Phil ‘Buzz’ Rothfield on the six major issues diminishing the NRL as a product

As rugby league fans brace for a repeat of 2021 Magic Round, Phil ‘Buzz’ Rothfield has called on the NRL to fix six major issues damaging Australian sport’s greatest product.

Las Vegas and the euphoria around the NRL’s spectacular season launch feels like a year ago.

In the eight weeks since, rugby league is back to being the old rugby league – chaos and confusion.

• The bunker has been hopelessly inconsistent over the head-contact crackdown. No one, not even Wayne Bennett, knows what a hip-drop tackle is.
• Sin bins this year have increased by a staggering 141 percent from 22 to 53 in eight rounds while players on report have risen 73 percent from 83 to 144. And they tell us “don’t call it a crackdown” as 18 players were sin binned over the weekend.
• The playing schedule has left us with repetitive footy games – eight fixtures in the first 10 rounds of teams playing each other twice.
• The transfer circus so early in the season over Dylan Brown, Lachlan Galvin and Daly Cherry-Evans is causing so much disappointment and emotional pain for fans.
• The promised player-management reform remains in the too-hard-basket.
• And we still have the outdated old Origin eligibility rules, that are so easy to fix, yet nothing gets done about it.

This is a column I didn’t want to write out of my respect for Peter V’landys and Andrew Abdo, two great administrators.

They will argue that crowds and TV ratings are strong, the main barometer for the overall health of a football code.

But this is a game that could be doing so much better.

The bunker

Sitili Tupouniua avoided the sin bin for this knee lift on Brendan Piakura.

The NRL brought in the highly regarded Brock Schaefer as referees boss this year, relegating Jared Maxwell. It has made no difference.

In Round 2 they introduce a crackdown on high shots. It lasts for about a week. They drop off. Then it comes back again.

There is absolutely no consistency. Different games, different interpretations, depending on who’s in the bunker on any particular day or night. It’s a lottery.

There have been some shockers. On Thursday night Bulldogs stars Sitili Tupouniua and Matt Burton were guilty of blatant foul play. Neither went to the sin bin. Not even Tupouniua for a blatant knee to the head of Brendan Piakura that miraculously didn’t break his jaw.

The referee missed Matt Burton's high shot on Billy Walters.

Go back another week. Panthers hooker Mitch Kenny did a hip-drop on Roosters forward Nat Butcher that has sidelined him for at least two months – no penalty, not on report, no sin bin – but a two-week ban.

Again on Saturday night – Manly prop Siosiua Taukeiaho sin-binned for the most minor tackle.

But Isaah Yeo remains on the field for a far worse shot that collects Tom Trbojevic in the head.

And in Townsville we saw the astonishingly obvious Tino Fa’asuamaleaui forward pass to Beau Fermor for a Titans try against the Cowboys.

Rather than address the problem, the NRL thinks a pre-season gagging edict on the coaches is the solution.

There is a line of thought that all the rule changes that have created a faster game with more fatigue are a contributing factor to players being off target with their tackles.

Isaah Yeo escaped punishment for this high shot on Turbo.

The schedule

The draw is a complete joke. Look at all the double up games in the first 10 weeks. It gets so monotonous.

• Bulldogs v Titans play in Round 2 and Round 9.
• Cowboys v Panthers in Round 5 and Round 10.
• Eels v Tigers in Round 2 and Round 7.
• Knights v Wests Tigers in Round 1 and Round 6.
• Knights v Titans in Round 3 and Round 10.
• Panthers v Roosters in Round 2 and Round 7.
• Roosters v Broncos Round 1 and Round 6.
• Sharks v Sea Eagles Round 6 and Round 10.

Surely it’s not too hard to play each other once for the first 17 weeks then play your double up games.

And what about the imbalance with five-day turnarounds.

The Bulldogs, Dragons, Eels, Roosters, Wests Tigers and Warriors don’t get one over the entire season.

Yet the Brisbane Broncos and the Cronulla Sharks get three each. On top of that Cronulla is asked to travel to Las Vegas, Townsville and Perth in the first six weeks of the comp.

Surely there is a fairer system.

Transfer circus

It is going to get worse with new franchises from Perth and PNG needing to sign 60 players over the next couple of years.

What’s the plan to stop this from tearing apart and destabilising the current 17 clubs mid-year.

Surely it can wait until the end of the season.

The fans have had enough. It is so obvious rugby league needs to introduce a player transfer window at the end of each season, even accompanied by a mid-year draft.

Forget opposition from the RLPA. V’landys and Abdo run the game, not Clint Newton.

Bring back the Bears. Art: Boo Bailey

Manager reform

Colleague Dean Ritchie wrote this in March last year: “The NRL is set to launch a wide-ranging review of the game’s accredited agent’s scheme with player managers to be told to upskill and educate.”

Twelve months on and nothing has happened.

One member of the independent commission told me of his concerns around the agents at the football on Anzac Day.

We regularly hear stories of the unscrupulous behaviour of a small percentage of them.

Everyone knows it’s a problem that agents Isaac Moses and Gavin Orr carry so much clout from managing 10 coaches and more than 100 players between them.

Is this healthy for the game?

Origin eligibility

The game’s showpiece event is no longer a contest between the best 34 players in the competition because we are using the same eligibility rules that were introduced 45 years go.

Now, with 48 per cent of players in the NRL being Polynesian, almost half the competition can’t play the biggest game of the year. Yet it’s so easy to fix.

Any player either born in Australia or has played junior football here before the age of 13 can – and deserve – to play Origin, no matter what country he or she chooses for international footy.

Payne Haas has pledged allegiance to Samoa. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

And finally …

So this weekend we head off to Magic Round for a three-day celebration of everything that is great about rugby league.

We have the best sporting product on the planet.

All we want is consistency, fairness and a level playing field. It’s not too much to ask for.

Originally published as Phil ‘Buzz’ Rothfield on the six major issues diminishing the NRL as a product