27/04/09 - From Jim Morton of FoxSports.com.au - With young guns Kurtley Beale, Quade Cooper and Cristian Lealiifano spluttering along in the first-receiver role at Super 14 level, the question of who is the Wallabies' second-choice No.10 behind Giteau has concerned pundits all year …. Queensland coach Phil Mooney has kept his playmaking options open for the rest of the season but Barnes is expected to continue pulling the strings at first-receiver against the Brumbies on Saturday night, even if he again wears the No.12 jersey.
Great five-eights are like great fastball/changeup pitchers, and pace bowlers. They do a few things very well and they do it consistently.
The same way a pace bowler and a pitcher rely on their ability to maintain the same motion and relative arm speed when delivering a fast ball or a slow ball in order to fool the hitter, a five-eight relies on his ability to consistently attack the line with the same speed and conviction to fool the defense.
Larkam wasn’t the greatest athlete in the world but he was one of the most consistent. His ability to dominate a game came from his consistent, heavily structured style of play. He did two things better then everyone else: He always hit the ball running, and he ran straight at the line to freeze the defense.
Simply, he did the fundamentals better then anyone else and that’s why he succeeded. It’s the same reason McDonalds has turned flipping burgers into a MNC—they do the fundamentals of business (provide product and service) better and more efficiently then anyone else.
Barnes is in the same mould. He isn’t as athletically gifted as the aforementioned young guns, but he attacks the line and he provides structure when he plays first receiver. He refined this skill while he was in the Broncos farm system.
Groomed with Bennet’s comb as Lockyer’s replacement, Barnes learned the art of attacking the line, freezing sliding defenses, and making a quick decision between hitting the decoy runner or a sweeping 2nd man. He is a pure five/eight.
He doesn’t fit at twelve because he doesn’t have the athletic ability to beat his man with speed or footwork, but he works at ten because he throws a great dummy, he makes defender make a decision, and he maintains the same motion when throwing a short pass or a long pass. He facilitates the strengths of everyone around him and, in turn, makes those players and the team better.
The aforementioned young guns don’t do that. At least not to the same degree. Lealiifano and Beale have their moments but they aren’t patient enough and they don’t build pressure through sustained attack. Lealiifano should develop into the best of the three; he has good size, makes good decisions, has a good sense of his role in the team, and never seems to push the play. He is a classic Brumbies kind of player.
Cooper is a good athlete and great effort guy but he isn’t a super rugby five-eight. He doesn’t attack the line nearly enough, he isn’t deceptive, his decision making is too slow, and he is a worse defender then The Black Knight from Monty Python. He has nice footwork and a good attitude but even Rove has to duck to get under his ceiling.
Athletically he could play twelve but every time someone ran at him, every Reds fan would have the same look on their face that Michael Cera had in Juno when he found out Ellen Page was pregnant. It would be a collective fuck you to the Reds fan base, and therefore right in line with their corporate philosophy of the last ten years.
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So why are rugby people only realizing or remembering this now?
I realise the ARU have a secret agreement with Giteau, promising him the Wallaby ten jersey in return for him not chasing a mega-contract in Europe, but how has Barnes not been playing ten for the Reds?
Barnes could have been playing at ten all season! But now I’m supposed to be impressed by the fact that Mooney is keeping his playmaking options OPEN?
To continue the fast food theme; It’s like a McDonalds employee announcing he isn’t going to spit in people’s burgers any more, being congratulated for it, and then announcing that it isn’t definite—he is keeping his burger spitting options open.
There never should have been any spiting (the playing of Cooper) in the burger (the season). It never should have happened in the first place.
So why would he even consider keeping his playmaking options open? What more evidence does he need?
Did Mooney not see any of the film from the 2007 World Cup? Does Barnes not want to play ten? Is Cooper blowing everyone away in the warm-up touch games the Reds play at practice? Was Barnes rating not high enough in Rugby 08?
Whatever it is, the situation needs to be fixed quick.
I wrote in a November 2008 column that one of the ARU’s biggest disgraces was crushing the confidence and career of Lachlan MacKay. He was brilliant playing at ten for the Waratahs in 2005, and at the time he looked like the logical replacement for a fading Steven Larkam.
Of course, despite leading the Waratahs to their first Super Rugby final while playing ten, he never got real consideration or time at the Wallaby ten spot. Upon moving to the Western Force he was quickly relegated to twelve and eventually the bench after a slew of injuries. Now he drinks wine and eats fromage somewhere in France.
Do we really want to repeat that with Barnes? I beg the ARU to give Barnes the wallaby reigns and time.
Brisbane Sports Fan
Monday, April 27, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
ANZAC EVE: Kicking off ANZAC celebrations.
7.29: Channel 9 informs us to “stay tuned” for coverage of the “MIGHTY Brisbane Broncos” game against Parramatta. Way to be objective channel 9.
You guessed it! And for those who didn’t, it’s my first running diary. I’m sure this can work for rugby league. Well, pretty sure.
Compelling game tonight. Some good story lines, a secretly feisty rivalry, and lots of big names on display...for the Broncos at least. 5 things to watch for tonight:
7.38: I’m a marketing student and I can’t even begin to comprehend the CGU insurance ads. What are they going for there? Who relates to that? Am I supposed to believe that CGU is outdated? Do they think that is what’s “cool” among young people? Do old people find that funny? If so, I hope I never get old.
7.39: Anzac Speech—is there anything cooler then dead silence at a packed stadium? Silence...props to Suncorp for keeping silent....silence....Why does the Australian army hat always have a strap 2 sizes too small? I’m all for tradition, but a whole army sporting double chins...what are we going for there?
7.41: Close up of Lockyer. He looks focused, but he could just be confused about the hat strap thing like I was. Not sure...either way, a lot to prove tonight. If the Broncos didn’t play EVERY Friday night, I’d say he shines on this platform, or something corny like that.
7.43: AND WE’RE OFF!!! Fuifui “fat Ludacris” Moimoi drops it on a lacklustre kick return to begin the game. What’s-the-matta-Parramatta? Wait, I remember: You just gave away your franchise half, your coach is Daniel Anderson, and you are playing the QLD origin backline. Your season is crumbling faster then Kleenmaid.
7.44: Weak goal line defence allows the Broncs to stumble—with the conviction of a drunken hobo mind you—over the line for a try. Comes off of an awkward reverse 2nd man play. Vossy waits no time to plug TAB SportsBet...at least finish the call. I put the over/under for Sportsbets plugs at 4 and take the over. 6-0 Broncos.
7.47: Wait, NO TRY. Ruled a no try for obstruction. I thought it was a bureaucratic interpretation but then again teams should know they wont get the call when they run behind each other, so don’t run the play. 0-0.
7.48: Parramatta straight up the other end. Chris Keating’s first touch—He looks just like the foot soldier who gets his face pummelled by Edward Norton Fight Club. Hayne fumbles a sure try only meters out.
7.49: Folau’s first touch. He dances across and backwards from one side of the field to the other. Thats why they pay him the big bucks. They really need to get him involved more this season.
7.50: Broncs get a scrum feed on the 10 and immediately go right and wide quick to Hodges. Parramatta play the role of a pimp when they drift but don’t go forward and help Hodges score. Classic Hodges try—why does it always seem like he does everything in slow motion?
7.52: Shot of Parramatta grouped in the in goal. Get used to that site. Hindmarsh sporting a haircut that is best described somewhere between Mel Gibson’s in Braveheart and Bon Jovie’s in the late 80s. 6-0 Broncos.
7.54: Ikin drones on about something. I’ll just put it out there now, Ikin is the worst colour analyst in sports, not just the NRL, sports. Brick in Anchor Man provided more in depth comments.
7.55: Hunt comes within inches of scoring off an inside ball from Lockyer. I’m loving the resurgence of the inside ball in league. I don’t know where it went or why it left but I’m glad it’s back. Lockyer looks good so far—attacking the line with conviction, got the team moving forward, finishing off sets. Somewhere Scott Prince takes a swig.
7.57: Vossy tells us Hunt is in his 6th year and he is 22. He has a title, a Origin title, an Australian cap, a sexual assault charge; what else is there to achieve for him in the NRL? What other industry does this happen in? The porn industry maybe. I think there needs to be more emphasis put on winning championships. Premierships don’t weight heavily enough in player evaluations. Johns was one of the greatest but he still only one 2 titles. I feel like the greatest of all time should have won more.
7.58: Another set is finished with a bomb from Parramatta. They’re producing more bombs than Brian McFadden at this point.
8.00: Chris Keating sparks a awkward Jarryd Hayne 2008 origin-esque try. There is somthing special about this milky bar kid.
8.02: Wait, NO TRY: Burt defiantly pushed Hodges. A frustration play if I ever saw one. But to be fair Hodges dived worse then Drogba on that one.
8.04: Quick hands put Folau up the side line. Hunt taken out in back play. NO CARDS shown. Even in the NFL you couldn’t take a player like that. This is a fast break kind of game; end-to-end stuff.
805 Hunt carves up Parra defence with 2 deadly right foot steps. To be fair no one in the league would have stopped that. No one.
8.08: High shot off the kickoff. Penalty against Parra. When it rains it pours.
