha. Shows how much attention I pay to that professional "wrestling" circus.
Google tells me that it is WWE. I was close, up one row and across one and I would have nailed it first time.

 

[boyo]

WWF? That was 12 years ago HJ.

Unless McMahon has got a job at the World Wildlife Fund.

Research would tell you that WWF used to be the acronym for World Wrestling Federation.

12 years ago or yesterday: the same principle is applicable.

 

[AdelaideRugby84]

Research would tell you that WWF used to be the acronym for World Wrestling Federation.

12 years ago or yesterday: the same principle is applicable.

I know that Boyo.

It was the acronym for both the World Wrestling Federation and the World Wildlife Fund.

Until of course as we know the animal people took the wrestling body to court over the name and the wrestling body became World Wrestling Entertainment.

 

[mxyzptlk]

I was trying to explain to someone how I knew so much about the current day trivia of mungoball when I dont consciously watch it.
My theory is that you dont need to concentrate to pick up what's going on. You can have it on in the background, glance at the screen every so often and you'll basically pick up the essential points in any mungoball game.
If you watch union in the background you miss most of the good stuff. It takes some attention span and a bit of concentration.
If my theory is right then its the reason league is more popular.

That's exactly what I told my wife. I'll have an occasional league game on in the background if it's the only thing on. She's crazy for rugby, but has yet to get through a half of league without falling asleep/grabbing a book/iPad-ing and saying she's just not into it. I just say neither am I, yet here we are...

 

[mxyzptlk]

That the game is so 'stoppy' is only worsened by how often each tackle occurs after, at most a pass, there is very little flow to the game. The ratio of passes to tackles (or stops if we are honest) would struggle to get above one.

This got me interested -- how many passes tend to happen between tackles in league?

So I took the hit, watched the Rabbitos play the Warriors, and counted how many passes were made between tackles. This is probably less than scientific, and I know I missed a few things here and there. I only counted the play-the-ball phases; I didn't count passes off restarts, since they weren't part of the tackle count. The number of passes off restarts didn't significantly vary (generally between 0 and 2 passes).

At times there were penalties that restarted the tackle count for the attacking team, which meant that team might get 7 or 9 play-the-ball phases, but that didn't significantly change the pattern. The same goes for a team regathering their own kick after sixth phase.

-- And that pattern was 0 to 1 pass on the first and second phase, 2 to 3 passes on the third phase, sometimes 2 passes on the fourth phase, but most often after third phase the pass count dropped back down to 0 to 1. There were outliers of more than 3, mainly from the Warriors: in the first half the Warriors got up to three passes in a phase 5 times, and in successive sets of phases, they had one phase in each set of 5 passes, 6 passes, 7 passes, then 4 passes.

The Bunnies only got up to 3 passes four times (three times at the end of the game, when they'd already won it), but otherwise only went past 2 passes two other times in the game -- once for 4, and once for 5 in the first half. Otherwise they almost never varied from 0 to 1 pass on first or second phase, and no more than 2 passes on third or fourth phase.

I won't attach the whole chart unless someone's actually really interested in it, but I'll post what some of the sets of phases looked like for each half.

A couple of considerations: I'm not sure if Super League in England is all that different. I peeked in on a Wigan vs London Broncos game, which was the wrong one to look at -- Wigan put over 70 points on London, who never got past nil. At one point I think I counted 8 passes in a phase.

I also didn't do this (yet) for a rugby game, but it did get me interested. I did some rough counts in a Lions game and some Super Rugby games, but it makes a huge difference when there's a contest for the ball on the floor. The kicking game also makes a difference on how play unfolds -- kicking for territory, strategic kicking, drawing penalties to keep the scoreboard ticking over. In rugby, there are just more options available in a phase or set of phases than in league.

