Situational efficiency
A brief rant against pick me loser behaviour
Welcome to The Maroon Observer, a weekly newsletter about rugby league, Queensland and rugby league in Queensland.
This week in PVL-land
Over the weekend, AFR Weekend (not to be confused with the usual Fin Review or the good Phin Review) had a muddled piece about the six again. V’landys links the implementation of the set restart to an improved audience, and thus the record broadcast deal just signed. One quote in particular captures his essence:
“I remember being told that our game was becoming boring, and we needed to do something to make the game less predictable. People watch the game to escape. They watch it to forget all their problems, so you want to give them 80 minutes of full entertainment,” V’landys says.
I remember being told that our game was becoming boring is such a dead giveaway. Instead of regularly watching the sport for which he was a commissioner and forming his own opinion, he had to be told of this alleged problem. You’re meant to hide it better than that, Pete.
In the same quote, the notorious cheapskate overlays some thoughts about escapism that would have been out of date 15 years ago - most people are more focussed on their phones when at home, hopefully catching up on The Maroon Observer - and suggests that people should be getting value for their money over the “80 minutes of full entertainment.” Why not just make the games longer?
AFR Weekend declined to look at the other changes made by V’landys and wider social fashions that might have better explained the NRL’s recent success. As we know from previous analysis, the NRL’s TV ratings in 2021 and 2022 were not healthy and had been heading in the wrong direction for most of a decade. The 2022 grand final was one of the least watched on record. State of Origin ratings have grown at least 20% over the last few years from that nadir.
It is hard to know how much of the latter part of the decline was due to covid’s chilling effect on sport, what impact the previous method for calculating TV ratings had, whether the NRL was in structural decline that took several years to bottom out and turn around or how much the predictability imposed by the set restart (and the Panthers’ success) turned fans off.
In 2023, just as the NRL eased back on the set restart, a switch is flipped and the NRL finds itself on a rocket ship. One of the first ever Stats Drops in 2023 was about the introduction of the Dolphins as a factor in the NRL’s attendance boom (in 2025, I looked at this in more depth for paid subscribers). The success of the Broncos that year, and again in 2025, is another obvious factor in revitalising the NRL’s audiences, as well as the world’s post-pandemic emergence.
Did the set restart contribute to or detract from or have no impact on these trends? Anecdotally, the set restart seems unpopular, even in the Courier Mail comments section, fans remain confused and the state of refereeing is about as bad as it is has ever been, e.g. THE TOUCH JUDGES WAVED OFF A CONVERSION THAT THE BUNKER HAD TO BAIL THEM OUT OF.
We know that the set restart actually has a greater impact than the equivalent penalties. We also know that total time of possession from 2019 to 2026 is stable, stuck around 54 minutes, so whatever improvements in velocity we got from the set restart are offset by the time spent standing under the posts, waiting for the conversion to take place from all the extra tries. Running metres are way up, so I guess that’s something. I can’t say I’m seeing what V’landys and the fans are allegedly seeing1 but then I’ve had my colours nailed to the mast for a while.
Ironically, V’landys could rightly take credit for several factors that have underpinned the NRL’s boom - throwing free food and alcohol at journalists seems to have worked a treat and could honestly be the number one factor - but he doesn’t seem to understand any of this himself. Case in point:
“They are starting to adhere to the rules rather than manipulate them. They don’t [manipulate] any more because they will cop it with a six-again. I’ll challenge you to look at the last four weeks. I bet you the points aren’t as high.”
Righto, mate. We get it, you don’t watch the games. Set up a lunch date with the editor of the Daily Telegraph and leave us out of it.
“The big mistake that sports make is that they are insular. They live in a cocoon because they only take the advice off their participants, their coaches, the players and the administrators. Whereas I took a different perspective. I look through the lens of a fan,” V’landys says.
“At the end of the day, they’re the ones that watch it.“
Piss off. Wait, no, no, not like that:
The NRL and AFL, meanwhile, have refused the Senate’s invitation to appear at the inquiry. Asked why he would not appear, V’landys, who is also the acting NRL chief executive, said: “As some of the members on the committee are publicity-seeking extremists, it’s a waste of time.”
“They just ignore facts and base all their outcomes on ideology. Their main aim is to run everyone’s lives. What’s more disturbing is they get into this power with a handful of votes,” he said.
Please, just take a holiday and shut up.
What the critics have to say
A riveting and powerful account of the untimely collapse of a once-dominant empire rendered impotent by poor decisions and catastrophic leadership….and also an extra anecdote about the Roman Empire.
