North Queensland’s rivalry with Cronulla is exactly what rugby league needs
BOTH clubs have tried to hose it down, but the budding rivalry between North Queensland and Cronulla is part of what we love about rugby league writes PAUL KENT.
Opinion
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TARGETING the injuries of opponents is at least as old in rugby league as the reigning Commissioner not knowing the Cronulla Sharks, and perhaps even older.
So what is all this uproar about North Queensland Cowboy Gavin Cooper, who revealed the unspoken intent.
An emotional Gavin Cooper spoke to the unspoken intent in the game when he accused Cronulla of targeting Matt Scott’s reconstructed knee in last Friday’s game won by the Cowboys.
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Brisbane’s Sam Thaiday was fined $1550 after he went hard for Jesse Bromwich’s broken thumb last year but denied he did it intentionally.
Of all the appendages available Thaiday just happened to grab the one that was broken.
Shane Flanagan, the Sharks coach in case there is a Commissioner reading, defended his players against Cooper’s accusations on Monday.
“Get your facts right,” he said.
Cowboys coach Paul Green was in the uncomfortable position of defending his player while not wanting to antagonise the Sharks.
“We’re not saying they targeted Matt Scott, in particular, or tried to injure him,” Green said, “but there were a few leg pulls in the game.”
Clubs hate this sort of public slanging.
They believe nobody wins and are loathe to give their opponents motivation.
“Coaches are always paranoid about giving the opposition ammunition, or motivation, whatever you want to call it, but sometimes teams can get pissed off regardless of what you say or do,” Green said.
Green knows this personally.
Years back several of his players came back from State of Origin all busted and broken and he looked into their tired eyes and thought the only remedy was rest.
They didn’t play that weekend when the Cowboys played, of all teams, the Sharks.
The Sharks were deeply offended.
They came out with plenty of intent and after they won the game they said it was a statement for the disrespect shown to them by the Cowboys not playing their best players.
The Cowboys could have been playing the New England Patriots and Green still would have rested his men but what does it matter.
Green did not want to revisit that again.
“If people are determined to be offended, sometimes there’s nothing you can do with it,” he said.
Yet while the teams believe they lose, the game wins.
The evidence was everywhere. It was the only conversation in the game.
When the Controversy Corner panel got together on Fox League on Monday night Steve “Blocker” Roach thought he was back playing and changed the rules to bring it into a familiar domain.
Few were better at it in his day.
The discussion opened up about Brisbane’s Jaydn Su’A hitting Paul Vaughan off the ball with an illegal shoulder charge, for which he was eventually suspended for Friday’s derby against North Queensland.
Blocker turned it into what he knew best as a player, which is measured violence.
“You can’t have halfbacks running out there going ‘I’m Johnathan Thurston, please don’t hit me’,” he said.
Puffs of smoke appeared as Phil Rothfield, coming off the interchange after a solid hitout on NRL360, tried to show he was revolted by the violence.
Blocker quickly interrupted.
“Do you tell me,” he barked, “that it’s not in the game plan for the coach to say ‘Listen, if you’re near enough, hit them’.
“It’s all in the timing,” he added, as if that explained it all.
Oh, this was beautiful.
The bigger issue bubbling over is the growing rivalry between the Cowboys and the Sharks, one developing nicely. It is exactly what the game needs.
Nothing beats a legitimate rivalry.
It is self-combusting, providing publicity that can’t be bought.
One of the failings of the salary cap and its attempt to level the competition is the absence of the blockbusters.
Nobody goes through the draw and marks on the calendar like when the Brisbane Broncos played the Canberra Raiders in the 1990s, or when Parramatta and Canterbury belted each other in the 1980s.
The blockbuster is greatly diminished and the local derby no longer means what it once did with so much player movement.
Genuine rivalries, often driven by small jealousies and genuine grievances, are where they exist now.
And they can’ be artificially created.
Green sees the rivalry forming with the Sharks, whether he likes it or not.
For one, they have eliminated each other from the past three finals series, the Cowboys ahead 2-1.
“Rivalries are healthy as long as they are done with good intentions and the right sportsmanship within the game,” Green said.
That is not the case with the Sharks. It makes it even more intriguing.