Score
Bunnies 30 - Warriors 13

1st Half
Bunnies: 11 sets of phases; Warriors: 12 sets of phases

2nd Half
Bunnies: 14 sets of phases; Warriors: 14 sets of phases (3 were 1 phase then a turn-over)

(edit: attached a better grid of the phases)

 

[Sully]

Talk about taking one for the team!

 

[terry j]

This got me interested -- how many passes tend to happen between tackles in league?

I did the same thing recently because as mentioned it is one of the things you cannot but help notice, a direct clue to the tedium and one dimensionality of the game (as it is played at least, the rules do not dictate HOW you must play within them).

http://www.greenandgoldrugby.com/co...who-watched-soo-last-night.13184/#post-514626

I could not help but notice (what I call) the pass/tackle ratio. One pass, one tackle. That was it. Then three players laying on him for (what I estimated as an average) of three seconds or so. Nothing too scientific there, 'one thousand, two thousand' etc.

Then one pass, another ten metre run, wash and repeat.

Out of curiosity (let's face it, the game itself provided no interest so I had to make something up) I just kept counting the pass tackle ratio. I'd eat my hat if it were drastically different than 90% of 'one pass, one tackle' (which included one pass then kick)

The HIGHEST number of passes per tackle I counted was seven (IIRC), that happened once in the latter part of the first half.

A few fives, tad more fours with the threes and twos being the majority of the remaining 'ball in play' incidents, with as mentioned probably 90% being one pass.

A very significant part of the game, when you take into account how long it takes for the tackle to be made and then play the ball, is a complete STOP. When it IS in play, 90% of it is one bloke running straight into another (or usually three) other blokes.

That's it.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

My pet dislike is the use of the term tackle in Greco-Roman Rugby.

Particularly galling is when one of the Greco-Roman Rugby parents claim that their sport teaches Rugby players how to tackle.

One bloke running into 3 blokes who proceed to cuddle the ball carrier to the ground, primarily due to the effects of gravity and sheer weight of numbers, does not constitute a tackle in my book.

One on One tackle opportunities do not occur all that often in Fivekick.
On the rather rare occasion that this happens, there seems to be a significantly large % that are unsuccessful, to such an extent that IMHO tackling in the pure sense of the word seems to be an optional activity in that game.

 

[mxyzptlk]

Out of curiosity (let's face it, the game itself provided no interest so I had to make something up) I just kept counting the pass tackle ratio. I'd eat my hat if it were drastically different than 90% of 'one pass, one tackle' (which included one pass then kick)

So I ran the numbers on the game I watched/ tallied, and you're not far off.

The Bunnies just ran off the play-the-ball (no pass) about 12% of the time; threw one pass 67% of the time, and threw 2 passes 15% of the time -- for a grand total of 0-2 passes in 94% of their play-the-ball phases. Add the 3.4% for three passes in a phase, and that gets you up to 0-3 passes for 98.4% of their phases.

The Warriors just ran off the play-the-ball 2.8% of the time; threw one pass 57.6% of the time, and threw 2 passes 25.2% of the time -- for a grand total of 0-2 passes in 85.6% of their play-the-ball phases. Add the 7.2% for 3 passes in a phase, and that gets you up to 0-3 passes for 92.8% of their phases. The Warriors get some credit (for what it's worth) for taking the occasional chance on 4, 5, 6 and even 7 passes (five phases with 4 passes, and one phase each with 5-7 passes).

Since the Warriors didn't just run into a hug after each play-the-ball, and they varied their passing game, they were definitely the more interesting team to watch (even though they lost this one). Shaun Johnson is doing crazy things like putting the ball into competition in the air by kicking on 3rd, 4th or 5th phase sometimes. The way he's looking for a little creativity within the limited boundaries of the game is almost rugby-like (almost, not quite -- too limited).