8.08: Vossy’s second TAB SportsBet plug. Only three more! You stay classy channel 9!
8.10: Keating puts one over the sideline. Wapau is set to debut. Should I stand or sit? He is big ... looks lost standing at 5/8 ... WAIT ... Locker gives him a inside ball!!! ... no, he didn’t score on his first touch. To continue the trend of sensationalising everything about this guy, we may as well deem his career over now.
8.13: Wallace with a smart grubber to the corner for a flying Winterstein. Henjac celebrates with a clap that is best described somewhere between the clap the Queen would award the Rolling Stones and those seen at the conclusion of a Andre Rieu concert.
I like Winterstein; he is in the Darius Boyd mould. But for my writings sake, I’m nicknaming him Chocolate ICE. Back to my “the NRL needs trades theory”, Choco Ice is another good example. The Broncs do a great job of churning out these quality role playing wingers and they always bolt when they hit the market. Where is the compensation?
8.17: Joel Clinton interchange. His career has fallen faster then Holly Valance’s. Now he is just a reminder of how dumb the NRL is for not having a quality veteran exemption. Petero should have finished his career with the Broncos.
8.20: Ikin informs us that Wapau and Thaiday are communicating in some sort of North QLD lingo ... I believe they call it, English.
8.21: Fat Ludacris just bowled over Hunt, Lomu style. Matt Johns insinuates that Hunt thought he was in Tokyo .... still trying to work out what he was getting at here ... nothing yet ... let’s move on.
8.22: MATT KEATING ... why does Vossy feel compelled to say the Keating brothers’ whole name? They don’t look anything alike and this isn’t radio.
8.23: CHRIS Keating with ANOTHER bomb ... Hayne comes down with it., but is foiled by Wallace before he hits the ground. The Marlon Brando of rugby league is surprisingly devastating in the air. I don’t remember him having a aerial performance like this before ... oh wait, he is going against Steve “white men can’t jump” Michaels.
8.27: CHRIS KEATING is running Parramatta well. Causing problems for the Broncs defense. Parramatta have been in this game, they just make too many fundamental errors.
8.31: Halftime whistle. 16-0. Vossy labels it as a highly entertaining half of football. Broncs do everything they can to not walk through the Cheerleader cone tunnel, I’v never understood why players do this.
HALFTIME:
8.40: AD TIME ... KFC advertises their “Family Fun Bucket”. I feel sick just thinking of that bucket of grease. We are blessed with a CGU ad set in a deli with some insecure lady acting like she is a black teenager wrapping in the 90s ... I realise they are trying to get younger (I think), but I don’t really want my insurance company to be cool. Cool people don’t traditionally do well with money.
8.45: 2nd Half underway. Vossy informs us that Parra won the last half of the 1st half but the score is 16-0. Parra’s season in a nutshell.
8.49: Sharp short-side play from the Broncs. Lockyer pulled down mms from the line, followed by Hindmarsh dropping a knee WWE style on Lockyer’s head. He looked like he had practiced that ... hmm, the hair ... the seemingly distant disposition ... I think Hindmarsh is training to be a wrestler. What would his name be? It would have to be something to do with his ass wouldn’t it?
8.51: Nick Kenny strolls in to the end zone after Parra short-side D splits faster than a deadbeat dad. The Eel’s goal line defence is terrible; its one thing to beaten by good opposition but they are just soft. Other areas seem pretty solid except for the unforced errors. Fundamentals and creativity seem to be their biggest problems. All well known symptoms of the Daniel Anderson disease.
8.56: Wile-silly ... why-silly ... let’s just call him Silly. Anyway, he scored off a bomb into the end zone over guess who .. time is running out.. Steve “lead weight” Michaels. That left side is a real worry. They are young, small, and not that physical. When the Broncos play a NRL calibre team it could be a real issue. What’s the matter Parrra-matta? 22-4.
9.00: Vossy plugs ... do I need to finish ... only 1 more!
9.01: Quick strike down the Bronco right. Came from a soft tackle from Lockyer on Mateo. Lockyer’s terrible defensive form hasn’t been mentioned by any one, even with all this Origin controversy. It’s a real concern. At this point he is a statue; he changes direction slower than the Catholic Church.
9.03: Parra penalty. Broncs are panicking. The No. 1 thing to watch for tonight. I need to see Lockyer assert himself in the next 5 minutes. Parra play out a dangerous set but decide to pass to ... nobody on the last tackle. Talking about things on my list, not only are Eels fans not smiling, they seem to be focusing on talking about trucks a lot.
9.06: oooooooow...nasty headclash sends Silly off for the night. If he returns the NRL needs to be court marshalled. Boxers can’t fight for months after they get knocked out, but a NRL player can come back after he gets his head taped? Yet another thing that drives me crazy about the NRL.
9.07: Johns makes a tidy but effective Harrington joke ... Thank god Ikin didn’t feel compelled to match Johns. We could have had another Craig McLachlan on our hands.
9.08: Broncs score of a sharp backline play that sends Hunt untouched to score. Yeh they had an extra man on the field but they were evenly matched up on that right side, just bad reads from Parra defence. 28-4. A 24 point lead, that’s the magic number. No one comes back from that with less then a half to go.
9.09: Vossy makes another desperate plea for Hunt to stay away from the evil Japanese rugby giant. Hey NRL, raise your salary cap, and don’t embarrass yourself on national TV by begging 22 year olds not to leave you.
9.16: Broncs coasting now. Johns preaches about Lockyer’s solid performance, labelling him the best first receiver in the competition. He must have read my column.
9.17: Ikin informs us that Jarryd “marlon” Hayne is a big guy, “117 kg or something like that”. Hard hitting analysis there.
9.19: Choco Ice blows a great grubber opportunity from Wallace. Wallace’s Lockyer imitation is almost perfect. I expect him to finish the job by getting a one blade cut and Hving Dave Taylor sit on his voice box. People say Bennett screwed the Broncs by getting rid of Stagg and Ennis before he left, but he set them up for the next 6 to 8 years with Wallace.
9.21: Hayne blows another possible try from a great Keating end zone kick. Guess which side he kicked too.
9.23: Broncs work Parra right side shiort-side defence AGAIN, Hunt scores from some quick hands. Hunts got 3 now. The NRL needs a collective fan celebratory tradition for this. Like when hockey fans toss a octopus on the ice. 34-8.
9.27: Broncs win a scrum against the feed. That’s it Parramatta. You just hit rock bottom. You are at about the 4/5ths mark of Trainspotting. Hindmarsh looks like he is going to kill between 6 and 11 of his teammates before the game ends.
9.28: Folau scores off of a smart short ball / unders line on the ... you guessed it, right hand short side. 40-8. Tight ship the NRL are running here. When you can televise a foreseeable blowout of a marquee team on national TV, you got do it.
931. Full time. Thank god that’s over. Broncs go to top of ladder. Professional performance from the Broncs. Parrramatta has NO self confidence. Like I predicted, Daniel Anderson delivered in his halftime mission. What can I say, he’s the best at what he does.
9.35: Hunt is named MOM. He speaks like I write notes for this monologue; no connecting words. Wally Lewis asks him if he is content to keep playing the way he is... apparently he is...really? Scoring a hat rick, you want to keep that up? Lucky we have sideline reporters.
9.40: Shots of the Bronco dressing room. A trainer throws out a hundred bill and then begins the club song complete with the traditional playing of the wheelie bin ... no better way to kick off ANZAC celebrations then with a wheelie bin song.
After thoughts:
And we’re LIVE TAPE DELAYED from Telstra Stadium .... hmm ... I’m heading to bed, I think I’ll leave this one till tomorrow. Call it a 9 hour silence for ANZAC day.
You guessed it! And for those who didn’t, it’s my first running diary. I’m sure this can work for rugby league. Well, pretty sure.
Compelling game tonight. Some good story lines, a secretly feisty rivalry, and lots of big names on display...for the Broncos at least. 5 things to watch for tonight:
- A full 80 minutes from the Broncos. Put it this way, Milhouse closes better then the Broncos at this point.
- Hindmarsh. Hindmarsh was awkwardly called out on “NRL on FOX” this week after missing the 40 man NSW Origin squad. When he was interviewed about it he seemed as concerned about missing selection as A Current Affair are about being ethical. I almost get the feeling he doesn’t want to be play rep footy...oh, wait, if he didn’t want to play he would have been selected (see Lyon, Jamie).
- Star Brisbane prospect Palmer Wapau. Hey, what better way to kill the confidence of your 20 year old 115kg prospect (Taylor) then to drop him the week after he plays his best game? Or was this something to do with that South’s contract offer? Either way, you stay classy Broncos!
- Any sign, and I mean ANY, of a Eels fan smiling.
- A constructive and objective Ben Ikin comment. This could be about anything, as long as it doesn’t involve the phrase “he’s a great guy” or “I know player x”.
7.38: I’m a marketing student and I can’t even begin to comprehend the CGU insurance ads. What are they going for there? Who relates to that? Am I supposed to believe that CGU is outdated? Do they think that is what’s “cool” among young people? Do old people find that funny? If so, I hope I never get old.
