In sports they (whoever they are) forever bemoan the threat of believing in ones own hype as the single most destructive force (cognitive or physical) a “favorite” can face. Last night we witnessed the first official time a team lost because they believed in the hype of the OTHER team.
It took the blues between 55 and 60 minutes to realize: they were all NRL caliber players, the “QLD has more spirit” shtick is all bullshit, the refs had been reminded at halftime that it would be better for the league to have NSW take game one so they were going to get every 50-50 call, Steve Price actively works to create repeat sets for the opposition with his “charge downs”(repeat sets: also known as “the one thing you want to avoid in rugby league”), and the team they were playing had some serious defensive holes, especially around the ruck. Simply: for the first 3/4 of that game NSW played like they were trying to keep it close rather than they were playing to win.
Thank god they never realized that: Hayne could out-leap anybody on the QLD left side defense, that Hunt was playing out of position and was outmatched physically for the better part of the game, and that Craig Wing AND Robbie Farah were the way to go. If they had done that they may have won.
A few things we learnt from Game 1:
1) CAN WE GET OVER THE MELBOURNE THING?
The Docklands stadium swallows sound (how does that even happen in an enclosed stadium?), or at least it does on TV. The atmosphere was flat with the occasional corporate “oh yeah, we should make some noise because of what the big scoreboard said” cheers. The costs of travel and Melbourne out price already out priced blue collar fans. It’s the most illogical thing in sports having your marquee event (which derives cultural value from its ties to location) be played in an irrelevant city, no matter how big that market is.
Futhermore, how is it better for the league to sell out in Melbourne (53-56,000 seats) opposed to Telstra stadium (81-83,000 seats), especially when you can sell those tickets for more, to a more potent and invested fan base?
In business 101 you learn that retaining customers opposed to attaining customers is far more cost efficient, so why is this different in sports? I understand the lure of the Melbourne market but Origin doesn’t make sense. Conversely they should be sending more Tests down there. If the 2006 Socceroos proved anything, it’s that people will get behind national teams without thought. The kangaroos (and the Wallabies for that matter) are the biggest competent competitive advantage the NRL and ARL have over a better run AFL. EXPLOIT YOUR ADVANTAGES!!!
2) GREY AREA
Sport is so culturally popular because it is relevant to everyday life. There is success and failure, winning and losing, responsibility and reliance, roles and relationships, hierarchy, and most importantly grey area; it feeds human natures insatiable curiosity by supplying debatable and usually un-answerable conflict. So why do refs rule in black and white consistently? Where is the discretion, the common sense?
Ben Creagh’s try was the only MISTAKE make up call I have ever seen. Hayne’s try was ruled painstakingly bureaucratically and in the end wrongly. And then because of that same bureaucratic approach, the obvious forward pass (which was played over and over again in front of everyone, mind you) was disregarded and the wrong call was made, but it made up for the first call so it was back to square one. Apparently two wrongs do make a right. It had to rank as one of the most embarrassing moments for the NRL in the last decade.
My suggestion: Haynes miracle ball inside was clearly forward despite the angle, because we could see him pass from behind the try line and see the ball land in the in goal. So in theory if you had a line drawn at every meter you could effectively rule on forward passes with the video ref. Why then wouldn’t the NRL use the same system the NFL uses to draw first down and scrimmage lines across the field, as a way of ruling on forward passes? You wouldn’t need any more physical lines on the fields, just some extra technology available in the booth. The video ref can already rule interject during play on other areas of the game so why not attend to this regularly missed part of the game.
(NOTE: Benefit of the doubt needs to be amended to “does that look like a try and would you give it in Saturday afternoon u16 club game”. We all thin slice (see, Gladwell, Malcolm) and it obvious upon first view of what feels like it is a try and what isn’t.)
3) CRAIG BELLAMY
The job of an origin coach is to manage the team, set a tone, and ideally, give the team an Identity. Fatty isn’t a smart guy or a great coach but he has a defined identity and he brought that to the team when he coached. The same with Mal Meninga, and Gus Gould (although Gus is a good coach as well). When you think about it there is nothing these guys are going to “learn” in the ten days you have them so your main focus and obstacle as a coach is providing belief and motive. That is where the true essence of the so called “QLD spirit” resides, what I always thought NSW overlooked, and why a often more lazy approach centered around upholding values (the mythical QLD approach) opposed to running drills was the catalyst for success for an often overmatched team.
So with this said, it’s inexcusable for Bellamy to spend the entire game looking like they were down by 70. He over-reacted to every negative play or QLD score like it was a dagger play. If nothing else the least he can do is pretend to not care when QLD scores; not care as in he is confident they will come back. He needs to adopt the same look a guy has when he hits a full house or straight on the river, but already has the other guy baited because he thinks his 3 of a kind kings he got on the flop are so unbeatable he hasn’t realized the possibility of a full house—like he has something up his sleeve.
