For many years, the great North v South rivalry has been ongoing. Stereo types like ‘Southern softies’ and ‘shandy drinkers’ have been the comeback to endless amounts of abuse aimed at the ‘rough arse’ northerners who don’t wash and still wear flat caps and walk whippits.
Of course, most of it is said in jest and is a way of entering into friendly banter with people from differing regions of England. I used to think that things were no different in Australia. That is until I started to learn more about the rugby league tradition that is ‘State of Origin’. It is quite simply awesome.
Rugby league in itself, has grown on me. It’s a working class game with real men trading hit after hit, but never getting out of control. The players show absolute respect for the game and the officials (similar to pretty much every sport barring football) and it’s a great spectator experience. The NRL(National Rugby League) is a brilliant product, and is only surpassed by the Barclays Premier League for it’s excitement.
State of Origin is more than that though. It involves the best players that were born in New South Wales state taking on their Queensland counterparts in a three match series over nine weeks. Game one is usually in Sydney (NSW), then it’s up to Brisbane (QLD) for the Game two and back down to Sydney for the third (although it has in the past been taken to a neutral venue and the NRL are trying to do this on a regular basis.). NSW is the real heart of NRL as out of the sixteen teams in the league, ten are from that area.
So you can imagine the humiliation that residents of NSW are experiencing at the moment, having just lost a record fifth series in a row. The Telegraph newspaper declared ‘This is what it feels like to be dead’. They are devastated by the state of affairs.
The games themselves, are quicker and more intense than anything that you see week in week out in the NRL. Far more passion too it seems. It’s defending the honour of your state. Fighting for your people. And it usually boils over into brawls and scrapes. Brilliant to watch. And the best thing is that the fighting is completely confined to the pitch. Fans of both sides can sit side by side and take the piss out of each other without any aggro. It really is quite refreshing.
It got me to thinking of whether it could work in England. The North of England v South of England based on where the players were born or raised. Obviously the fact that players are on such high salaries that clubs would refuse to allow the players to play. So it’s all hypothetical. The fact is that within two minutes of me bringing the topic up with a couple of fellow ‘poms’ we were at war as to who would win.
Where is the line that divides us? Birmingham? Where would it be played? Who would pick the teams? Would anybody care?
All these questions were raised when ‘Origin’ was first talked about over thirty years ago. And now it’s THE event of the Rugby League calendar. Ahead of international tournaments and domestic honours. I’d love to see it introduced back home and whilst I can’t argue that the South would have the better team on paper…… I just think that ‘good old northern grit’ might prevail.
What do you think?
Showing posts with label NRL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NRL. Show all posts
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
Salary cap, anyone?
With the current situation in English football being that the Premier League seems to split into a top tier and the also-rans, I would like to raise a notion that I have become all too familiar with during my time in Australia. A salary cap.
Now I’m not saying for one second that I believe it will or should happen. All I intend to do is to put forward a case so that people can see both sides of the argument.
The salary cap, in effect, is the best way to get everybody playing on a level playing field. It will benefit the league as a competition and also reward shrewd management and superior coaching.
In Australia, the best example of the cap is in the NRL (National Rugby League). Each club has got a budget of $4.2m per season to spend on it’s squad. If you averaged it out over a 25 man squad, it equates to around $160,000 per man.
Of course, that is never going to happen. Most of the NRL clubs will target two or three of the top players as ‘marquee’ players and bolster the rest of the squad with solid, if unspectacular squad players. Brisbane Broncos for example, boast Darren Lockyer and Israel Folau in their ranks and both command well over $350,000 per year each. The rest of their squad are paid accordingly.
The cap, in my opinion, benefits the NRL in three ways.
Firstly, that every club at the start of the season genuinely believes that they have a chance to win the league. Obviously it doesn’t often happen, but they are not facing financial barriers like the lesser clubs in England do every August when the Premier League kicks off. There is no target of simply surviving. Everybody sets off with a fairly realistic aim of competing for the main prize.
More importantly, the fans have these expectations too. Can you imagine a Blackpool fan this year thinking that a top four finish is not out of the question? No……That’s because it is so far out of the question, that I’m sorry I brought it up! Not in NRL. In fact, last year’s ‘Wooden spoon’ side (Sydney Roosters) enjoyed a superb start to the season, and are genuine contenders for a finals place.
The second benefit to the NRL is almost a contradiction to the first point. In as much as that, by taking my first point literally, you would think that the league table completely changes from year to year. It doesn’t. And this is one of the reasons that I believe a salary cap ‘could’ work in the Premier League.
The same teams are usually at the top of the table come the end of the season every year. Not because of the financial power, but because the best coaches (managers if you like) usually get the best results. It’s no surprise that St. George Illawara are currently the top dogs in NRL. Their head coach, Wayne Bennett won 6 Premierships with Brisbane Broncos, before moving on to start another dynasty in Sydney. Another top coach is Craig Bellamy (not the hideous Welshman, this one is a hideous Australian) and his Melbourne storm side have won three out of the last five Premierships.
Top coaches win things. The world over. That’s why they get the best jobs. That won’t change. Nor will the fact that the top players will also want to play for the top clubs. Clubs like Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal will still attract the better players. Only this way, the ‘smaller’ clubs will have a chance to outbid them and create their own squad to challenge the elite.