7.39: Anzac Speech—is there anything cooler then dead silence at a packed stadium? Silence...props to Suncorp for keeping silent....silence....Why does the Australian army hat always have a strap 2 sizes too small? I’m all for tradition, but a whole army sporting double chins...what are we going for there?
7.41: Close up of Lockyer. He looks focused, but he could just be confused about the hat strap thing like I was. Not sure...either way, a lot to prove tonight. If the Broncos didn’t play EVERY Friday night, I’d say he shines on this platform, or something corny like that.
7.43: AND WE’RE OFF!!! Fuifui “fat Ludacris” Moimoi drops it on a lacklustre kick return to begin the game. What’s-the-matta-Parramatta? Wait, I remember: You just gave away your franchise half, your coach is Daniel Anderson, and you are playing the QLD origin backline. Your season is crumbling faster then Kleenmaid.
7.44: Weak goal line defence allows the Broncs to stumble—with the conviction of a drunken hobo mind you—over the line for a try. Comes off of an awkward reverse 2nd man play. Vossy waits no time to plug TAB SportsBet...at least finish the call. I put the over/under for Sportsbets plugs at 4 and take the over. 6-0 Broncos.
7.47: Wait, NO TRY. Ruled a no try for obstruction. I thought it was a bureaucratic interpretation but then again teams should know they wont get the call when they run behind each other, so don’t run the play. 0-0.
7.48: Parramatta straight up the other end. Chris Keating’s first touch—He looks just like the foot soldier who gets his face pummelled by Edward Norton Fight Club. Hayne fumbles a sure try only meters out.
7.49: Folau’s first touch. He dances across and backwards from one side of the field to the other. Thats why they pay him the big bucks. They really need to get him involved more this season.
7.50: Broncs get a scrum feed on the 10 and immediately go right and wide quick to Hodges. Parramatta play the role of a pimp when they drift but don’t go forward and help Hodges score. Classic Hodges try—why does it always seem like he does everything in slow motion?
7.52: Shot of Parramatta grouped in the in goal. Get used to that site. Hindmarsh sporting a haircut that is best described somewhere between Mel Gibson’s in Braveheart and Bon Jovie’s in the late 80s. 6-0 Broncos.
7.54: Ikin drones on about something. I’ll just put it out there now, Ikin is the worst colour analyst in sports, not just the NRL, sports. Brick in Anchor Man provided more in depth comments.
7.55: Hunt comes within inches of scoring off an inside ball from Lockyer. I’m loving the resurgence of the inside ball in league. I don’t know where it went or why it left but I’m glad it’s back. Lockyer looks good so far—attacking the line with conviction, got the team moving forward, finishing off sets. Somewhere Scott Prince takes a swig.
7.57: Vossy tells us Hunt is in his 6th year and he is 22. He has a title, a Origin title, an Australian cap, a sexual assault charge; what else is there to achieve for him in the NRL? What other industry does this happen in? The porn industry maybe. I think there needs to be more emphasis put on winning championships. Premierships don’t weight heavily enough in player evaluations. Johns was one of the greatest but he still only one 2 titles. I feel like the greatest of all time should have won more.
7.58: Another set is finished with a bomb from Parramatta. They’re producing more bombs than Brian McFadden at this point.
8.00: Chris Keating sparks a awkward Jarryd Hayne 2008 origin-esque try. There is somthing special about this milky bar kid.
8.02: Wait, NO TRY: Burt defiantly pushed Hodges. A frustration play if I ever saw one. But to be fair Hodges dived worse then Drogba on that one.
8.04: Quick hands put Folau up the side line. Hunt taken out in back play. NO CARDS shown. Even in the NFL you couldn’t take a player like that. This is a fast break kind of game; end-to-end stuff.
805 Hunt carves up Parra defence with 2 deadly right foot steps. To be fair no one in the league would have stopped that. No one.
8.08: High shot off the kickoff. Penalty against Parra. When it rains it pours.
8.08: Vossy’s second TAB SportsBet plug. Only three more! You stay classy channel 9!
8.10: Keating puts one over the sideline. Wapau is set to debut. Should I stand or sit? He is big ... looks lost standing at 5/8 ... WAIT ... Locker gives him a inside ball!!! ... no, he didn’t score on his first touch. To continue the trend of sensationalising everything about this guy, we may as well deem his career over now.
8.13: Wallace with a smart grubber to the corner for a flying Winterstein. Henjac celebrates with a clap that is best described somewhere between the clap the Queen would award the Rolling Stones and those seen at the conclusion of a Andre Rieu concert.
I like Winterstein; he is in the Darius Boyd mould. But for my writings sake, I’m nicknaming him Chocolate ICE. Back to my “the NRL needs trades theory”, Choco Ice is another good example. The Broncs do a great job of churning out these quality role playing wingers and they always bolt when they hit the market. Where is the compensation?
8.17: Joel Clinton interchange. His career has fallen faster then Holly Valance’s. Now he is just a reminder of how dumb the NRL is for not having a quality veteran exemption. Petero should have finished his career with the Broncos.
8.20: Ikin informs us that Wapau and Thaiday are communicating in some sort of North QLD lingo ... I believe they call it, English.
8.21: Fat Ludacris just bowled over Hunt, Lomu style. Matt Johns insinuates that Hunt thought he was in Tokyo .... still trying to work out what he was getting at here ... nothing yet ... let’s move on.
8.22: MATT KEATING ... why does Vossy feel compelled to say the Keating brothers’ whole name? They don’t look anything alike and this isn’t radio.
8.23: CHRIS Keating with ANOTHER bomb ... Hayne comes down with it., but is foiled by Wallace before he hits the ground. The Marlon Brando of rugby league is surprisingly devastating in the air. I don’t remember him having a aerial performance like this before ... oh wait, he is going against Steve “white men can’t jump” Michaels.
8.27: CHRIS KEATING is running Parramatta well. Causing problems for the Broncs defense. Parramatta have been in this game, they just make too many fundamental errors.
8.31: Halftime whistle. 16-0. Vossy labels it as a highly entertaining half of football. Broncs do everything they can to not walk through the Cheerleader cone tunnel, I’v never understood why players do this.
HALFTIME:
- Broncs look sharp. You know they are hot when they played spread and seem to be creating a lot of space on the fringes. I can see Hodges and Folau running riot in the second half.
- Parra doesn’t look great but they have had their chances. Should be confident but Im guessing Daniel Anderson will do his best to kill any of that. Hindmarsh hasn’t been a factor ... he seems to have given up on the game. If the NRL had trades he would be a great veteran pickup for a playoff contender going into the second half of the season. I could see him being rejuvenated at the Titans or Souths.
8.40: AD TIME ... KFC advertises their “Family Fun Bucket”. I feel sick just thinking of that bucket of grease. We are blessed with a CGU ad set in a deli with some insecure lady acting like she is a black teenager wrapping in the 90s ... I realise they are trying to get younger (I think), but I don’t really want my insurance company to be cool. Cool people don’t traditionally do well with money.
8.45: 2nd Half underway. Vossy informs us that Parra won the last half of the 1st half but the score is 16-0. Parra’s season in a nutshell.
8.49: Sharp short-side play from the Broncs. Lockyer pulled down mms from the line, followed by Hindmarsh dropping a knee WWE style on Lockyer’s head. He looked like he had practiced that ... hmm, the hair ... the seemingly distant disposition ... I think Hindmarsh is training to be a wrestler. What would his name be? It would have to be something to do with his ass wouldn’t it?
8.51: Nick Kenny strolls in to the end zone after Parra short-side D splits faster than a deadbeat dad. The Eel’s goal line defence is terrible; its one thing to beaten by good opposition but they are just soft. Other areas seem pretty solid except for the unforced errors. Fundamentals and creativity seem to be their biggest problems. All well known symptoms of the Daniel Anderson disease.
8.56: Wile-silly ... why-silly ... let’s just call him Silly. Anyway, he scored off a bomb into the end zone over guess who .. time is running out.. Steve “lead weight” Michaels. That left side is a real worry. They are young, small, and not that physical. When the Broncos play a NRL calibre team it could be a real issue. What’s the matter Parrra-matta? 22-4.
9.00: Vossy plugs ... do I need to finish ... only 1 more!
9.01: Quick strike down the Bronco right. Came from a soft tackle from Lockyer on Mateo. Lockyer’s terrible defensive form hasn’t been mentioned by any one, even with all this Origin controversy. It’s a real concern. At this point he is a statue; he changes direction slower than the Catholic Church.
9.03: Parra penalty. Broncs are panicking. The No. 1 thing to watch for tonight. I need to see Lockyer assert himself in the next 5 minutes. Parra play out a dangerous set but decide to pass to ... nobody on the last tackle. Talking about things on my list, not only are Eels fans not smiling, they seem to be focusing on talking about trucks a lot.
9.06: oooooooow...nasty headclash sends Silly off for the night. If he returns the NRL needs to be court marshalled. Boxers can’t fight for months after they get knocked out, but a NRL player can come back after he gets his head taped? Yet another thing that drives me crazy about the NRL.
