The game has lost its way and NRL CEO Todd Greenberg must start over
NRL CEO Todd Greenberg needs to call a moratorium on the way the game is being explained and interpreted and start over and get it right.
NRL
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IT is time for an NRL reset.
NRL boss Todd Greenberg needs to call a moratorium on the way the game is being explained and interpreted and start over and get it right.
We have lost our way.
Sydney Roosters coach Trent Robinson got his criticisms of the NRL bunker’s interference right on Monday.
The Roosters got the ball and were on the attack when the bunker recommended a St George Illawarra penalty for a high tackle. The bunker can only interfere for “reportable” offences, but the next day the match review panel did not deem the Dylan Napa tackle worthy of being cited.
Robinson was correct.
The same day, though, NRL referees boss Tony Archer went online with match review panel boss Michael Buettner to explain why they got it, each of them, instead of Robinson.
Archer said: “You can see that there is contact on the head by Napa, it’s a reportable offence and is correctly dealt with by the officials in awarding a penalty to St George.”
Buettner said: “We deemed it not forceful enough or careless, in terms of his actions, to warrant a charge.”
Somehow, both claimed to be right even though the majority of the league world believes they are wrong.
Both went away seemingly happily that it was properly explained.
They both can’t be right.
The game would be better served if they said they simply got it wrong and planned to clear up the confusion.
At least public faith would not continue eroding.
Nobody knows where the game is anymore.
Coaches disagree every week on what constitutes an obstruction and on Monday we discovered the bunker itself does as well. Cooper Cronk was awarded a try that contrasted nearly ever other decision made this season.
The contradictory information and evidence out of headquarters is confusing everybody.
By denying they got anything wrong nobody wants to trust them. Fortunately there is precedent and opportunity to recalibrate.
The opportunity is a new chief executive hired chiefly because he knows more about the game than the previous bloke.
The precedent came many years ago when rugby league was moving into the television era and the brightest minds in the game took a look at the game and realised it was not really suitable for loungeroom consumption.
The game was too violent. Stiff arms, spear tackles, regular all-in brawls, they were all part of the weekly diet.
Who would want to watch this over Sunday dinner?
So Jim Comans was brought in to clean up the game and an edict was put out: foul play would no longer be tolerated.
With a soft voice and firm hand, Comans single-handedly cleaned up the game.
Suspensions as long as 18-months were handed out to players for thug play. Players quickly discovered their livelihoods were at stake and fell into line.
Focus shifted from toughness to athleticism and the game entered a period of unprecedented growth.
Now, perhaps because the game was cleaned up so well, we have gone soft in our attitudes.
Every year we change the rules, mostly to head off the way coaches and referees have interpreted the current rules.
What we need mostly is to wind back the rules. Give the referee the whistle and tell him to officiate.
Don’t tell him to manage the game or coach the players.
Put “roll away” and “movement” in your pocket and pick up the whistle instead.
Every referee these days wants to referee like Bill Harrigan but, the moment they do, they discover they can’t paint like Picasso.
Harrigan was a one-off but, in imitation, every referee has surrendered his authority in his attempts to “manage” the game.
The breakdown then continues at the match review panel level and later at judiciary.
Martin Taupau hit Jack Bird with a late (Bird took two steps towards Taupau before contact), high (first contact was on the chin) swinging arm (which would indicate intent) earlier this season. In the Comans’ era it would have been season over.
Instead, Taupau got a week. No send off, even though Bird was gone for the game.
And if he had stayed on the field in the Comans era, you could almost be certain one of Bird’s teammates would have squared up.
Yet we have somehow made it unacceptable for a player to protect his teammates _ without eradicating the original offence.
So even the street justice is askew.
At the same time, the match review panel somehow convinced itself that it was a grade two careless tackle. It meant there were 13 more serious tackles according to their own grading.
The same weekend Kieran Foran touched a referee.
Both offences carry a 125-point penalty before the judiciary. What is worse?
Yet the inconsistencies continue ..
Since day one, tripping was regarded as a dog-act. This year seven players have been charged with tripping, yet not one of them missed a week for it.
They are afraid to charge them with anything that might cause a yelp from their clubs.
Tripping was originally frowned upon because of the fear players could break legs. Watch the penalty stiffen when that finally happens.
Elsewhere, players are diving, faking injury, milking penalties, another breakdown in the moral code. Yet the rules encourage it now more than ever.
Players are sledging, niggling, talking like tough guys.
That always happened, but in previous years players would have to consider possible retaliations if they wanted to poke the bear.
Having eliminated the retaliation now, though, mostly through the ban on punching, provocation has got out of hand.
Yet the game allows it to happen.
The NRL is so paranoid about negative reactions from coaches, negative publicity in the media, they have lost the fortitude to do what is right.
Greenberg needs to show strength and lead.
Originally published as The game has lost its way and NRL CEO Todd Greenberg must start over
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