One thing no one wants to admit about hated NRL detail

It’s a detail in the game that players, coaches and fans alike all love to hate - but there’s also one thing no one will admit about it.

COMMENT

Would you cope with a try being awarded against your team despite more knock-ons in the lead-up than a round of AFL?

Would you accept one of your players getting floored in backplay and the perpetrator walking free because the touchie was too busy counting clouds and the only footage available was a wide angle shot from an adjacent suburb?

And would you be content waiting an hour to enjoy your side’s blockbuster Friday night match because it was delayed to accommodate Don Burke’s ficus?

If you answered ‘no’ to any of these questions, then stop pining for a return to the ‘good old days’ of rugby league before technology.

Why?

Because without technology, the game would be an analog wasteland further behind the times than Perth.

Referees chatting to the Bunker during play annoys players and fans, but maybe it makes for a better product. (Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

Bobbles would be rife, biting would be as common as backline shape, and referees would be guessing more often than not.

Worse still, telecasts would be barely watchable, not because picture resolution was like watercolour, but because they were only on AM radio.

Yep, technology has dragged rugby league in to the 21st century like Gorden Tallis collaring Brett Hodgson.

And while it hasn’t been a seamless journey, we need to consider it like fluid international eligibility rules and the Melbourne Storm:

It’s made the game better, even though we all grumble about it.

New technological innovations have always been met with suspicion by NRL fans, mainly because its rugby league and we’re suspect of any foreign entity being introduced to our game, even if it’s common sense.

Referees have more technology at their disposal than ever before - but some say it’s too much of a distraction. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

But even though it remains dogged by glitches like interpretation, red tape, and most notably, referees, the game would be a shambles without the Bunker.

Since its inception in 1996 as a set of garden lights on a piece of Home Hardware plywood, the Video Referee has evolved in to this centralised model for complex decisions and KFC promotion.

Yes, the Bunker can be so drearily slow at times that even if it was available to review Mark McGaw’s contentious try from the ‘87 Origin series, they’d still be looking at it.

But thanks to its state-of-the-art technology, the game’s only ‘howlers’ are now restricted to salty Dogs fans on Tuesday who’ve just learnt they’ve got Gerard Sutton again.

And while the Bunker is not immune from the occasional miscarriage of justice, it’s not the technology’s fault- you can blame human error.

The NRL Bunker continues to come under heavy scrutiny.

Put simply, fill any caravan with blokes and software and it wouldn’t matter if it was NASA, a human can still push the button to rule ‘no try’ and somehow order a pizza.

Yep, the Bunker has almost completely sanitised rugby league of its amateur hours, and best of all?

It pays for itself by annoying Ricky Stuart in to paying fines most weeks.

But it’s not just the referees benefiting from technology, what other aspects have exponentially improved our game?

The TV product has evolved immensely thanks to technology too, with the only archaic aspect remaining from the first game telecast in 1961 being Wayne Bennett.

With all matches now live across multiple platforms, none of us are watching ad-riddled replays anymore that kick-off at a heinous hour like it’s the 90s or Adelaide.

And thanks to concepts like 4K and Spidercam, the viewer is so deep inside the play they can witness a prop get smashed in such detail you can see his ribs splinter like a fence paling.

Would you nostalgic types prefer your punctured lungs in a fuzzy instant replay? Or are you a bunch of sickos?

But technology’s influence on rugby league doesn’t end at refs and television.

Of course, the players themselves have also benefited, with today’s highly-tuned fast-twitch beasts eons removed from the pre-digital days when the only bulk density on players was their chest hair.

This is all thanks to the advent of sports science, with fitness no longer about raw eggs and gout minimisation and load management about ensuring bladders are below eight pints of Reschs.

In summary, rugby league cannot live without technology, so it’s time to stow away your idealistic nostalgia for in-goal touchies and Channel Two.

Without it, not only would we have plenty more to complain about, we’d also have nowhere to post our dank Ashley Klein memes.

- Dane Eldridge is a warped cynic yearning for the glory days of rugby league, a time when the sponges were magic and the Mondays were mad. He’s never strapped on a boot in his life, and as such, should be taken with a grain of salt.

Originally published as One thing no one wants to admit about hated NRL detail