Finally, the financial management of clubs will almost become as important as the coaching. Never before will ‘balancing the books’ have been more important. Decisions are often made in the NRL where top players are forced to move on due to the cap. Imagine the scenario…..Chelsea need to bring in a couple of players but in order to do so, must let Didier Drogba go to free up the cash to do it. Decisions must be made on what best suits the club, the coach and the squad.
To be honest, when I first came out here, I wasn’t a fan of the system. But having seen the amount of top players playing for the less fashionable clubs, I think it’s an idea that is certainly worth looking at.
Obviously the size of the cap would be far, far higher than that of the NRL. And another major stumbling block would be the fact that unless the Italian and Spanish leagues followed suit, that the best players would move on to foreign clubs and that the likes of United, Chelsea and now City would move to speeden up the inevitable European League.
Like I said at the start, it’s not what I believe to be ‘the answer’. But I genuinely think that if the rules were ironed out properly, it can work in some small way to stop the likes of Manchester City throwing their considerable financial weight about to buy the League and Europe. United and Chelsea have done it down the years and now City look like taking the next step.
One such rule could involve any home-grown players being exempt from the cap. Meaning that if Wayne Rooney had come through the junior ranks at Everton, they would not be restricted in terms of what they could offer him. Therefore, he may have never left the club he supported as a boy. One can only imagine the side that West Ham could have today had such a ruling been in place years ago.
So another benefit is producing your own talent. Put the work in with a kid when he is learning the game and you will reap the rewards years down the line.
Anyway, I hope you have found these points interesting…….if not perhaps a tad unrealistic.
Now I’m not saying for one second that I believe it will or should happen. All I intend to do is to put forward a case so that people can see both sides of the argument.
The salary cap, in effect, is the best way to get everybody playing on a level playing field. It will benefit the league as a competition and also reward shrewd management and superior coaching.
In Australia, the best example of the cap is in the NRL (National Rugby League). Each club has got a budget of $4.2m per season to spend on it’s squad. If you averaged it out over a 25 man squad, it equates to around $160,000 per man.
Of course, that is never going to happen. Most of the NRL clubs will target two or three of the top players as ‘marquee’ players and bolster the rest of the squad with solid, if unspectacular squad players. Brisbane Broncos for example, boast Darren Lockyer and Israel Folau in their ranks and both command well over $350,000 per year each. The rest of their squad are paid accordingly.
The cap, in my opinion, benefits the NRL in three ways.
Firstly, that every club at the start of the season genuinely believes that they have a chance to win the league. Obviously it doesn’t often happen, but they are not facing financial barriers like the lesser clubs in England do every August when the Premier League kicks off. There is no target of simply surviving. Everybody sets off with a fairly realistic aim of competing for the main prize.
More importantly, the fans have these expectations too. Can you imagine a Blackpool fan this year thinking that a top four finish is not out of the question? No……That’s because it is so far out of the question, that I’m sorry I brought it up! Not in NRL. In fact, last year’s ‘Wooden spoon’ side (Sydney Roosters) enjoyed a superb start to the season, and are genuine contenders for a finals place.
The second benefit to the NRL is almost a contradiction to the first point. In as much as that, by taking my first point literally, you would think that the league table completely changes from year to year. It doesn’t. And this is one of the reasons that I believe a salary cap ‘could’ work in the Premier League.
The same teams are usually at the top of the table come the end of the season every year. Not because of the financial power, but because the best coaches (managers if you like) usually get the best results. It’s no surprise that St. George Illawara are currently the top dogs in NRL. Their head coach, Wayne Bennett won 6 Premierships with Brisbane Broncos, before moving on to start another dynasty in Sydney. Another top coach is Craig Bellamy (not the hideous Welshman, this one is a hideous Australian) and his Melbourne storm side have won three out of the last five Premierships.
Top coaches win things. The world over. That’s why they get the best jobs. That won’t change. Nor will the fact that the top players will also want to play for the top clubs. Clubs like Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal will still attract the better players. Only this way, the ‘smaller’ clubs will have a chance to outbid them and create their own squad to challenge the elite.
Finally, the financial management of clubs will almost become as important as the coaching. Never before will ‘balancing the books’ have been more important. Decisions are often made in the NRL where top players are forced to move on due to the cap. Imagine the scenario…..Chelsea need to bring in a couple of players but in order to do so, must let Didier Drogba go to free up the cash to do it. Decisions must be made on what best suits the club, the coach and the squad.
To be honest, when I first came out here, I wasn’t a fan of the system. But having seen the amount of top players playing for the less fashionable clubs, I think it’s an idea that is certainly worth looking at.
Obviously the size of the cap would be far, far higher than that of the NRL. And another major stumbling block would be the fact that unless the Italian and Spanish leagues followed suit, that the best players would move on to foreign clubs and that the likes of United, Chelsea and now City would move to speeden up the inevitable European League.
Like I said at the start, it’s not what I believe to be ‘the answer’. But I genuinely think that if the rules were ironed out properly, it can work in some small way to stop the likes of Manchester City throwing their considerable financial weight about to buy the League and Europe. United and Chelsea have done it down the years and now City look like taking the next step.
One such rule could involve any home-grown players being exempt from the cap. Meaning that if Wayne Rooney had come through the junior ranks at Everton, they would not be restricted in terms of what they could offer him. Therefore, he may have never left the club he supported as a boy. One can only imagine the side that West Ham could have today had such a ruling been in place years ago.
So another benefit is producing your own talent. Put the work in with a kid when he is learning the game and you will reap the rewards years down the line.
Anyway, I hope you have found these points interesting…….if not perhaps a tad unrealistic.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