I did a little off-the-cuff tallying while my wife caught up on the Sharks-Kings game, and it really varies and is hard to compare because the ruck adds a whole different dimension. You might get a pick-and-go or one or two passes if the ruck was flooded, but if not, it wasn't uncommon to see 3 to even 7 passes. The ruck is a huge point of difference, though; there's competition for the ball there, and it adds an entirely different dimension to the game that league lacks. I hear league commentators and pundits talking about the ruck in their game, but I'm really not sure what they're talking about -- wasn't the ruck eliminated with the play-the-ball?

Kicking is another huge point of difference. Aerial battles can get tedious in rugby if the kicking is pointless, but it can be used strategically to pin opponents down at one spot in the field, and that combined with the competition on the floor and the unlimited phase play means just getting the ball back isn't always a great thing. You'll see parallels between the two kicking games -- chip kicks, grubbers, up-and-unders, etc. But in league, those more tactical kicks are taken within sniffing distance of the try line, where they might come from anywhere in rugby depending on field position and the defensive structure.

I like judging some of these things from a neophyte's perspective. Put it this way: The more my wife learns about rugby, the more interested she gets when she watches a game. The more she learns about league, the less interested she is about that game. Everything's so prescribed in league that it lacks the drama that draws her into rugby games in the first place.

 

[mxyzptlk]

My pet dislike is the use of the term tackle in Greco-Roman Rugby.

Here's one of the reasons I called it Greco-Roman Rugby in the first place:

I'm from the states and didn't have rugby where I grew up, but I was a wrestler (Olympic style, not with make-up and chairs). Before the 2011 World Cup, I saw a clip about how the English brought in a former Olympic freestyle wrestler to work with them. He had them in a wrestling room and was taking them through double-leg takedown technique -- which is really similar to how a good rugby tackle works. They also worked on some pummeling and grappling positions that mirrored what they might face in a ruck or maul situation.

Cut to the warm-up of a league game (I think this was a Super League game), and the majority of forwards were standing up and pummeling with each other -- where they're chest-to-chest and trying to slam their arms down inside the other guy's arms. That's a greco-roman drill. Now it's one thing if you use the pummeling to set a takedown (tackle) or a throw, but that's not what it seems to be used for in league; it's used to slow the ball-carrier down while two others add to the effects of gravity, as you put it (well-put). It's almost all upper-body, and doesn't even work as a choke tackle since they rarely go for the ball.

That's really too bad. You hear a lot about league being tough, but it seems the toughness is relegated to the biff and blind-side shoulder charges, taking a guy out when they're not expecting it, not to actual play and face-to-face competition. But I'm not sure what really counts for tough in league. I've heard Gorden Tallis talk about how when he thought about converting to rugby, the rucks really put him off -- he thought they were too dangerous, and couldn't imagine anyone letting their kid do that (he was relating this to Horwill stepping on Alun Wyn Jones' head in the Lions game). So rucks are too dangerous, but unforeseen right hooks that aren't part of play are fine? The Raging Bull can't take a ruck? It's so confusing.

But as far as pummeling goes, it's not like you couldn't pummel to throw someone in rugby -- as long as it's done right and you didn't spike the guy into the ground. During the World Cup, a Russian halfback, I think Alexander Yanyushkin, lifted a guy and executed a decent body lock, complete with back arch, and brought the guy down without taking him over the top and driving his head into the pitch. If it were a match, he'd have gotten at least 3 points, maybe 4 for exposing his own back, and since he dropped him to his back possibly a touch-fall -- match over. (I've coached that throw to kids, so at least I was impressed. But then again he was Russian -- wrestling might be the national sport there, everybody does it.) Maybe if league started bringing in throws it'd be more interesting. Especially if they scored a point for a throw.

 

[GPStyle]

I believe Rugby League players at the moment are far ahead of the Union crowd in skill level. I know this will ruffle a few feathers but recently i have found rugby union so boring its going back to the days of being called rugby Yawnion!! The elite players from both codes seem to be on different skill levels!

 

[Braveheart81]

Cool story bro.

 

[GPStyle]

Cool story bro.

You know what else is a cool story? The amount of average and sometimes below average players in League who have gone to union and excelled?