9.07: Johns makes a tidy but effective Harrington joke ... Thank god Ikin didn’t feel compelled to match Johns. We could have had another Craig McLachlan on our hands.
9.08: Broncs score of a sharp backline play that sends Hunt untouched to score. Yeh they had an extra man on the field but they were evenly matched up on that right side, just bad reads from Parra defence. 28-4. A 24 point lead, that’s the magic number. No one comes back from that with less then a half to go.
9.09: Vossy makes another desperate plea for Hunt to stay away from the evil Japanese rugby giant. Hey NRL, raise your salary cap, and don’t embarrass yourself on national TV by begging 22 year olds not to leave you.
9.16: Broncs coasting now. Johns preaches about Lockyer’s solid performance, labelling him the best first receiver in the competition. He must have read my column.
9.17: Ikin informs us that Jarryd “marlon” Hayne is a big guy, “117 kg or something like that”. Hard hitting analysis there.
9.19: Choco Ice blows a great grubber opportunity from Wallace. Wallace’s Lockyer imitation is almost perfect. I expect him to finish the job by getting a one blade cut and Hving Dave Taylor sit on his voice box. People say Bennett screwed the Broncs by getting rid of Stagg and Ennis before he left, but he set them up for the next 6 to 8 years with Wallace.
9.21: Hayne blows another possible try from a great Keating end zone kick. Guess which side he kicked too.
9.23: Broncs work Parra right side shiort-side defence AGAIN, Hunt scores from some quick hands. Hunts got 3 now. The NRL needs a collective fan celebratory tradition for this. Like when hockey fans toss a octopus on the ice. 34-8.
9.27: Broncs win a scrum against the feed. That’s it Parramatta. You just hit rock bottom. You are at about the 4/5ths mark of Trainspotting. Hindmarsh looks like he is going to kill between 6 and 11 of his teammates before the game ends.
9.28: Folau scores off of a smart short ball / unders line on the ... you guessed it, right hand short side. 40-8. Tight ship the NRL are running here. When you can televise a foreseeable blowout of a marquee team on national TV, you got do it.
931. Full time. Thank god that’s over. Broncs go to top of ladder. Professional performance from the Broncs. Parrramatta has NO self confidence. Like I predicted, Daniel Anderson delivered in his halftime mission. What can I say, he’s the best at what he does.
9.35: Hunt is named MOM. He speaks like I write notes for this monologue; no connecting words. Wally Lewis asks him if he is content to keep playing the way he is... apparently he is...really? Scoring a hat rick, you want to keep that up? Lucky we have sideline reporters.
9.40: Shots of the Bronco dressing room. A trainer throws out a hundred bill and then begins the club song complete with the traditional playing of the wheelie bin ... no better way to kick off ANZAC celebrations then with a wheelie bin song.
After thoughts:
- The Eels have a lot of potential. Sure it’s fun to beat up on them but if a few things had gone the other way tonight they would have been a real threat.
- I don’t see how Wapau (the greatest player we’ve never seen) was better tonight then David Taylor would have been.
- Hunt should be the origin fullback. Slater has been secretly bad this year. Hunt wont dominate like he did tonight, but he is the most consistent player in the completion.
And we’re LIVE TAPE DELAYED from Telstra Stadium .... hmm ... I’m heading to bed, I think I’ll leave this one till tomorrow. Call it a 9 hour silence for ANZAC day.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Threesomes are awkward, even at the origin level.
From what I’ve ... uh ... heard, threesomes always leave one person watching from the sidelines and in some cases, I guess to justify their own presence in the forum, the third person is left performing some empty and degrading act.
Come Origin time, Scott Prince will be that third person. His empty and degrading act: A slew of repetitive interviews about missing out on being selected, where the he has to be diplomatic and pretend like he didn’t get screwed over and that he really wants the guy who took his place to do well.
It will be awkward and contrived, but at the end of the day QLD will be better off with a Lockyer-Thurston half combo. And who knows, if things ... uh ... wrap up early, Prince should see some action.
---
There is no question that Prince has been the best player through 6 weeks; his form has been consistent, the Titans have over-achieved, he broke the record for most times a player has been photographed wearing his full uniform in a non rugby league environment, and he seems to be in better shape than both his counterparts, physically and mentally.
The issue is, and I wrote about this in my April 19th column, NRL teams and Origin teams are built around roles and systems. Prince doesn’t fit the Origin system because he has an unorthodox role with the Titans.
Prince has built his recent career success off of his ability to carry teams with sub-par talent and size. He’s been able to do this because of his unorthodox approach to the half-back position.
Where a pure half like Lockyer, Thurston, or Johns make the players around them better by facilitating their strengths, Prince favours a more hands on, cowboy-esque, high-risk-high-reward style of attack. This is successful with sub-par talent because it reduces the game to chance and subsequently minimises any advantage a more talented opposition has.
Think of it this way: Scoring in the NRL relies on a team creating a crack in the defence—a line-break, a hole, a overlap, missed tackle—and capitalising on that with good support play. Where pure halves put players around them in the best positions to create those cracks, Prince relies on himself to create the crack.
It’s why you see him drifting across field throwing those awkward one-handed dummies and holding on to the ball for as long as possible, but you see Thurston just run at the line and pass.
In Origin, where the best talent in the league is on the field, you need halves who will facilitate that talent and get the most out of it. That’s the role Lockyer and Thurston fulfil within the NRL and at their clubs.
When you are more talented—and there is no question the QLD team is right now—reducing the game to chance decreases any advantage you have.
If QLD were in the position NSW are, and they needed to take a few chance to be able to win, Prince would fit the system and he would get the nod over Thurston. That’s what they are banking on with Anasta this year.
Unfortunately for Prince, it’s just bad timing. He is suffering from the Chris Whitaker syndrome. At least he can take solace in the fact that this should be Lockyer’s last year.
For now, he needs to suck it up, cup the balls, and wait his turn.
Brisbane Sports Fan
Come Origin time, Scott Prince will be that third person. His empty and degrading act: A slew of repetitive interviews about missing out on being selected, where the he has to be diplomatic and pretend like he didn’t get screwed over and that he really wants the guy who took his place to do well.
It will be awkward and contrived, but at the end of the day QLD will be better off with a Lockyer-Thurston half combo. And who knows, if things ... uh ... wrap up early, Prince should see some action.
---
There is no question that Prince has been the best player through 6 weeks; his form has been consistent, the Titans have over-achieved, he broke the record for most times a player has been photographed wearing his full uniform in a non rugby league environment, and he seems to be in better shape than both his counterparts, physically and mentally.
The issue is, and I wrote about this in my April 19th column, NRL teams and Origin teams are built around roles and systems. Prince doesn’t fit the Origin system because he has an unorthodox role with the Titans.
Prince has built his recent career success off of his ability to carry teams with sub-par talent and size. He’s been able to do this because of his unorthodox approach to the half-back position.
Where a pure half like Lockyer, Thurston, or Johns make the players around them better by facilitating their strengths, Prince favours a more hands on, cowboy-esque, high-risk-high-reward style of attack. This is successful with sub-par talent because it reduces the game to chance and subsequently minimises any advantage a more talented opposition has.
Think of it this way: Scoring in the NRL relies on a team creating a crack in the defence—a line-break, a hole, a overlap, missed tackle—and capitalising on that with good support play. Where pure halves put players around them in the best positions to create those cracks, Prince relies on himself to create the crack.
It’s why you see him drifting across field throwing those awkward one-handed dummies and holding on to the ball for as long as possible, but you see Thurston just run at the line and pass.
In Origin, where the best talent in the league is on the field, you need halves who will facilitate that talent and get the most out of it. That’s the role Lockyer and Thurston fulfil within the NRL and at their clubs.
When you are more talented—and there is no question the QLD team is right now—reducing the game to chance decreases any advantage you have.
If QLD were in the position NSW are, and they needed to take a few chance to be able to win, Prince would fit the system and he would get the nod over Thurston. That’s what they are banking on with Anasta this year.
Unfortunately for Prince, it’s just bad timing. He is suffering from the Chris Whitaker syndrome. At least he can take solace in the fact that this should be Lockyer’s last year.
For now, he needs to suck it up, cup the balls, and wait his turn.
Brisbane Sports Fan
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Headlines....Girth just as important to the NRL as to women.
19/04/09 - From Trevor Gillmeister of the CourierMail - THERE's not many things in rugby league that give me a bee in my bonnet but one is the amount of kicking. That's why it's time for the NRL to consider reducing the points for tries scored from a bomb or a grubber kick….To me, if a team scores a try off a kick it should get three points, not four. The last resort for teams these days is to kick and hope. It's like a lottery. The ball goes up, the players go up for it and if you're a taller bloke, like an Israel Folau, then chances are your number will come up.
It seems like the annual resurfacing of this issue is as sure a thing as a special guest appearance from Andrew Johns on The Footy Show.
The fact is: kicking offenses retain parity throughout the league. They are a competitive stable and a reduction in their value would be detrimental to the league. Just think about this, both in a business sense and a cultural sense.
---
From a business sense:
Gillmeister carves out the atypical purist argument—kick oriented offensive systems are diluting the game of fundamental skill.
