NRL 2021: ARL Commissioner Wayne Pearce defends six-again rule amid NRL blowouts
Fans rallied against wrestling for more than a decade, and now they’re up in arms over the six-again rule. Which would you prefer, PAUL CRAWLEY asks.
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Answer a simple question before we get to Wayne Pearce’s phone call this week.
What game of footy would you rather watch: A match dominated by go-slow wrestling tactics, or players like Tommy Trbojevic and Kalyn Ponga being allowed to do their thing?
Let’s expand on that a little.
Would you pay to go to a game that encourages young guns like Reece Walsh and Sam Walker to shine, playing with an instinctive off-the-cuff creativity that is starting to resemble what I remember growing up watching back in the 1980s and 90s?
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Or would you rather see three or four players piling over each other to slow down the play-the-ball for anything up to 10 or 12 seconds, so they can reset their defensive line and give the attacking team little option but to go back at them with some mind-numbingly boring block plays?
I ask this because ARL Commissioner Pearce called this week to have his say as this debate about the increasing number of blowout scorelines gains momentum.
In case you are not aware, the former Balmain great is the head of the NRL’s innovation team that signed off on the six-again rule change last year.
But in the space of 12 months we’ve gone from cheering the concept that all-but eliminated go-slow tactics overnight, to criticising and blaming it almost solely for these lopsided contests.
Last weekend we had a phenomenal 290 points scored by the winning teams, and only 76 by the losers.
Overall, the number of games decided by more than 25 points has skyrocketed from 15.6 per cent in 2019 to 33.8 per cent this season.
It’s creating this theory that the six-again rule has made the game a worse spectacle than it was before the Covid shutdown.
I struggle to comprehend just how short some people’s memories are.
Pearce is not the sort of bloke who usually gets caught up in the NRL soap opera.
But right now, all he is asking is for fans and everyone associated with the game to take a deep breath, and show some patience to give these changing times a chance to evolve.
“There is a great quote from (ice hockey legend) Wayne Gretzky that has been around for years,” Pearce said.
“He said, ‘You don’t skate to where the puck is, you skate to where the puck is going to be. That is how you win games’.”
And as Pearce explained, the slowing down of the ruck with the wrestle “basically became the epicentre of coach and player focus (for a decade or more).
“That meant set plays dominated the game and the instinctive off-the-cuff sort of football was bordering on extinction.
“And from my personal point of view, the tradition of rugby league was built on the principles of courage, fatigue, skill, speed, that sort of stuff, and that was being squeezed out of the game.”
For years Matty Johns led the charge on calls for an interchange reduction as a way to bring back fatigue and make the game less predictable.
But Matty could never find anyone at the NRL strong enough to take a stand.
I clearly remember going to a game in Gosford in 2019 to watch South Sydney play Melbourne and Rabbitohs fans sat in the stands booing.
Afterwards then Souths boss Shane Richardson came out and started an extraordinary public stoush with the Storm that ultimately brought this all bubbling to the surface, with Richardson calling for a fan poll to decide if ugly wrestling tactics should be booted out of the NRL.
Yet, after the Covid return, it was the Storm who were involved in what many rated the greatest club game ever played in that epic contest against the Roosters last July.
And since the Storm have led the way at being able to adapt to the changes.
The irony is the villains have become the heroes, with the Storm still top of the ladder but wouldn’t you rather the style of footy they are playing now then previously?
There is no doubt the new style and speed has amplified the gap between the top sides and those struggling.
But is this necessarily a bad thing?
As a frustrated Rabbitohs coach Wayne Bennett pointed out last weekend, some of these struggling clubs need to look in the mirror.
People talk about how the game doesn’t have enough talent to move forward with expansion in 2023.
I’d argue the opposite, that what we lack is enough good coaching and systems to allow young players to reach their true potential.
Last weekend Jake Clifford’s performance for Newcastle against his old club would have left Cowboys fans angry and confused, asking how they let Clifford go to bring in Tom Dearden.
But is it really Dearden’s fault his footy has so far not developed to where his potential suggested it would go when he was a teenager talked up as ‘the next big thing’?
You could put together a crack team of former Tigers now killing it at other clubs.
And are the rules responsible for what’s happened at the Broncos?
When Anthony Seibold took over from Bennett, most had Brisbane to finish top four in 2019. Andrew Johns ranked them premiership favourites because they just had so much exciting talent.
Yet two-and-a-half years down the track they are a full-blown basket case.
You could go on and on pointing out examples at other clubs – the good and the bad.
A great example is how former Bulldog Reimis Smith has gone from looking right at home playing in a team in contention for the wooden spoon to fitting in so perfectly at the Storm.
Jahrome Hughes is another of Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy’s success stories, playing a grand total of two NRL games in four years at two clubs.
But at the Storm Bellamy has transformed Hughes into one of the game’s top four halfbacks, who could name his price at just about any rival club.
But would Hughes still be the player he now is if he was outside the Storm system?
What you find more often than not is that the good clubs don’t make excuses, they just adapt.
Which brings us back to the argument about whether ‘the spectacle’ is as entertaining as it was pre-Covid.
Pearce pointed out that between 2019 and now the average number of linebreaks are up 28 per cent, tries by 21 per cent and those from long range 23 per cent.
There are 35 per cent less penalties, 4 per cent more play-the-balls and 33 per cent 13-plus point comebacks in games.
Yes, there are also a growing number of blowouts.
But as for the talk fans are turning off because of it, Fox Sports achieved two all-time NRL ratings records last weekend.
One for the Warriors-Dragons golden point thriller in the 6pm Friday timeslot. The other the 2pm Sunday game between the Broncos and Sharks.
It’s true the Saturday figures were not as good but you take the good with the bad.
And if the wrestle had been allowed to continue I have no doubt the ratings would not have increased.
Even Pearce confessed: “To be honest, before the rule changes, if I watched more than three games on a weekend it was a bit of an effort. But now I watch all of the games.
“And even if there is a blow out I am still amazed at some of the tries that are being scored.
“That doesn’t mean that we don’t have to tweak here and there.
“We won’t be doing anything mid-season, but at the end of the year we will be reviewing all aspects, as we do each year.
“But I don’t see any reason why you would take it away (the six-again).
“You look at the alternative, do we want to go back to the wrestle?
“Because for me that goes against the spirit of what the game is all about.”
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