Hordes of southerners bringing their weird football
What does, when you get down to it, adequate even mean? All-Stars and everything is pokies now
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The trial of the century
ARLC chairman Peter V’landys says they have never spent more money on “participation and development” while QRL boss Ben Ikin claims grassroots footy is yet to see any of the game’s $58m profit of the past year.
Speaking at the Cowboys season launch in Townsville, rugby league’s head honcho took the bitter feud between the ARLC and state associations to a new level on day it was revealed the governing body’s revenue from the past year was nearly $700m, with assets reaching nearly $300m in value.
“We’ve given record distributions to clubs, record distributions to players, and we’ve never spent more money on participation and development,” V’landys said.
It’s great that you can just say anything1. For example, you can pretend you won't see out your term, even though you're addicted to having two jobs that make you feel important, whenever the heat from the clubs and press and fans gets too much because that'd show them, what would they do without me?! (life would continue, I assure you)
Ben Ikin treated us to some sniping in response and I assume this back and forth will continue until the judge renders a verdict and the loser has to shut up.
V’Landys also leaned on his performance during covid without going into detail about how he panicked and capitulated to a range of stakeholders, a trend that continues to this day. If you’ve read this far, you already know the story.
I’ve had some further thoughts on the lawsuit. Hit the PVL lawsuit klaxon.
In 2022, the ARLC cut the NSWRL’s funding because NRL clubs weren’t able to bully the NSWRL into doing whatever the clubs wanted. V’Landys automatically backed the clubs without considering any of the merits of the situation and tried to force a new board election by cutting funding and threatening to take control of the Blues.
The NSWRL took the ARLC to court and won because the court reinforced the ARLC’s constitutional obligations, which included not acting like tinpot dictators and arbitrarily changing said constitutional obligations, leaving control of the Blues with the NSWRL but to quote the SMH, “the controlling body [ARLC] retains discretion on funding, which must be provided in good faith”.
The question of the quantum of funding seemed like an obvious thing that needed resolution, even at the time. While funding may not have been officially cut, in theory the ARLC could set the funding level at effectively, but not precisely, zero if it could claim it acted in good faith.
Through it’s usual lagard administrative processes and petty revanchism, Abdo, PVL, et al have refused to confirm funding for the state bodies for this year while claiming over $100 million in profits over 2021-22, with tens of millions still to come for 2023. To get the ARLC to deliver on its constitutional obligations, the QRL and NSWRL have taken them to court.
If that’s the case, then let’s look at the ARLC consitution:
I’ve highlighted (b) and (c) as what I assume will be what the suit is really about. It’s not going to be clear cut - and it never is, which is why the legal system exists - so there’s plenty of scope for lawyers to mount arguments with reference to things I’m not across, like precedents, legislation and other things I would be across if I was a lawyer, which, again, I am not. The end result will be some clarity around what constitutes “adequate”, which will likely make reference to “reasonable” and “good faith”.
Related and perhaps I’m going to say the same thing but rephrased differently, but I don’t buy the rhetoric about AFL invasions. Renowned poster Phil Gould banged that drum in 2011, claimed a decade of neglect and see what happened in western Sydney: nothing was done and the NRL is as strong as ever2. While the image of hordes of southerners bringing their weird football over the border is evocative, perhaps even motivating, I’ve got bad news about where population growth in Queensland comes from and thus our future footballers.
There isn’t going to be a battle between the codes, no matter how much people want one. This dispute is symptomatic of rugby league’s eternal dysfunction and in the unlikely event of Queensland going to Victorian rules, it’s going to be because the NRL blew off its own foot and bled out. It’s not going to be a clash of civilisations, a conflict of ideologies, an epochal fight in the mold of the Battle of Waterloo. Andrew Dillon is not the Duke of Wellington, although Peter the Great the Short has a bit of Napoleon about him, albeit with far less competence and Josephine probably never called Bonaparte a slum lord.
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The Game: All-Stars
I didn't check, so not knowing the All-Stars were on Friday was my fault, even though it’s been on Saturday night since 2020, but who scheduled what should be one of the highlights of the women's calendar to kick off at 5.30pm local time on a weekday? Then again, the men’s game finished after midnight in New Zealand. If only there was a day of the week where a three hour time difference could be easily accommodated? Too hard. I watched it on Saturday night anyway.
Also, who could have known there'd be rain in north Queensland in February?! Wonder if that’s why they had the lowest All-Stars crowd ever? Too too hard.
Both were kind of weird games.
Women's
Too error riddled to draw many conclusions. The Indigenous got over the line with a few moments of individual brilliance.
Those who you'd expect to look the park did: Upton, Bent, Brill, Dibb, Chapman, etc. You'd want Z Temara to dig in a bit more. Good to see Fuimaono back. C Temara looked hobbled. The comms being surprised that they look fit? Some of them are kicking off their Cup campaigns in a few weeks.