In a broad sense that argument has some truth to it, however, it’s too simplistic. The traditional skill set – passing, catching, kicking, tackling, running – hasn’t deteriorated; it’s merely been re-defined and redistributed throughout the league.
A rise in kicking isn’t the reason complete skill sets are deteriorating, it’s the result of the deterioration; it’s an inevitable product of the game turning professional.
When the rugby league went professional, it turned into a business. And when businesses develop and grow they compartmentalize and specialize roles and operations within the organisation. That’s exactly what’s happened to the NRL.
Teams evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their player personnel, and tailor a system to emphasizes those strengths and minimize any weaknesses. The more objectively a coaching staff can self-evaluate, the better understanding they will have of themselves and the better they will be able to accentuate their strengths. It’s the reason why Jamie Soward was on his way out of the league in 2008, and in 2009 he is having a career year.
Where once coaches and managers simply tried to put as many talented players on the field as possible, teams are now made up of 17 specifically skilled players who fill certain roles within a offensive and defensive system.
These strengths are matched weekly against the weaknesses of a team’s opposition. Whoever can execute the game-plan more efficiently (successfully exploit the other teams weaknesses) will win. Simply: it’s a scientific approach to the game.
It’s hard for every team to develop a Darren Lockyer or Andrew Johns but it’s not hard to sign a winger who is tall. Sure, there is a “lottery” element to a kick but ultimately there is a science to the process and result.
There is a lottery element to picking up women too, but if you can accentuate certain strengths to exploit a girl’s weaknesses (like Stifler’s pseudo cultured attitude he adopts in American Pie 3 when he is trying to sleep with Cadence), chance is wholly taken out of the equation.
Folau’s true value in the game is his size; the Broncos believe that his defensive liabilities (he is secretly a terrible defensive decision maker) are outweighed by his offensive advantages, especially in the air. This strength is accentuated by the kicking offense.
So, as professionalism has brought about this ideological evolution in the leagues approach to the game, teams who haven’t been able to sign or develop star players (especially when it comes to halves) have been forced to look for other ways to compete.
And this is where the recent prevalence of kicking has come from.
Look at the Raiders. They don’t have a lot of talent, they aren’t athletic, and they don’t have a lot of experience to lean on. When they played the Sharks in round 5 they were outmatched athletically.
But they could compete because they have a competent game manager in Campese, and they were more efficient in their execution of their game plan—exploit Cronulla’s size disadvantage on the fringes with kicks to their taller wingers in the corners.
In business success comes from a focus on your core competent advantage.
Similarly, the Sharks were outmatched against the Cowboys in round 6, but were able to compete more so then against the Raiders, because the Cowboys didn’t have the same size advantage. The Sharks focused on attacking the questionable outside defense of the Cowboys while the Cowboys exploited the inside channels the Sharks left open.
Kicking is just one of many matchup issues a team can create. It’s just going to be more prevalent because there are more teams without star halves then not.
---
From a cultural sense:
It’s harder to go through and around teams anymore. The field hasn’t grown, but the players have.
As conditioning has become a more integral part of the game, player girth has become an issue. A premium is being put on stocky players because they can literally plug defensive holes across the field.
The same way the NBA values length in player evaluation, girth is important in the NRL. It’s the reason why players like Anthony Tupou, Feleti Mateo, Anthony Watmoug, Adam Blair, and Bronson Harrison have become highly sought after commodities with a premium being put on offloading. Teams are too wide and they drift too well.
Teams are forced to create second phase play or kick. In some cases it’s the only way through. There are only so many 2nd man plays a team can run.
---
So as great as Gillmeister was, his argument is as outdated as Mark Geyer’s suits on the Sunday Roast. The rise of the kicking offense is a positive thing for rugby league. It allows more teams to compete, incorporates more athletes into the game, and provides a better spectacle for the fan. Skill will still be in the game, it’s just been redefined.
It seems like the annual resurfacing of this issue is as sure a thing as a special guest appearance from Andrew Johns on The Footy Show.
The fact is: kicking offenses retain parity throughout the league. They are a competitive stable and a reduction in their value would be detrimental to the league. Just think about this, both in a business sense and a cultural sense.
---
From a business sense:
Gillmeister carves out the atypical purist argument—kick oriented offensive systems are diluting the game of fundamental skill.
In a broad sense that argument has some truth to it, however, it’s too simplistic. The traditional skill set – passing, catching, kicking, tackling, running – hasn’t deteriorated; it’s merely been re-defined and redistributed throughout the league.
A rise in kicking isn’t the reason complete skill sets are deteriorating, it’s the result of the deterioration; it’s an inevitable product of the game turning professional.
When the rugby league went professional, it turned into a business. And when businesses develop and grow they compartmentalize and specialize roles and operations within the organisation. That’s exactly what’s happened to the NRL.
Teams evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their player personnel, and tailor a system to emphasizes those strengths and minimize any weaknesses. The more objectively a coaching staff can self-evaluate, the better understanding they will have of themselves and the better they will be able to accentuate their strengths. It’s the reason why Jamie Soward was on his way out of the league in 2008, and in 2009 he is having a career year.
Where once coaches and managers simply tried to put as many talented players on the field as possible, teams are now made up of 17 specifically skilled players who fill certain roles within a offensive and defensive system.
These strengths are matched weekly against the weaknesses of a team’s opposition. Whoever can execute the game-plan more efficiently (successfully exploit the other teams weaknesses) will win. Simply: it’s a scientific approach to the game.
It’s hard for every team to develop a Darren Lockyer or Andrew Johns but it’s not hard to sign a winger who is tall. Sure, there is a “lottery” element to a kick but ultimately there is a science to the process and result.
There is a lottery element to picking up women too, but if you can accentuate certain strengths to exploit a girl’s weaknesses (like Stifler’s pseudo cultured attitude he adopts in American Pie 3 when he is trying to sleep with Cadence), chance is wholly taken out of the equation.
Folau’s true value in the game is his size; the Broncos believe that his defensive liabilities (he is secretly a terrible defensive decision maker) are outweighed by his offensive advantages, especially in the air. This strength is accentuated by the kicking offense.
So, as professionalism has brought about this ideological evolution in the leagues approach to the game, teams who haven’t been able to sign or develop star players (especially when it comes to halves) have been forced to look for other ways to compete.
And this is where the recent prevalence of kicking has come from.
Look at the Raiders. They don’t have a lot of talent, they aren’t athletic, and they don’t have a lot of experience to lean on. When they played the Sharks in round 5 they were outmatched athletically.
But they could compete because they have a competent game manager in Campese, and they were more efficient in their execution of their game plan—exploit Cronulla’s size disadvantage on the fringes with kicks to their taller wingers in the corners.
In business success comes from a focus on your core competent advantage.
Similarly, the Sharks were outmatched against the Cowboys in round 6, but were able to compete more so then against the Raiders, because the Cowboys didn’t have the same size advantage. The Sharks focused on attacking the questionable outside defense of the Cowboys while the Cowboys exploited the inside channels the Sharks left open.
Kicking is just one of many matchup issues a team can create. It’s just going to be more prevalent because there are more teams without star halves then not.
---
From a cultural sense:
It’s harder to go through and around teams anymore. The field hasn’t grown, but the players have.
As conditioning has become a more integral part of the game, player girth has become an issue. A premium is being put on stocky players because they can literally plug defensive holes across the field.
The same way the NBA values length in player evaluation, girth is important in the NRL. It’s the reason why players like Anthony Tupou, Feleti Mateo, Anthony Watmoug, Adam Blair, and Bronson Harrison have become highly sought after commodities with a premium being put on offloading. Teams are too wide and they drift too well.
Teams are forced to create second phase play or kick. In some cases it’s the only way through. There are only so many 2nd man plays a team can run.
---
So as great as Gillmeister was, his argument is as outdated as Mark Geyer’s suits on the Sunday Roast. The rise of the kicking offense is a positive thing for rugby league. It allows more teams to compete, incorporates more athletes into the game, and provides a better spectacle for the fan. Skill will still be in the game, it’s just been redefined.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Headlines....
12/04/09 – From James Hooper of DailyTelegraph.com.au - SOUTH Sydney have made a big-money play for Brisbane forward Dave Taylor, dangling a $750,000 carrot in front him. The Broncos prop, who has attracted interest from six rival NRL clubs, has been offered a three-year deal to join the Rabbitohs.
The Broncos are in HUGE trouble at the moment. There are three major contractual issues hanging over their corporate head.
The Broncos are in HUGE trouble at the moment. There are three major contractual issues hanging over their corporate head.
- The impending David Taylor loss.
- The just-around-the-corner Karmichael Hunt loss.
- The oh-so-quiet, yet uncomfortably rapid, demise of their highest paid player—el capa-tan, Darren Lockyer.
That’s like your puppy dying, followed by your girlfriend dumping you, and it all happening why your parents are terminally sick, and fading faster then expected. Meanwhile you can’t help but wonder if you could have salvaged the puppy and the relationship with the money you just spent on a 6 month old second hand Ferrari (That would be Folou. Should we call him F50 from now on?).
Either way, the Broncs better hope some good luck comes their way, and quick, or they will face their first real rebuilding period in club history.
