COMMENT: Don’t bring back the biff, the NRL’s never been better

Nothing has electrified the pulses of rugby league fans like a good old-fashioned biff - but without it the game has never been better.

COMMENT

You’d have to be dead or an AFL extremist to have not indulged in the guilty pleasure of rugby league biff.

Whether fisticuffs, coathangers or just the complete works of Adrian Morley, nothing has electrified our pulses like the boys goin’ the knuckle.

In fact, many believe the game hit its zenith in the lawless 1980s with names so tough they were almost mythical like Les Boyd, Dallas Donnelly and Reg Reagan.

But if you’re craving a return to this era when the only ‘contrary conduct’ was remaining on the paddock for the full 80 - then you need a HIA.

Sure, you may think the shoulder charge was high art, and you also may think Richard Villasanti’s pile-driver on Brad Fittler was a good legs tackle.

And odds are if you believe these, you also think the modern game’s gone soft.

But you’d be wrong.

You can watch the Sports Ranting team debate the end of rugby league biff in the video above

The punches that changed State of Origin - Paul Gallen (R) and Nate Myles fight during the opening match of the 2013 series.

Matthew Johns as alter ego Reg Reagan, who called for the ‘biff’ to return to rugby league like the good old days.

With less violence, cleaner rucks and a marked reduction in the number of in-game hearings, the game is quicker, tougher and more entertaining than ever.

And with the players leaner, cleaner and greener, rugby league in 2024 has never been more appealing to more people.

Forwards have more miles to the gallon than an EV, playmakers have evolved in to tenacious wizards, and wingers are contorting themselves while airborne to dot down in corners from adjacent suburbs.

Yep, the cocked elbows of yesteryear have been replaced with Payne Haas’ superhuman endurance, Xavier Coates’ acrobatics and the legal anger of Liam Martin folding up Queenslanders like tea towels.

Xavier Coates’s try this year against the Warriors showed the game doesn’t need the biff anymore. (Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)

This is why the game is enjoying bumper crowds and prolific ratings across all levels, with popularity even seeding in areas that were once so pro-AFL you’d be shot for entering town wearing loose shorts.

Of course, there is a trade-off to our rugby league utopia.

There’s the occasional act of unedifying handbags, with insufferable firestarters like Reed Mahoney constantly acting like one of the nasty girls from Glee.

And yes, the game’s transformation has warranted some pain in the correctional space, with the parameters for ‘high’ and ‘late’ contact now so broad you can be sin-binned for combing a fringe.

But when you consider the glorious upside, it sure beats paying a thrippence to see a stink between 26 plumbers chasing a soggy pillow around in the mud.

And if you’re not convinced, check out the numbers.

Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow at full flight is one of the great sights of modern day rugby league. (Photo by Jason McCawley/Getty Images)

According to the NRL’s 2023 Annual Report, last season delivered an increase in tries, line breaks and play-the-ball speed, with 75% fans surveyed saying the pace of the game was “just right”.

And with the percentage of live play also up by 2.1 per cent, it’s no wonder viewers have flocked to the tune of 171.8m to make the NRL Australia’s most watched sport.

This is helped by the NRL’s unrivalled competitive tension, with the standard of the modern player so elite across the board that the competition is tighter than a snare drum.

One in every three games last season were decided by less than six points, a ratio that improves even further when deducting results involving send-offs and the Wests Tigers.

In summary, rugby league is in rude health, and all its cost us was a reduction in judiciary hearings and cracked orbitals.

Sure, there was a time when Les Davidson was god, Mark Geyer was a victim of wokeness and passing the ball was effeminate- and that’s okay.

But we thought leaded petrol was a good idea too until we realised it was not only killing us, but there was a cleaner, better-performed alternative.

- 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 COMMENT: Don’t bring back the biff, the NRL’s never been better