Few opportunities for structured play. The Maori fullback and wingers struggled with a long ball from Dibb and a decent Indigenous kick chase, and looked at sea most of the night. The one attacking raid that the Maori managed to get to stick turned into points.
Indigenous are now 3-3 against the Maori in the All-Stars.
Men’s
Love the TSI part of the war cry and the crowd reaction, which you wouldn’t get anywhere other than north Queensland. I get a little buzz from rugby league being a platform for people being able to express themselves. There should be more or it.
Also loved the Cup guys. Laybutt, Butler and Biondi-Odo all on the field at the same time after Mosseley opened proceedings. Shame that the comms seemed incapable of naming the Blackhawks or the (Burleigh) Bears or the Devils (that I heard) and could only reference internationals or their brief appearances in the NRL.
I think I've come around on Kodi Nikorima. He was turned to paste by the dark days of the Broncos and probably should never have been a starting 7 (or 1) but he just has a real enthusiasm about him these days that I really admire. Maybe it’s because he’s not my problem anymore.
Someone give the triangular Bailey Butler a go. Please.
The Maori won the possession and yardage battles comfortably but had just absolutely nothing with the ball. The Indigenous were just up for it. An 8 point margin and it didn’t feel even that close.
Indigenous are now 3-2-1 against the Maori in the All-Stars.
I’d embed a Youtube of the cultural displays but they’re buried in the game highlights.
The situation way up north
The Queensland Rugby League (QRL) aims to make a decision by the end of the week over whether to play early round games of its statewide competition in Papua New Guinea after the killing of at least 26 men in civil unrest.
Putting aside the much more important disaster unfolding - I will leave that for more serious people than me - and focussing on the much less important rugby league aspect, it probably couldn’t have come at a worse time if you were trying to convince everyone that a PNG NRL team would be a really good idea. I mean, I’m not saying Ben Ikin convinced local police to go on strike, law and order to break down in Port Moresby and then coordinated the PNG opposition to move a vote of no-confidence in Marape as a result but I’m not not saying it.
Other interesting detail regarding the Cutters’ and Hunters’ final game in 2022:
"When they had the elections, and COVID was rife, the PNG Hunters requested they play their last five games in Port Moresby," Hatcher said. "Because the election hadn't been declared we had to wait, as there was a fair bit of civil unrest. We ended up cancelling four games and then cancelled the fifth against Mackay.
“I was in the QRL office on the Wednesday morning and I got a call from the (PNG) prime minister who said he wanted the game to go on. He promised to ensure high safety protection for all the players and officials. We ended up flying the teams up there on the morning of the game."
The Cutters copped a lot of the blame (including from me) for apparently forfeiting the game in the first place and Albanese got credit for sorting that out. Sounds like both were misplaced. Apologies to the Cutters and the good people of Mackay. You won’t get that from Stinky Pete Badel.
But if you take that anecdote and Albanese’s presumed desire to stay tight with PNG…
…it becomes a bit clearer who really wants the NRL team for PR and who’s merely pushing it for favours. It’s entirely possible that Marape, Albanese and V’Landys know it will never come to fruition for the obvious reasons but want to play the game so that Marape looks good at home and PNG continues to inflate Australia’s sense of its place in the world follow the lead of Australia as it does the dirty work of the United States in the South Pacific as payment for Pax Americana maintain a flow of semiconductors from Taiwan to prevent the economy from coming to a complete standstill keep hordes of communists at bay.
If it keeps going like this, the ARLC cannot possibly award a PNG-based NRL licence and this year is the latest possible time to award a licence for kickoff in 2026/27. That leaves us with the Bears and the Tigers, both of whom should probably be thinking about Perth. If you wanted to get a bunch of Queensland fans for your new interstate franchise, funnelling four future Immortals through QCup and then to your NRL team in a southern capital isn’t the worst plan.
Not really related to anything in particular
The State of the Culture, 2024.
I like this piece (less so the horrifying ramifications) because it hits on something that I’ve been thinking of as “everything is becoming pokies”. In a more general form, that might be “we are all pigeons addicted to Skinner boxes”.
Capitalism has done a wonderful job of revealing that all the lizard brain really wants is a dopamine hit, delivering that as efficiently and cheaply as possible with different kinds of Skinner boxes3 and then leveraging the subsequent addiction as a means to separate you from your money.
Consciously or not, this insight has inflected every part of the experience of watching sports today, from more traditional clickbait headlines, to commentators deliberately making anything that happens into a crime against humanity to trade on your impulse to anger, to sports gambling and fantasy games infesting every second of airtime and the subsequent boom in Vegas sports.
