Once again, I thought it was time for a State of the Game. This time I will be looking at the Hall of Fame, the structure of the NRL season and the NRL schedule. All this and more, in the latest Blog of Cheese.
In March, the NRL announced they were rebooting the Hall of Fame. The new NRL Hall of Fame will include 36 players from the old ARL Hall of Fame, as well as 64 players who were part of the ARL’s 100 greatest players (which was part of the game’s centenary celebrations). The NRL announced a further six players would be inducted into the Hall of Fame from a shortlist of 25 players. Also being inducted are one and possibly two further Immortals after the NRL took ownership of the Immortal concept in 2017.
In late April, the NRL announced the 25 semi-finalists, including three New Zealand players who had played most of their careers in Australia (Mark Graham, Stacey Jones and Ruben Wiki). Did this mean the New Zealand Legends of League (New Zealand Rugby League Hall of Fame) was finished? That New Zealand players who had played in Australia would be inducted into the NRL Hall of Fame? What about Englishmen like Mal Riley and Adrian Morley?
In June, the NRL announced the 10 players who were shortlisted to be inducted as an Immortal later this year. The NRL has opened up the Immortal concept to include pre-war players. Included in the list is Brian Bevan. While Brian is the greatest try scorer of all time, he played most of his career in the UK. Brian only played 8 games for Eastern Suburbs over 4 years and scored 0 tries. Does that mean judges take into account what Australians did in the UK? Harry Bath and Albert Rosenfeld would be unlucky to miss selection if so.
Out of the 100 members who will make up the Hall of Fame, only 6 (Dan Dempsey, Peter Gallagher, Tom Gorman, Duncan Hall, Peter Madsen and Herb Steinohrt) played all of their careers in Queensland. Duncan Hal is on the Immortal shortlist, making him the only Immortal to play all of his career in Queensland. Out of the 25 semi-finalists, only Dennis Flannery played his entire career in Queensland. Which would suggest an under-representation of players who played in Queensland before 1988.
The NRL announced that the new Hall of Fame will have four categories for inductees; Players, Coaches, Referees and Contributors. It is unclear if contributors include administrators and journalists or just administrators. In The Australian Rugby League Hall of Fame part 2, I wrote a list of people that could be inducted into the NRL Hall of Fame. I would also induct female Rugby League players under the player category. Below are more people I believe could be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Female Players: Mollie Cane, Nellie Doherty, Tarsha Gale, Maggie Maloney, Karyn Murphy
Administrators: Sine Boland, Jim Comans, Micky Dore, Alf Faulkner, John Fihelly, Ron McAuliffe, Sir Laurence Street George Watson
Coaches: Bob Bax
In Rugby League in Australia: State of the Game, I mentioned changing the NRL season from a 26-round competition over 27 weeks to a 22-round competition. Under the concept mentioned in the link, the season is broken up into five stand-alone representative weekends. The other way to break up the season would be to pause the season for 5 weeks after round 15. If the season was halted after Round 15, all clubs would have played once, then after the representative season, the only games remaining would be games against teams in the club’s division.
With the NRL paused, I would play the Women’s State Of Origin game on Friday night in Week 1. As much as I would love to see the Women’s series expand to three games, most women work part-time, so it would be almost impossible to ask for 3 weeks off work. The Thursday and Saturday of week one would feature internationals and the round of 32 of the NRL Cup (for more information on the NRL Cup, click here.) On Sunday night, I would play game 1 of State of Origin. The second weekend would be a rest weekend for Origin, though it would feature the New Zealand State of Origin (to read about the New Zealand State of Origin, click here) and the round of 16 for the NRL Cup. Representative round 3 would feature game 2 of the State of Origin series and the quarter-finals of the NRL Cup. Representative week 4 would feature New Zealand v England from Denver and the semi-finals of the NRL Cup. Representative weekend 5 would feature State of Origin 3 and the final of the NRL Cup. The majority of NRL Cup games would be held outside regular NRL grounds.
Having the games helps expose the game to more regions. Having NRL sides compete without their rep players creates more chance of an upset. Games not on television would be streamed on either Fox Sports or Channel 9. Splitting the State of Origin games into weeks 1, week 3 and week 5 allows the players more time to recover than playing Origin over 3 straight weekends. Playing the Denver test in week 4 will enable players to play the game and fly back without disrupting the club season. Many clubs would oppose a shorter NRL season as they would have fewer home games; however, splitting the NRL into divisions would increase anticipation and give clubs larger crowds. The networks may want to provide the NRL with less money for fewer NRL games, though most of that would be made up by the cash made during the representative period. If the UK followed suit, the number of internationals across the 5 weeks would increase, helping grow the international game. It may also boost the Challenge Cup if they follow the format of the NRL Cup.
At the moment, the NRL TV schedule is one game on Thursday, two on Friday (one at 18:00 and one at 19:55). Three on Saturday (one at 15:00, one at 17:30 and one at 19:40). The final two on Sunday (one at 14:00 and one at 16:10). There are options to improve the schedule. One is to move the 18:00 game to 18:30 Sunday, and another is to bring back a Monday night game. Another option is to play two Friday night games at 19:40. A few weeks in advance, Channel 9 could choose which match they want to air, with Fox Sports exclusively airing the other game. Of course, the current 18:00 Friday game is the flex game that isn’t played if the Warriors play a 13:00 AEST Saturday or 12:00 AEST Sunday game. If the NRL chose the 18:30 Sunday game, then the NRL could implement a flex schedule, with the 14:00 and 16:10 Sunday games moving to 18:30. The NRL could also choose to move the Thursday game. If the NRL does this, they would need to give Channel 9 another game, so they could continue broadcasting 4 games a week. Ideally, Channel 9 would broadcast the 18:30 Sunday game or the Monday night game if that was the new slot for the 18:00 game. However, that is unlikely.
And Another Thing: As someone who has been a staunch supporter of the international game, it was an excellent representative weekend bookend by the two State of Origin games. Hopefully, more countries will play internationals on the Representitive weekend in the future.
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Till next time,
Cheese