Thank you to our Rooner King, Jono, and thank you to the Cowboys for making this possible. Like most middle aged men, I guess I think about the Roman Empire pretty often, although [irritating pedant voice] it was actually the Roman Republic that fought against Carthage.
Anyway, The Maroon Observer is one of the few - perhaps even the only - rugby league newsletters on Substack that irregularly blends in ancient history with footy.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then scroll further down.
Around the grounds
Women’s slam! This is the third women’s slam. The men have not put one together since Magic Round 2023.
Roosters 82 defeated Cowboys 12 (M). Yikes. More:
Dolphins 28 defeated Dragons 22 (M). This was an extremely ugly game. Normally, “ugly” is code for violence, whereas this was upsettingly unaesthetic rugby league. The Dolphins did their level best to give the Dragons a win but suppressed their own enthusiasm for defeat and managed themselves to victory. It is clear that once Katoa has a bit more time in place, they’ll get back to business. Until then, they can wrap up a finals berth with a victory over the Broncos next week.
Warriors 42 defeated Titans 6 (M). Let’s hear from the fans:
With the Warriors enjoying an eye-watering 57 percent possession and completing at a more familiar 81 percent (to the Titans’ dismal 66 percent), they crushed the Titans in the run metres (2,219 to 1,462) and post-contact metres (755 to 502) departments, as well as pouring through for 12 line-breaks and breaking 48 tackles.
Cowboys 18 defeated Raiders 16 (W). This is not a ‘they deserved it after playing hard all year’ situation; the Cowboys have played 25 good minutes of footy total. This game began as an atypical Cowboys performance, in that they only went in to the break down four. After half time, the North Queensland we’ve come to expect reasserted itself. After that, it was a picture of situational efficiency. The situations were provided by the Raiders dropping the ball and playing badly and Rosie Kelly, Fran Goldthorp, Margot Vella and the Wowboys efficiently turned them into points. Shout out to Kasey Badger for completely mismanaging the game (it’s not just me!) and another to Sheridan Gallagher for doing whatever she thought it was that was going to turn the tide.
Knights 30 defeated Broncos 6 (M). This may be unbecoming but for the few thousand Knights fans in attendance, this would feel like a grand final because beating a disinterested Broncos team with nothing to play for, albeit the defending premiers, is the highest summit Newcastle can reach. Everyone involved in officiating this game should be sent to Singapore for caning.
Broncos 34 defeated Bulldogs 4 (W). The Bulldogs were, if nothing else, game for the fight and yet only scored four points. Their left side was too slow in attack and defence. Ali Brigginshaw should probably consider herself lucky not to have been sent off for concussing Tayla Preston - Preston was clearly struggling but no one seemed to notice - and three games off might be considered light. Right or not, it would have made the contest far more compelling. The Broncos march on. After they dispose of the Raiders next week, we have the two defining contests of this regular season.
Titans 18 defeated Warriors 16 (W). This was very enjoyable, the kind of old school rugby league we used to enjoy before the set restart destroyed everything. Two teams, playing a highly skilled contest, strongly defensive, with the added drama of a natural comeback provided significantly better entertainment than the artificiality midwifed by the referees in the men’s game. Then again, you would have to have watched it to know that.
It’s not quite that Gold Coast’s pack stood up to New Zealand’s and perhaps if the game were ten minutes longer, then the Warriors would have won, but the Titans took the advantage when offered and stood up enough when it mattered. I remain supremely impressed with Hippi, one of the coolest characters we’ve seen in a long time. I look forward to seeing more of Enah Desic, although I am surprised they’ve stuck her in the hooker-to-half machine. We probably don’t talk enough about how good Karyn Murphy, the only female head coach in the game, is at her job.
NRLW Magic
After last year’s disastrous weather, 2026 NRLW Magic Round delivered. Perfect weather and an enthusiastic crowd is all we ask. One of the advantages of the women’s game in this phase of its growth is that it can be matched to such an occasion in a way that the men’s game logistically cannot (i.e. men’s Magic Round isn’t going to Wagga Wagga any time soon).
Perhaps for the mouth-breather, the country views, the high quality footy (I watched three games, I assume the other three were up to scratch) and the 7000+ attendance is not as prestigious as the 9000 people that dragged themselves to the glorified Super League stadium in Wollongong on Friday evening, and therefore not worthy of consideration. If you told anyone in 2017 that 7000 people in Wagga would turn up for two days of women’s rugby league, they would have called the AFP. The women’s World Cup final that year would have been lucky to scrape that.