The thing that bugs me about this as a fan of the game, is the lack of compensation. What’s fair about a team bringing a player all the way through from high-school and losing him just as he is about to peak?
(And I understand the Broncos have reaped the spoils (Wallace and F50 for starters) on occasion in these situations as well.)
So, this really is a question to the league, from the league.
Just look at Thurston’s move from the Bulldogs, Tonga’s move from the Eels and then from the Bulldogs, Finch’s move from the Eels, Stagg’s move from the Bronco’s, Amos Roberts move from the Panthers, Soward’s move from the Roosters; the list goes on. Hunt and Taylor are perfect examples.
The Broncos, like any good club, put both of them through private schooling in Brisbane, nurtured them physically and emotionally into first grade, developed them into world class players, and now, just as they are about to attain some form of authority in the game, are forced to give them up.
So once again, how is this fair?
Sure, this spreads talent around the league, but where is the compensation for big market teams like the Broncos, the Bulldogs, the Roosters, the Rabbitohs, and the good developmental teams like the Cowboys, the Wests Tigers, and the Knights, who perennially seem to put more effort and resources into developing and aiding youths?
There just isn’t any. But that doesn’t mean there can’t be any.
The NRL needs two things:
- A soft cap like the NBA has. This would allow big market teams to develop and retain players by exceeding the salary cap. The catch is, if they do so, they pay a luxury tax (the marginal cost) which is distributed among the teams with payrolls under the salary cap. In theory, these are small market teams who could use the added revenue.
- Trades
With a soft cap the Bulldogs could have conceivably kept Sonny-Bill Williams. They could have signed him for Europe money knowing his name would cover his salary and merely paid any luxury tax they accumulated in building a competent side around him. At least all that money would have stayed in the NRL.
And if they couldn’t keep him they could have traded him for three or four quality players from another team, and that team could have inked a new huge contract with him and suffered any luxury tax consequences.
Trades would ensure the biggest players always went to the markets with the biggest revenue. Sure, parity is good in theory, but for a league to thrive, it needs its biggest stars in its biggest markets.
For instance, The Storm knew they had a limited chance of resigning Folou in 2008 so why wouldn’t they have traded him when his value was highest (the end of 2007), and got something in return? In theory they could have traded him to the Broncos for cash and a then unproven David Taylor.
Talking about Taylor. The Broncos could have traded Taylor at the end of last year if they thought they wouldn’t resign him this year. They could have traded Stagg and Ennis to the Bulldogs for superstar prospect Ben Barba.
This would have left them with adequate compensation, giving them the room to either hold on to Barba or ship him to fill other needs, and on top of this they would’ve been able to resign Hunt even if this meant paying luxury tax. Once again the incentive to keep players by exceeding the cap would spread more money among the league.
The Eels could have got something in return for a quality commodity like Finch. Instead, they get nothing. Meanwhile the savvy Storm capitalise on a broken system. The raiders are poised to lose their one commodity (Terry Campese). The list goes on and on.
I realise its not as simple I have laid it out to be, but dreams start somewhere. The current system is outdated. It’s unprofessional in a professional era.
I have no problem with what the South Sydney is doing or with Taylor making $750,000. In fact I hope he makes that annually at some point in his career, but there needs to be some extra incentive for teams like the Broncos to keep investing so heavily in youth development.
It just isn’t fair, to the teams, the league, or the fans.
Brisbane Sports Fan
Headlines....
12/04/09 – From Peter Badel of heraldsun.com.au - MELBOURNE superstar Greg Inglis has hit back at claims he is overweight, saying he has no intention of accepting the advice of Queensland legend Wally Lewis to downsize his monster frame. Speaking out after a month of scrutiny over his 105kg physique, Inglis said his erratic early-season form had more to do with niggling injuries than any ongoing issues with his weight... "I don't see my weight as an issue at all,'' says Inglis, who was 99kg at the start of last season.
I hate to disagree with the Magic Johnson of rugby league, but Inglis’ weight gain is not an issue. If anything, it’s a foreseeable and eagerly awaited evolution of his career.
It’s traditional in rugby for backs to move from the outside (wing, fullback) to the inside (five-eight, halfback, hooker) as their careers progress. Inglis just did this—like everything else in his career—faster then everybody else, and in this case, faster then his own body.
Inglis is a new breed of Australian athlete. He is somewhere between the old (Mark Gasnier) and the future (think NFL player). 105kg is his real weight. Anything less than 100kg is his teenage weight. Do you still weigh the same as you did when you were 19?
The guy is a freak, and like any freak he has, and should have, a “monster” body.
People forget this guy is only 22 (as of January this year). They forget because he has been prevalent for so long already and has accomplished so much.
Since he entered the league in 2005: he’s been to 3 grand finals, won 1, won a Clive Churchill medal, won 4 Dally M medals, played 7 Origin matches, 11 Tests, and played in a World Cup final. He is the Shia Lebeouf of the NRL.
Biologically, he was due to fill out. Everybody fills out in there early 20s. I bet the Storm were counting on this when they moved him to 6. They knew he was talented enough to handle the role and they knew he would grow into his body and resolve any size issues Cronk gives them in the middle of the park.
People should be excited about this. The way LeBron James has asserted himself and his career as he has filled out in his early 20s, people should expect Inglis to do the same. Size is just another asset in his rugby league repertoire.
No play exuberates this new strength better then his offensive shoulder charge on Jamie Soward in round 1. When he has his hands on the ball he is the most dangerous player in the game. No argument.
---
And THAT is the true root of his form issues.
He doesn’t touch the ball nearly enough.
NRLstats.com rank him 62nd in total runs. They also rank him 15th in broken tackles and 21st in total meters. This means, offensively, he has been superb when he has got a hold of the ball. We just aren’t seeing it because he doesn’t get involved enough.
Beyond his athletic skill set, his value is his intangible prowess. When he touches the ball things just happen. Andrew Johns value was in his intuitive prowess; he always took the right option because he could read the game so well. Inglis doesn’t always take the right option but it always seems to work out for him. His process is intangible.
Either way, stars need the offense to run through them. They can run great lines all day, but they will only be truly effective when the ball is tied to their fate. If they are fated for great things then what they carry with them on their journey will receive the same blessing. It’s the same reason people choose actors before they write scripts.
(Despite how that reads, I’m not really that religious. I was merely trying to expand on the idea that “things happen” when he touches the ball.)
Five games into the season, this seems to be more a game planning problem, then a execution problem. The Storm are too content to put him in distributing positions. He needs to be involved around the edges of the play-the-ball, and on the sideline in the red zone as a Folou-esque aerial threat.
The worst thing the Storm can do is try and mold him like a traditional five-eight. He needs the hit-and-miss freedom that Benji Marshall has. Similarly, the media and the fans need not to judge him like a traditional five-eigth. He wears 6 but he should wear ∞ (the infinity sign) because you can’t define intangible.
Brisbane Sports Fan
I hate to disagree with the Magic Johnson of rugby league, but Inglis’ weight gain is not an issue. If anything, it’s a foreseeable and eagerly awaited evolution of his career.
It’s traditional in rugby for backs to move from the outside (wing, fullback) to the inside (five-eight, halfback, hooker) as their careers progress. Inglis just did this—like everything else in his career—faster then everybody else, and in this case, faster then his own body.
Inglis is a new breed of Australian athlete. He is somewhere between the old (Mark Gasnier) and the future (think NFL player). 105kg is his real weight. Anything less than 100kg is his teenage weight. Do you still weigh the same as you did when you were 19?
The guy is a freak, and like any freak he has, and should have, a “monster” body.
People forget this guy is only 22 (as of January this year). They forget because he has been prevalent for so long already and has accomplished so much.
Since he entered the league in 2005: he’s been to 3 grand finals, won 1, won a Clive Churchill medal, won 4 Dally M medals, played 7 Origin matches, 11 Tests, and played in a World Cup final. He is the Shia Lebeouf of the NRL.
Biologically, he was due to fill out. Everybody fills out in there early 20s. I bet the Storm were counting on this when they moved him to 6. They knew he was talented enough to handle the role and they knew he would grow into his body and resolve any size issues Cronk gives them in the middle of the park.
People should be excited about this. The way LeBron James has asserted himself and his career as he has filled out in his early 20s, people should expect Inglis to do the same. Size is just another asset in his rugby league repertoire.
No play exuberates this new strength better then his offensive shoulder charge on Jamie Soward in round 1. When he has his hands on the ball he is the most dangerous player in the game. No argument.
---
And THAT is the true root of his form issues.
He doesn’t touch the ball nearly enough.
NRLstats.com rank him 62nd in total runs. They also rank him 15th in broken tackles and 21st in total meters. This means, offensively, he has been superb when he has got a hold of the ball. We just aren’t seeing it because he doesn’t get involved enough.
Beyond his athletic skill set, his value is his intangible prowess. When he touches the ball things just happen. Andrew Johns value was in his intuitive prowess; he always took the right option because he could read the game so well. Inglis doesn’t always take the right option but it always seems to work out for him. His process is intangible.
