NRL 2020: Matty Johns abandons campaign to reduce interchange
Matty Johns has led the way on a rule change to save rugby league fans from ugly go-slow wrestling tactics. But 80 minutes of Parramatta dismantling the Broncos was enough to convince him to abandon the campaign.
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Matty Johns has made a stunning ‘time out’ call on his push to reduce the interchange, conceding the new six-to-go rule could be enough to save rugby league from ugly go-slow wrestling tactics.
After watching the frenetic pace of Parramatta’s thrilling victory over Brisbane, Johns led the charge of experts and footy starved fans delivering a huge thumbs to the changes.
“That’s the way the game is supposed to look,” Johns told The Saturday Telegraph.
Fellow Fox League legends Michael Ennis and Greg Alexander were equally impressed.
“It was everything I’d hoped it would be,” Ennis said.
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Alexander added: “The fact that the game didn’t have that many stoppages you don’t really notice the ref. It just kept flowing.”
And if it keeps up at the same pace Johns reckons it might be asking too much to reduce the interchange.
HOLDING FIRE
Johns has been calling for an interchange reduction for six years now.
But after just one game of watching the new six-to-go rule, he conceded: “It’s not as urgent now.”
Only recently Peter V’landys also jumped on board, revealing to The Telegraph that he would make it his mission to make the interchange reduction happen next year.
But as Johns explained: “My thoughts (previously) were we’ve got to do this. But watching the impact of the six-to-go, on the surface after one game, I would say that we no longer have that urgency that next year we have to reduce it.
“You have to wait for the weekend to play out, but the game accelerated … it is how the game is supposed to look.”
THE BIG WINNERS
Forget the bigger is better mentality that has dominated for so long. This new rule will really benefit the crafty hookers and halves as well as those players like Michael Jennings who can react to fatigue and plays off the cuff instead of being bogged down by boring structure.
“The sides with really good playmakers are really going to benefit because they make good decisions among all the madness,” Johns said.
“Mitchell Moses was worth his weight in gold. Even young Dylan Brown, they’re natural footballers.
“Sides who haven’t got those natural footballers in key positions, it is going to be hard for them.
“The game has become control obsessed.
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“Most of the coaches want more interchange because they don’t want tired players. The players, every time they get a penalty, they slow it to a standstill because they want control. Everyone walks to the scrum … but these rule changes will force the game back to being out of control.”
As a player Alexander was a freak when it came to his athletic ability and football instinct.
He conceded Thursday night was the type of game he would have loved to have played in.
“I spent all game looking at those tired A and B defenders,” Alexander explained.
“Anyone that looked a bit lazy getting back, or if the gap started to widen, that was all I would look for. And I think the six-to-go call will provide the halves that are ready to take advantage of any situation like that.”
SIN BIN NEXT STEP
All the commentators agreed more ball in play with less stoppages is going to result in less pressure on refs because there is not as much time to debate controversial calls.
Like Alexander said during the live telecast when asked what he thought of one ref, he didn’t even have time to think about it.
The remaining concern, like always, is what happens when coaches have more time to start thinking up sneaky ways to get that control back.
Even on Thursday night the longer the game went the more the teams were trying to jump the gun in defence and slow down the ruck.
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Johns said the solution was this simple: “Going forward how you fix that is that in this sped up game a bloke going to the sin bin for 10 minutes is catastrophic.
“But that is what they will have to do if they wave six – to-go and a team continually lay on, they are going to have to send one off. That just sends out a warning.”
Ennis said he wanted to wait until the round was complete before he starts doing cartwheels.
But the early signs?
“Very promising,” he said.
“I know the scoreline was 34-6 and you wouldn’t want to see that every week but it didn’t feel like that.
“It was a torrid, tiring, fast game of footy which I thought was super entertaining.”
Asked if it was as good as watching footy in the 1990s, John went one better: “My belief is that the player in 2020 is far superior to the player in the 80s and 90s.
“But the game needed to be fixed. (Thursday night) went a long way.
“We may have to tinker here and there.
“But the product was back to being like what it was supposed to look like.
“It was nice to sit there and watch the game that you love and go, ‘people will be into this’.”