If you watch old games, there is a noticeable difference in attitude and presentation that I think reflects that the thing on the field is the thing that’s important. There’s less about trying to make you angry so you go to the Daily Telegraph comments section to register your outrage under whatever drivel is turned out by Dean Ritchie the next day. To be fair, the State of Origin/Courier Mail complex played a big role in developing this dynamic for rugby league.
If there is one thing I am actually nostalgic for, it is not being treated like a rat, constantly harassed with chimes and pop-ups, instead of being treated like an adult human that’s capable of understanding things in colours other than black and white.
Worse is being forced to subscribe to everything to get anything of value.
Intermission
Notes
The Broncos defeated the Cowboys, 46-20, in Mackay and the Dolphins defeated the Titans, 26-14, on the Sunshine Coast in the trials. I hope everyone had a good time.
Hostplus Cup and BMD Premiership feature games locked in - everyone gets at least one men’s game in the first 10 rounds except for Tweed and PNG.
I think the most popular tweet I ever did, other than maybe screencapping a press release that Bluey was doing an Origin episode, was pointing out the hypocrisy of Payne Haas and Albert Kelly getting suspensions for being filmed being idiots while Taylan May was on actual assault charges the same day and got nothing from the NRL. May had no video, so no one cared. May got suspended on his second assault in 2022 because guess what? There was video. The NRL are gutless and pathetic but in this case, their gutlessness and patheticness are motivated by hordes of boomer Facebook commenters that haven’t touched grass since 2019. Anyway, DING DING [ruck infringement voice] BREACH NOTICE.
Brazilian captain Maria Graf, Patricia Wani, Tiamo Williams and Shaylee Joseph signed for the Tigers. Montanah Best and Libby Surh signed for the Cutters.
How droll: Twist in NRL expansion debate as powerbrokers say ‘Aloha!’ to Dirty Reds return bid
Disclosure: I'm now a 3 game Dolphins member, as well as a 4 game Broncos member and a Davies Park Souths Logan member. I wanted to go to the Dolphins season opener against the Cowboys and the Dolphins-hosted Conflict on Caxton. The Phins offer 3 game memberships so now I guess I'll go to the Dolphins-hosted Brawl on the Beach. $95 for 3 games in the silver areas of Suncorp ain’t bad value for money.
Not Queensland: Wakefield destroyed Newcastle, 110-0, in the 1895 Cup.
Rewind
I don’t know why I was ignoring it but QRL dot com is doing some really good work with their From The Archives series.
These are short Q&As with former players, mostly from the late 70s and 80s BRL. Normally, I would probably find that boring but the questions are pitched just right to generate sometimes funny, sometimes insightful responses.
I repeated year 12 in 1987 so I could play for the Australian Schoolboys and Jason Little and Tim Horan got the gig instead of me. Nuffies they turned out to be. So I got picked on the wing instead of the centres
Well, it’s a somewhat dubious put down sure, but to be fair I am a prop. Are you going to take my only Origin try off me? We are up 37-6 at Lang Park and Wally is telling the ref that’s a try, definitely a try - it's a bold move to say no.
TNT called me and said we saw in the paper you’ve been picked for Australia and planning to go away for three months, can you come have a chat. I went in and they said we have a rule anyone that works for us and gets picked in any sport for Australia, we will pay your wage for the time you’re away.
I was at the shops at Redcliffe the other day and a gentleman looked at me and said: 'Are you Forrester Grayson?' I said yes. He said 'my name is William McInnes', I said 'nice to meet you William' and we had a great chat about footy. He said that try was a highlight and nothing more he loved in the 1970s then to go to Lang Park and watch the Dolphins. I asked if he wanted to meet my dog and he said yes, we had a great chat. My wife came out of the shops and I introduced them and as we walked away, she said 'that’s William McInnes the actor' and I said 'well he doesn’t look like Tom Cruise'.
When I finished at teachers' college, I had done one year at Easts and went in and said to admin 'I am a chance to get posted anywhere in Queensland at the end
of this year, so just letting you know I might have to leave'. Tigers said 'we will look into it' and magically I never got posted too far from Easts while I was playing. I think someone made a phone call to the department.
What a time, etc, etc.
I assume PVL means that any money thrown at the NRL clubs is by definition money for grassroots footy, because of the overlaps between the professional clubs and the district leagues in Sydney.
Of course, that’s not how it works in Queensland (or in Sydney for that matter, where the Panthers spend their money on whatever and the Roosters draw from wherever) but no one has ever worried about that.
While the all-western Sydney grand final in 2022 had dogshit TV ratings, GWS doesn’t seem to really be faring any better.
Which could comprise any of the following: Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Substack newsletters, Duolingo, pokie machines, any form of gambling, drugs, almost any video game, any educational toy for children, reality TV, whatever has replaced A Current Affair for people under 50, Marvel movies, any content (art is too strong) that trades on nostalgia and most of what has replaced prestige TV on the streaming services.