Either way, stars need the offense to run through them. They can run great lines all day, but they will only be truly effective when the ball is tied to their fate. If they are fated for great things then what they carry with them on their journey will receive the same blessing. It’s the same reason people choose actors before they write scripts.
(Despite how that reads, I’m not really that religious. I was merely trying to expand on the idea that “things happen” when he touches the ball.)
Five games into the season, this seems to be more a game planning problem, then a execution problem. The Storm are too content to put him in distributing positions. He needs to be involved around the edges of the play-the-ball, and on the sideline in the red zone as a Folou-esque aerial threat.
The worst thing the Storm can do is try and mold him like a traditional five-eight. He needs the hit-and-miss freedom that Benji Marshall has. Similarly, the media and the fans need not to judge him like a traditional five-eigth. He wears 6 but he should wear ∞ (the infinity sign) because you can’t define intangible.
Brisbane Sports Fan
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Headlines....
08/04/09 - From Chris Pike of Sportal.com.au –While the Hurricanes' inside centre Ma'a Nonu has an almost 20kg weight advantage over James O'Connor, Mitchell is backing him and the rest of the Force team to carry out their plans against a dangerous Hurricanes team."Ma'a is a big guy, an excellent carrier of the ball and I'm well aware of that, but that's their strengths. We are focusing on our strengths and where we can expose them. They are a huge threat, are a very attack focused football team and have the ability to open you up like a can of worms," he said.
Yeah, and in that analogy, O’Connor is the can opener.
Don’t get me wrong, O’Connor is the most talented, intuitive, toughest, kid I have ever seen play professional rugby.
But he’s still a kid.
Ma’a Nonu (it’s scary just to write that) is a man. He’s a man among men. Sure, O’Connor will slice and dice like a pair of scissors but Nonu will crush him like a rock at some point this weekend. His money bicep (his right), is the same width as both of O’Connor’s arms put together. This is the biggest rugby mismatch since the Reds played anybody.
You can’t tell me he isn’t licking his lips at the prospect of hitting a short ball straight at O’Connor. It wouldn’t surprise me if he tattooed messages on his thighs the same way Americans wrote messages on their bombs during Vietnam.
It’s like when LeBron or Vince Carter dunk over a rookie. They don’t have to, but they do because they want to send a message. We could be witnessing rugby’s first official posterizing.
So props to John Mitchell for believing in O’Connor. I can see him shaking his hand in the locker room before the game with the same facial expression Kevin had when Stifler sculled his “pale ale”.
---
But seriously, if O’Connor takes a beating and still has another stellar performance, we are in unchartered territory. How high is his ceiling? Does he even have one?
Behind Matt Giteau and George Smith, he probably has the highest trade value (if there were such a thing) among any player in Australia. He may even be higher then Smith.
If you were going to re-draft the four Australian franchises tomorrow, he would be a top 4 pick because he would form the foundation of a teams future. The same way the bulldogs are building around Sonny-Bill….oh, wait, that’s not a good example.
I would rank the top ten guys as having the most trade value, as following:
(I took into account: age; leadership; skill; marketability; ceiling; intangibles)
Twitter, email, if you disagree.
Brisbane Sports Fan.
Yeah, and in that analogy, O’Connor is the can opener.
Don’t get me wrong, O’Connor is the most talented, intuitive, toughest, kid I have ever seen play professional rugby.
But he’s still a kid.
Ma’a Nonu (it’s scary just to write that) is a man. He’s a man among men. Sure, O’Connor will slice and dice like a pair of scissors but Nonu will crush him like a rock at some point this weekend. His money bicep (his right), is the same width as both of O’Connor’s arms put together. This is the biggest rugby mismatch since the Reds played anybody.
You can’t tell me he isn’t licking his lips at the prospect of hitting a short ball straight at O’Connor. It wouldn’t surprise me if he tattooed messages on his thighs the same way Americans wrote messages on their bombs during Vietnam.
It’s like when LeBron or Vince Carter dunk over a rookie. They don’t have to, but they do because they want to send a message. We could be witnessing rugby’s first official posterizing.
So props to John Mitchell for believing in O’Connor. I can see him shaking his hand in the locker room before the game with the same facial expression Kevin had when Stifler sculled his “pale ale”.
---
But seriously, if O’Connor takes a beating and still has another stellar performance, we are in unchartered territory. How high is his ceiling? Does he even have one?
Behind Matt Giteau and George Smith, he probably has the highest trade value (if there were such a thing) among any player in Australia. He may even be higher then Smith.
If you were going to re-draft the four Australian franchises tomorrow, he would be a top 4 pick because he would form the foundation of a teams future. The same way the bulldogs are building around Sonny-Bill….oh, wait, that’s not a good example.
I would rank the top ten guys as having the most trade value, as following:
(I took into account: age; leadership; skill; marketability; ceiling; intangibles)
- Matt Giteau (He would be zero if it didn’t always look like someone pissed in his hair.)
- George Smith (He needs a name like “the General” or something. Unfortunately, because of his age this is probably his first, and last, year this high.)
- James O’Connor (For next season I would recommend he grow some facial hair and change his name to Jim O’Connor.)
- Stirling Mortlock (Will probably project in the 8-10 range next year because of his age.)
- Lachlen Turner (Just gets the nod over Mitchell because of his age.)
- Drew Mitchell
- Berrick Barnes (He would be a much bigger star if he played on any other team and in the right position. That would be flyhalf.)
- Nathan Sharp (Getting old, and he’s unmarketable because his head looks like a penis when he isn’t wearing headgear. And that’s not a “he’s a dickhead for leaving the Reds” joke either. I’m serious. I watched him for years at the Reds. Trust me, its just weird.)
- David Pocock (The David Stagg of the S14)
- Josh Holmes (Makes the list for no other reason then his swagger at the 2006 U19 World Cup. Put it this way, if you put him in a room with players 3, 5, and 9 on this list, he is the top dog.)
Twitter, email, if you disagree.
Brisbane Sports Fan.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
A look at Australian Fantasy Sports
Australian fantasy sports are failing in the same way the NBL is failing; they just don’t know their strengths.
---
Basketball is explicit; The crowd is only meters away, there are only ten bodies on the floor at once, the court is small, the benches and team meetings can be heard, even the players themselves are larger and more literally explicit. It’s this intimacy between player, game, and fan which makes basketball such a great spectator sport.
And yet, the NBL continues to minimize this aspect of their product. Their marketing campaign has a collectivist focus on the “game”, when it should be individualistic focused on the players.
There is a reason my Mum knows who Michael Jordan is, but she doesn’t know how many points a layup is worth. The nuances of the game are hard to learn, but everyone knows how to engage emotionally with a person. Basketball is like the original reality TV. The plot doesn’t matter because the characters personalities are so powerful.
People relate, engage, and interact with players they feel they know. If you go to the local park and two guys are playing pickup hoops, you don’t really care who wins or loses. But, if one of those guys is a person you know, you inherently have an invested interest in the outcome. Pro-basketball is no different.
The NBL needs to focus on exploiting their strength (their larger-than-life players), and engage with the consumer emotionally; when a consumer is emotional they become irrational, and when a consumer is irrational, they spend.
---
The same is true for fantasy sports.
Its strength is its social utility. As nerdy as pretending to manage a team of players you have never met before, and celebrate THEIR triumphs as your own is, fantasy sports is incredibly socially interactive.
Its success and attraction lies in its ability to facilitate people’s social lives on an emotional level. Even more so than social networking sites, fantasy sports provide a true medium for social interaction; fantasy sports convey raw egotism and emotion opposed to the utilitarian blandness conveyed on Facebook or myspace.
The heart of this interaction occurs in the league draft. “Managers” discuss and interact as a precursor to the draft, they engage and react during the draft, and they debate and defend after the draft. It’s a social PED.
Socialising is all about communication. Fantasy sports merely facilitate that communication by providing engaging, emotional content. So in theory fantasy sports should be huge everywhere, especially a socially cognitive place like Australia. Right?
Right. But the problem is, leading Australian fantasy sites (Foxposrts.com.au, Sportal.com.au, virtualsports.com.au) aren’t draft compatible. They are all salary cap / dream team oriented. That is, everyone can select any player they want as long as they stay within the salary cap.
The problem with this format is it usually leads to everyone having the same top 4 or 5 guys, and just hoping their cheap fliers pay off. It’s unsociable because there is no debate, no accountability. It’s the same reason relationships are a gossip stable. They facilitate debate because they explicitly hold the stakeholders accountable for investing in each other.
With a draft people are forced to invest themselves in the fortunes of a player no one else will have. That guy becomes their guy, and they have to defend him because a attack on him is, in reality, a attack on them.
Like the pick-up hoops game in the park, fantasy sports have no residual connection to the audience until they invest themselves emotionally in a player.
The Australian market is ripe, and fantasy sports is a cash cow. It just needs to be milked in the right way.
Brisbane Sports Fan
---
Basketball is explicit; The crowd is only meters away, there are only ten bodies on the floor at once, the court is small, the benches and team meetings can be heard, even the players themselves are larger and more literally explicit. It’s this intimacy between player, game, and fan which makes basketball such a great spectator sport.
And yet, the NBL continues to minimize this aspect of their product. Their marketing campaign has a collectivist focus on the “game”, when it should be individualistic focused on the players.