Of course, we can’t celebrate how well the women’s game is doing and heaven forbid anyone point out how poorly the men’s game is run. Instead, we have to endlessly hand wring, as if there is some hypergrowth strategy that the NRL, an organisation in the middle of turning every fan upside down to see what pocket change comes out while managing one of the best women’s sports in the world, is too craven to implement. So here are some questions about the world’s most popular sports to consider:
How many NBA Finals appearances did the Celtics and Lakers combine for in the 1980s?
What is Michael Jordan’s claim to fame?
Who are Michael Schumacher, Lance Armstrong, Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes?
How many nations have won the World Cup? How many of those made up the semi-finalists in the most recent edition?
How many clubs have won the Premier League?
In the time that the NRLW has existed, how many times have Bayern Munich not won the Bundesliga, the third best attended football league in the world?
Sinec adopting the Playoff format in 2014, from a field of over 130 schools, how many teams from outside the Big 10 and SEC have won the national championship in college football?
I could go on. By contrast, Johnathan Liew offers a much needed dose of perspective.
The average sports nerd assumes that because a sense of parity makes things more interesting for them, that a sense of parity is what underpins long term success. All of the available evidence suggests that, actually, people love winners. People love to see whether winners keep winning or if they can be toppled. If the winners have panache and a mythos, then so much the better.
We’ve never had perfect parity in a professional sport, not just because its not possible to achieve but because professional sport would stop functioning. Professional sports only works when the games have stakes. In a perfectly equal league, games are a coin flip. What would be the point in investing any emotion in the outcome of a coin flip? It means nothing and tells you nothing. As we've seen when the NRL gets too unpredictable recently, in ways that are not obviously explainable, fans feel unmoored.
The stakes are set by contests between big clubs and little clubs, rich franchises and poor franchises, good teams and bad teams. Sometimes, the bad, the small and the poor overcome their superiors. More often, the superiors obliterate their opposition. That’s the nature of it and that’s what allows fans, casuals and hard core alike, to find their footing and orientate their relationships within the milieu.
Are the Broncos and Roosters fortuitous to be in the position they are in? Yes. Even if nothing structural changes, this will not last forever. In the meantime, there are worse commercialisation strategies than taking the by far largest club in the sport and turning them into an unstoppable winning machine. Pissing your pants every week about how the product does not live up to some imagined ideal is among the lesser strategies. Indeed, after State of Origin, the unstoppable Broncos winning machine of the 1990s and moving away from talking the sport down in the 2020s are two of the key reasons we’re even here.
The NRLW had a points cap and got rid of it for a salary cap because, surprise surprise, the points cap did not stop the Broncos and Roosters from dominating the NRLW. The introduction of the cap in 2022 is what opened the door to Newcastle to turn around from the worst team in the league to back-to-back champions. I don’t know why a single person talking about the NRLW does not seem to remember these things. Oh well.
Intermission
Not the worst thing to happen to someone's neck in this game, strangely enough.
Upcoming slate
A brief shout out to the Storm and Sea Eagles reserves teams playing each other in the NSW Cup on Sunday afternoon. The Manly reggies are 1-17 and might be the worst team in football right now. Grand final day should feature a reserve grade spoon bowl between them and the Hunters. Give the people the slop they deserve!
Titans vs Cowboys, NRLM, Thursday 8pm, Cbus Super
Substack ate what I had written for this game. It will not give it back. I am not rewriting it. Take that as a metaphor, I guess.
Here is the current race for the Queensland pennant:
Sharks vs Titans, NRLW, Saturday 3.15pm, Shark Park
TWO Titans games in one week? What has become of this sport?
Can you say “trap game”? Cronulla’s results have been woeful so far this season but it’s only a matter of time before that springs back on the rest of the league. Admittedly, it might be too late for the Sharks to play finals but someone is going to lose a finger. The challenge for Gold Coast then is to not be that someone. The team is more or less at full strength and can take on all comers bar two, so let’s see them take care of business in a very un-Titans fashion.
Dolphins vs Broncos, NRLM, Saturday 5.30pm, Suncorp
A reminder that the Dolphins have only won Conflict on Caxton once. That was in 2024. They lost, pretty badly, back in March. Punching a ticket to finals is one of the potential outcomes of this game, as is punching their cross-town rivals in the dick. The trick is not caving in to the pressure and actually delivering in front of what might be a hostile crowd. At the risk of making every Dolphins result a referendum on what they are, delivering from time-to-time is what separates us from the animals/Titans. The Broncos have looked like a shell of the premiership winners for ages now. They definitely want this over and done with but unless Reece Walsh and Kotoni Staggs take it personally, I’m expecting them to lay down on the tracks.