(NOTE: If I were a NSW fan my 6 most explicative saturated rants would have come after the following: 1) the Hayne NO TRY, 2) Bellamy’s reactions to the high scoring opening 20 minutes, 3) the inspirational knock on by Kurt Gidley, 4) the hospital-clean Hayne hit deemed to be “dangerous” on Billy Slater, 5) the fact that they reviewed Billy Slater’s mm close try only once with the quickest replay of all time just minutes after they deliberated Haynes NO TRY to the point that Sterlo began lamenting about how bored he was, 6) several times after hearing Gus Gould go on about the blues inability to get loose balls.)
4) CRACKING THE ENIGMA
Note to all NRL teams who were planning on having Folau beat them single handedly by letting him jump over the top of all their wingers and centers: he can be stopped.
Easily one of the most defining moments the NRL has seen in the past 5 years occurred in the first quarter of last nights game. Since the leagues post-modern movement towards game plans with a heavy kicking focus occurred over the last few seasons (The originators: the 2004 Cowboys team that over achieved through the high flying antics of Matt Sing and made it within one scrum-feed of going to grand final. They would have scored off that scrum against the Roosters if they got the feed.I’m convinced of this), last night was the first time someone proactively tried to deter that game-plan.
Although it seemed accidental in the replay, upon first viewing, it seemed as though Hayne deliberately body checked Folau on his first high ball attempt of the night. The residual of this play was a stunned and confidence diluted Folau for the rest of the night.
I want to believe that Bellamy hammered that left side defense all week about the importance of checking Folau on his first leap, because it is such a logical tactic and stance for a team with limited AA defensive personnel. In fact it’s a logical tactic for any team who wants to send a message right from the start of the game. It’s the same as a team hammering a guy who wanders into the lane in basketball. The paint or the in goal in rugby league is yours to defend and you can’t just let the opposition meander in there..
By checking perennial league aerial threats (Folau, Monaghan, Inglis, Kenny-Dowall, Hayne) a team sends a message and forces the attacking team to adjust their game plan on the fly, which from everything we know about the problem solving abilities of rugby league players, is a good thing for the instigator. By the time they figure it out, it’s too late.
It’s the same reason they go out of their way to check halves when they kick; they want to distract them, put them off their game. Folau probably hasn’t truly been challenged his whole life. I’m surprised this didn’t surface earlier. If you are the Sharks, the Raiders, the Cowboys, or even the Storm I say you implement this extra level of physicality immediately; you give your team an identity. You can’t just let people waltz into the paint (That term is officially applicable for in goals now, as they have the Toyota paint in them.)
5) TRADES
Apparently Craig Wing is still an asset? Who knew? Oh wait … I did. I wrote a few weeks ago that if the league implemented a soft cap and allowed teams to trade players it would be great thing. Assuming you could work out a deal that matched the salaries with a give or take of $50,000 or 25%, made up the difference with prospects or cash, and stayed under the cap, how is the league not better off? Even if they had a luxury tax, where big market teams with extra cash to throw around could swallow small market teams big contracts when they needed to dump them (see Sharks, Cronulla), and then payed a revenue sharing fee equal to the amount they exceeded the cap.
I argued the Broncos, who obviously didn’t have long term plans for David Taylor once they realized how good he was going to be, could have traded him to a team and received cash or players (in my example I said either a veteran asset in Craig Wing or a raw talent in Issac Luke if they traded with Souths). They would have been compensated and a veteran like Wing could have been the last piece of the puzzle to get a hooker-weak Broncos team over the line at the end of the 2008 season. Conversly, Souths dump Wings salary, inject confidence into a confused-by-his-minutes-and-continually-shifted-role Issac Luke, and are a contender with Taylor anchoring their front row in 2009.
The system as it is now just doesn’t work. The Broncos lose out either way. If they choose not to bring Taylor up into first grade he assumes that he needs to move on if he wants his chance and he signs cheap with another club, like Inglis did. If they bring him up hoping to curb the aforementioned scenario (which is what they did) then he is exposed to everyone, his talent is on full display , his demand goes up, and they can’t afford the guy who they already invested a few hundred grand into. At least with trades they can get compensate for their investment.
(ONE FINAL NOTE: I would like to thank Channel 9 for not letting Ben Ikin near a microphone last night. I may never have recovered to write this column if I had to hear him during that NSW comeback. So thank you Channel 9. I award you a country club clap for using common sense.)
Brisbane Sports Fan
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