There is a reason my Mum knows who Michael Jordan is, but she doesn’t know how many points a layup is worth. The nuances of the game are hard to learn, but everyone knows how to engage emotionally with a person. Basketball is like the original reality TV. The plot doesn’t matter because the characters personalities are so powerful.
People relate, engage, and interact with players they feel they know. If you go to the local park and two guys are playing pickup hoops, you don’t really care who wins or loses. But, if one of those guys is a person you know, you inherently have an invested interest in the outcome. Pro-basketball is no different.
The NBL needs to focus on exploiting their strength (their larger-than-life players), and engage with the consumer emotionally; when a consumer is emotional they become irrational, and when a consumer is irrational, they spend.
---
The same is true for fantasy sports.
Its strength is its social utility. As nerdy as pretending to manage a team of players you have never met before, and celebrate THEIR triumphs as your own is, fantasy sports is incredibly socially interactive.
Its success and attraction lies in its ability to facilitate people’s social lives on an emotional level. Even more so than social networking sites, fantasy sports provide a true medium for social interaction; fantasy sports convey raw egotism and emotion opposed to the utilitarian blandness conveyed on Facebook or myspace.
The heart of this interaction occurs in the league draft. “Managers” discuss and interact as a precursor to the draft, they engage and react during the draft, and they debate and defend after the draft. It’s a social PED.
Socialising is all about communication. Fantasy sports merely facilitate that communication by providing engaging, emotional content. So in theory fantasy sports should be huge everywhere, especially a socially cognitive place like Australia. Right?
Right. But the problem is, leading Australian fantasy sites (Foxposrts.com.au, Sportal.com.au, virtualsports.com.au) aren’t draft compatible. They are all salary cap / dream team oriented. That is, everyone can select any player they want as long as they stay within the salary cap.
The problem with this format is it usually leads to everyone having the same top 4 or 5 guys, and just hoping their cheap fliers pay off. It’s unsociable because there is no debate, no accountability. It’s the same reason relationships are a gossip stable. They facilitate debate because they explicitly hold the stakeholders accountable for investing in each other.
With a draft people are forced to invest themselves in the fortunes of a player no one else will have. That guy becomes their guy, and they have to defend him because a attack on him is, in reality, a attack on them.
Like the pick-up hoops game in the park, fantasy sports have no residual connection to the audience until they invest themselves emotionally in a player.
The Australian market is ripe, and fantasy sports is a cash cow. It just needs to be milked in the right way.
Brisbane Sports Fan
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Headline Analysis...
02/04/09 - From Dean Ritchie of couriermail.com.au – With the code in desperate need of some good publicity, Bennett took extraordinary steps to avoid talking about tonight's blockbuster match between the Dragons and the club at which he won six premierships.
"It's just Wayne being Wayne,'' Broncos chief executive Bruno Cullen said."I don't think it shows that he's under pressure. He has had a lot of fun with the Brisbane media over a lot of years. I think he is just continuing that. It also takes a bit of pressure off his players if the media are chasing Wayne to the team bus.''
I’ve been a Bronco die-heart since I can remember. I spent years defending Australia’s second most famous sporting Wayne. I defended him because I loved the broncos. They brought me a lot of happiness, and he was a big reason for that.
However, in hindsight (and even at the time I kind of knew), my argument was insane. Bennett was a jerk to the Brisbane beat and NRL writers. He just was. And apparently he still is.
“It’s just Wayne being Wayne”. That’s Bruno Cullen’s and the rest of western civilization’s way of saying you’re an asshole.
And you know what, that’s fine for him. In fact, its probably why he is so successful. If he stays out of the spotlight, he practices what he preaches, and he can run the tight ship which led to six titles at the Broncos.
But what about the NRL?
They’re in a war with the AFL and the A-league and they need all the positive engagement with the market as they can get. Would it kill Illa’Wayne to answer a few questions?
Isn’t he doing himself a disfavor? Think about it.
If he talks to the media, they write a piece that gives Broncos v Dragons some context. Fans read that, suddenly have more reason to care, and end up watching or going to a game they may have missed entirely. The NRL makes more money, the ratings go up, and Illa’Wayne gets more money from a affluent league.
I guess relativity isn’t one of Bennett’s mythical life lessons.
I’m just a fan, but wouldn’t maintaining a good relationship with the people whose job it is to detail everything you do be a good idea? It’s like if a guy is planning on sleeping with hot girl, he doesn’t piss the hot girl’s DUFF (designated ugly fat friend) off, because he knows she shapes the hot girl's perception of him.
---
THE IMPORTANCE OF PRESS CONFRENCES
In today’s, globalised, 24/7, saturated sports world, the channels and the relationship an organisation maintains with its fans (the media is the NRL’s biggest and most important channel) is critical, because it allows the league to engage with the fan.
Press conferences are unique in that they relay information/news in real time. They are almost like Twitter and Blogs before Twitter and Blogs. They are immediate, intimate, telling, emotional, and (most importantly to sports leagues) confrontational.
Sports leagues need confrontation. They need to be talked about. Its why in the long run, Shane Warne was great for cricket, and Wendall Sailor has been great for the NRL and the Super 14. If you are the commissioner of a league, your number one priority is to stay relevant.
The reason the NFL is the biggest sports league in the world has little to do with the on field contest, and everything to do with the off-field discussion. The whole game is designed to be scrutinized.
24 seconds between each play. A myriad of replays. Timeouts. TV timeouts. Injury reports. Limited roster space. Mock drafts. The draft. The NFL Network. Hard Knocks. The off-season is as big if not bigger then the actual season.
The NFL is a story 365 days a year because they go so far as to break down press conferences. While the NRL doesn’t even televise all their post game press conferences. The NRL can’t be so myopic in their approach.
BP and Shell aren’t in the oil business, they are in the fuel business. The NRL isn’t in the sport business, they are in the entertainment business. Illa’Wayne and David Gallop need to remember this.
The same goes for Super 14.
"It's just Wayne being Wayne,'' Broncos chief executive Bruno Cullen said."I don't think it shows that he's under pressure. He has had a lot of fun with the Brisbane media over a lot of years. I think he is just continuing that. It also takes a bit of pressure off his players if the media are chasing Wayne to the team bus.''
I’ve been a Bronco die-heart since I can remember. I spent years defending Australia’s second most famous sporting Wayne. I defended him because I loved the broncos. They brought me a lot of happiness, and he was a big reason for that.
However, in hindsight (and even at the time I kind of knew), my argument was insane. Bennett was a jerk to the Brisbane beat and NRL writers. He just was. And apparently he still is.
“It’s just Wayne being Wayne”. That’s Bruno Cullen’s and the rest of western civilization’s way of saying you’re an asshole.
And you know what, that’s fine for him. In fact, its probably why he is so successful. If he stays out of the spotlight, he practices what he preaches, and he can run the tight ship which led to six titles at the Broncos.
But what about the NRL?
They’re in a war with the AFL and the A-league and they need all the positive engagement with the market as they can get. Would it kill Illa’Wayne to answer a few questions?
Isn’t he doing himself a disfavor? Think about it.
If he talks to the media, they write a piece that gives Broncos v Dragons some context. Fans read that, suddenly have more reason to care, and end up watching or going to a game they may have missed entirely. The NRL makes more money, the ratings go up, and Illa’Wayne gets more money from a affluent league.
I guess relativity isn’t one of Bennett’s mythical life lessons.
I’m just a fan, but wouldn’t maintaining a good relationship with the people whose job it is to detail everything you do be a good idea? It’s like if a guy is planning on sleeping with hot girl, he doesn’t piss the hot girl’s DUFF (designated ugly fat friend) off, because he knows she shapes the hot girl's perception of him.
---
THE IMPORTANCE OF PRESS CONFRENCES
In today’s, globalised, 24/7, saturated sports world, the channels and the relationship an organisation maintains with its fans (the media is the NRL’s biggest and most important channel) is critical, because it allows the league to engage with the fan.
Press conferences are unique in that they relay information/news in real time. They are almost like Twitter and Blogs before Twitter and Blogs. They are immediate, intimate, telling, emotional, and (most importantly to sports leagues) confrontational.
Sports leagues need confrontation. They need to be talked about. Its why in the long run, Shane Warne was great for cricket, and Wendall Sailor has been great for the NRL and the Super 14. If you are the commissioner of a league, your number one priority is to stay relevant.
The reason the NFL is the biggest sports league in the world has little to do with the on field contest, and everything to do with the off-field discussion. The whole game is designed to be scrutinized.
24 seconds between each play. A myriad of replays. Timeouts. TV timeouts. Injury reports. Limited roster space. Mock drafts. The draft. The NFL Network. Hard Knocks. The off-season is as big if not bigger then the actual season.
The NFL is a story 365 days a year because they go so far as to break down press conferences. While the NRL doesn’t even televise all their post game press conferences. The NRL can’t be so myopic in their approach.
BP and Shell aren’t in the oil business, they are in the fuel business. The NRL isn’t in the sport business, they are in the entertainment business. Illa’Wayne and David Gallop need to remember this.
The same goes for Super 14.
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