What other critics are saying
Honestly think this is one of the finest pieces of rugby league writing I have read
Thank you to our other Rooner King, Chris. Now, you might think that referring to paid subscribers to this newsletter as “critics” is a little self-indulgent. Well, excuse me, it’s a long bloody season and I am trying to convince you to join them. I need some help here.
Paid subscribers get full access to the Pony Pic, Bov Bull and Phin Rev, The Almanac and The Dataset™, and commenting privileges.
If you don’t want Substack clipping your ticket or to commit to an ongoing subscription, Ko-Fi is also available for one-off tips.
Read this
Eye Test - Why the Bulldogs / Roosters matchup is so intriguing
Rugby League Writers - What Makes A Good & Bad Kickoff
What You Get Is What You See - Andy, Albo and rugby league’s unlikely political supremacy
Rugby League Street - Seeing NRLW leaders through a different lens and QEII Stadium: The place the Broncos grew up
The Sportress - Six, Again: Building To Something
Storm Machine - Game 761 – S29E22 Review
Sports Industry - Men, pull your heads in. The Women are here to stay.
David Roth - Who Was The Most Unsettlingly Tan Coach At Preseason Media Days?
Patrick Wyman - Christopher Nolan’s Collapsing Worlds
Notes
If I have to see any more influencers pretending they’ve just discovered the NRL for pay/clout, complete with “uber driver sucked me off???” thumbnail, I am going to lose it. No one cares!
More details from the Senate hearing on the Chiefs. Kudos to Badel for sticking this out, allegedly on the advice of one of our readers. Short story is that the feds are contributing $190m from the $600m directly to the Chiefs, of which $100m has already been sent, Origin counts as a third party payment so is subject to income tax and Peter V’landys seems to think that PNG is Pasifika, which I think is a dicier proposition than he realises.
Brisbane Broncos player Corey Jensen announces medical retirement from the NRL
Mother and daughter debut together for Moranbah Miners Rugby League Club
Vision unveiled for Brisbane’s Victoria Park precinct ahead of 2032 Olympics. Good to see every render for this incredibly important event looks absolutely terrible. I have no idea what I’m supposed to be looking at.
Work to begin on Brisbane Showgrounds’ $287.5 million transformation. I can’t be the only one unclear as to why this is happening. I like the idea but “boutique AFL”? What about QCup Heritage x Magic Round?
Gina Rinehart lobbied Queensland government to award Fitzroy River Olympic events. What’s her deal? Why does she keep popping up in random sports?
Owners of NRL club [Holman Barnes of Wests Tigers fame] step in to rescue A-League Women side [Central Coast Mariners] in new ‘innovative structure’. Great stuff. Not as funny as Hagipantelis and Pascoe taking over Sunshine Coast Lightning, but up there.
Australia’s ‘golden age’ in track and field: How they became such a force
Queensland’s 28th Governor announced as Justice Thomas Bradley
Fossilised remains of prehistoric predators unearthed in north-west Qld
The Comm Games came and went and I barely noticed. I think this says more about me than Society but the Comms Games seems past its used by date. It's time to expand the Pan Pacific Champions to a small, limited multi sport event comprising athletics, swimming, track cycling, gymnastics and a few of the ones you can do in an arena like fencing, weightlifting and martial arts, and then a couple of fun ones for the host - bowls, league 9s, flag football, lacrosse, netball, sumo, T20 - with the usual fanfare tacked on.
For those whose seasons are over, of you need some time filling recommendations, here’s what I’m 📖 Re-reading: The Ghosts of Cannae / 📺 Watching: Tour de France Femmes / 🎧 Listening: How FIFA Tried (And Failed) to Sell the Soul of Football (very funny that this blew up and deflated in the space between newsletters)
Nickelware
Both the Broncos and the Dragons, for slightly different reasons, are at risk of the women’s team scoring as many or more wins than the men’s.
Some good content
I made the same joke seconds before scrolling to this.
There’s a longer, more insane, piece to be had here, discussing the democratisation of opinion in the 2010s via social media leading to an erosion in the very concept of taste in the 2020s and the bifurcation of society around a dichotomy of “dumb” and “not dumb”. While 95% of everything may be crap, it is clear that 80% of people also like crap. I managed to cut myself off after a few paragraphs.