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Rugby League really gives me the shits

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Pfitzy

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
Anyway back to the loigue.

You will NEVER get any league fan to admit their game has too many kicks, stoppages, or poor defensive alignment. They simply can't think like that because they've been conditioned out of it.

When I confronted the Wogdogs fan at work about the low score, he immediately launched into "oh but it was such a BRUTAL game and the defence was awesome! Guys were getting up from injury making tackles something something" aaaaaaand then Pfitzy tuned out for the required thirty seconds while the Phil Gould quotes came spewing out.

Once he finished polishing the turd, I probed further, talking about the generally low scores in the NRL this season but he was adamant that wasn't the case.

And if you ever say "Union" they launch into a tirade about kicking regardless of games like last night. They simply don't understand a game where you aren't guaranteed possession from fullback, and can't contest for the ball. They can't contemplate not lining up man on man for every structured event that constitutes a "Tackle", out how Union teams try to break down those alignments with continuity of play.

That try of Hayne's was a fucking joke from the two replays I've seen on the news. What pisspoor tackling, let alone alignment. And so many other tries in the NRL happen when a winger doesn't trust his inside man and leaves a hole. If they were all that good at tackling, why do they suck so hard at it within ten metres of their line?

But no - say that to a league fan and it's always " the attacking side were just too good! "
 
mxyzptlk

mxyzptlk

Colin Windon (37)
Pfitzy said:
Anyway back to the loigue.

You will NEVER get any league fan to admit their game has too many kicks, stoppages, or poor defensive alignment. They simply can't think like that because they've been conditioned out of it. [...] But no - say that to a league fan and it's always " the attacking side were just too good! "
Click to expand...

These are the kind of arguments I think more fixtures of that hybrid game will help solve. I've only seen highlights of one, and it was a juniors game, but it seems as they progress, the basics in league like good tackling technique become less important than flair or something.

To be fair, I don't see as much of that stuff in England's Super League -- the loose tackles, poor defense, etc. But there's so much of a disparity between the solid teams and the lesser teams in their competition that having more sound fundamentals doesn't seem to make much of a difference.

I think one of the more offensive things I've heard came from Zorba Peters, calling either Benn Robinson or Tatatu Polota-Nau "that fat little bloke" and using that to launch into a diatribe about how the NRL had a better product because at least they were in shape. Triple M has recently jumped onto the same sort of bandwagon making cracks about Matt Dunning being in better shape since he quite union.

Which makes me do two things:
  1. Shake my head at their ignorance of the game... but not knowing something hasn't seemed to stop them from speaking with authority about it, and
  2. Look forward to the eventual hybrid game where league props have to pack down in a scrum against union props and they learn why they're as large as they are.
College and pro gridiron linemen are also pretty large. I've worked with NCAA football players, most of whom ended up going pro, and the linemen have to eat almost like sumo wrestlers to keep their mass up -- five, six, seven times a day. And they also almost always shrink down when they stop playing. They don't shrink down because they were in worse shape when they were playing NCAA and NFL football.
 
Braveheart81

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
Whilst I'm glad NSW has finally won an Origin series, that was an absolutely torrid game.



Sent from my HTC_PN071 using Tapatalk
 
Pfitzy

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
According to FoxSport stats, there were 43 kicks in SOO last night.

Can anyone point me to kick stats for the Test versus France?
 
Scoey

Scoey

Tony Shaw (54)
Pfitzy said:
According to FoxSport stats, there were 43 kicks in SOO last night.

Can anyone point me to kick stats for the Test versus France?
Click to expand...

From ESPN Statsguru (no idea how reliable) there were 63 (37 AUS 26 FRA) Kicks from hand in the Wallabies vs France in Melb.

42 in the 1st Test. 19 AUS 23 FRA.
 
Pfitzy

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
Scoey said:
From ESPN Statsguru (no idea how reliable) there were 63 (37 AUS 26 FRA) Kicks from hand in the Wallabies vs France in Melb.
Click to expand...


That sounds about right. Several forcings back sessions in Melbourne.

In League I reckon about 90% of "completed sets" end up with a kick. I assume they count a try scored before the 6th tackle as a complete set too, hence the 10%. Based on that, and given there are about 25-30 completed sets per half as a minimum, you could expect a league game to average 40-50 kicks per game on average I reckon.
 
terry j

terry j

Ron Walden (29)
yeah, for all of the 'rugby is too boring because they kick too much' it is then a bit ridiculous that the rules of league 'demand' a kick every four tackles or so (often it is on the fourth, perhaps because it confuses the opposition as they expect it on the fifth...the strategy in league is very high brow ya know).

If they don't kick we have the farce of lamely handing the ball to the opposition..'here ya go, your turn'. Is there any other game in existence that just gives the ball to the opposition?

How many times is the ball actually not played properly? Has to be at least a dozen times a game. Just step over it rather than use your foot. I mean for a game that has very little skills required yet they cannot even get that basic right, sigh.
 
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