A list that stands plain wrong

Tonight, I discovered that two years (almost) ago, Rugby League Week had written a list of “Nine Greatest Finals Chokes of All Time”:

#9. South Sydney v Manly, 2013 preliminary final
#8. South Sydney v Balmain, 1969 grand final
#7. St. George v Canterbury, 1985 grand final
#6. Parramatta v North Queensland, 2005 preliminary final
#5. Manly v Sydney Bulldogs, 1995 grand final
#4. Parramatta v Newcastle, 2001 grand final
#3. Parramatta v Canterbury, 1998 preliminary final
#2. Balmain v Canberra, 1989 grand final
#1. St. George Illawarra v Melbourne, 1999 grand final

To me, RLW’s list is as bad as any I have seen in my history of reading “lists”. For a first thing, as far as I am aware and have watched rugby league, I could not say that most of those listed were so much as especially bad. Balmain in 1969 were an often-overlooked group that had nearly won the second semi final an had beaten the Rabbitohs on the SCG 16—7 on opening day.

The Bulldogs in 1995 were rivalling their display in the 1985 Preliminary Final – the best I have seen by a team in rugby league – and Parramatta in 2001 had the excuse of Andrew Johns – widely regarded today as the greatest halfback ever, although I would nonetheless still keep the 2001 Eels in this list because they were truly outstanding during the home-and-away season. Balmain in 1989 had the most potent attack in the NSWRL to face and were very lucky to lead 12—2 at halftime as Canberra had had most of the territorial advantage.

Parramatta v Canterbury in the 1998 preliminary final is the one which I have fewest qualms about – the Eels were favoured and had stopped a free-scoring Bronco team earlier in the finals

Some that are badly missing:

• Cronulla in 1979 – they had the best defence with only 41 tries against but completely collapsed in the finals when viewed the chief rival to St. George.
• Eastern Suburbs in 1980 and 1981 – this constitutes the worst omission as the Roosters choked twice – most obviously with their lifeless performance as favorites in the 1980 decider.
• the 1982 Roosters who lost 0—33 on the wettest rugby day since the 1950s in the preliminary would also not be out of place
• Balmain in 1985 would have been that club’s best choice: they were clear second to St. George (with best home-and-away record after the 1940s), then without excuse via injuries or suspensions were thrashed in the wet by Parramatta
• Canterbury in 1993 and 1994 choked awfully twice due to their woeful fullback weakness – if they had possessed a fullback like the Eadie of 1978 I often imagine Canterbury could have got close to 48—0 for those two seasons
• Cronulla in 1999 is another one that seems to possess less logic than those listed by RLW – they were more clearly the best team in the home-and-away rounds than in 1988 and beat the Broncos 42—20, and in my recollection the Sharks’ 8—24 loss to the Dragons felt like a shock

“Rugby always repeats”

As regular readers of this blog may know, my brother when I was young would say time and time again that “rugby always repeats” with five tackles by each team  in which players simply “run/fall over/run/fall over” and no variation except obligatory kicking.

Whilst even in 1990 I knew that people in rugby did often run and get tackled during a game, I knew there was much more to playing rugby than running into your opponent and that it was not satisfactory for any team for the repetition my brother described to occur for a full eighty minutes of play.

It’s actually tough to recall from my watching of rugby exactly how and when the “repetition” that my brother says is the part and parcel of the game of rugby gives way to variations such as when:

1. a really fast runner finds a gap and gains sufficient momentum (velocity) to run through it and gain a lot of territory, or
2. a team drops the ball and loses possession, or
3. a team commits an offence at the play-the-ball and concedes a penalty
4. a frustrated team plays the ball incorrectly (“poor play-the-ball” in commentary) and loses a penalty and the ball
5. a pass is intercepted and the opposing team scores a try

What’s strange is how Frank Hyde in this article from an April 1982 Sydney Morning Herald actually shows that the “always repeats” play of rugby league was not that old even in 1990 or 1989 when I was complained to bitterly for watching rugby on a Sunday afternoon. At the time the article was written attendances at NSWRL games were at a post-World War II low, and Frank Hyde seemed to think that the “run/fall over/run/fall over” style of play, rather than giving the ball to the backs much more frequently, was the cause of the lack of attractiveness of rugby league.

By 1989, attendances at rugby games had increased substantially despite the fact that tries were considerably rarer than in 1982. There were 15.93 minutes per try in 1989 and 12.41 minutes per try in 1982. Though the 1982 figure would rise to 13.42 minutes per try if we exclude the 186 tries scored in a very dry season against the debutant Canberra club, it is still substantially more frequent try-scoring than in 1989. Thus, scarcity of tries cannot be the cause of why crowds fell so much in the 1970s and 1980s, especially since in 1967 the record high of over nineteen minutes per try was accompanied by larger crowds than in 1990!

It’s likely that the cleaning up of the game and of scrums was a factor in luring people back during the 1980s, though as Wally O‘Connell said as an 82-year-old in 2005 convincingly (and I can testify from footage of older games) cleaning up of scrums did come at a cost of variety because there is no more contest in scrummaging. Perhaps what needed to be done was not to call another scrum if neither hooker won it (as often happened in the 1970s), or more frequent penalties against props for striking prematurely. On the other hand, the ugly and dangerous “wedge” moves as used several times in the 1982 Grand Final certainly lured people away from rugby league and dealing with them was a necessary tool.

A forgotten failure from 1984

In the history of Australian sport, there is one famous case of lights failing during a match, caused by car hitting a power pole:

What surprised me is to find a case where lights had failed twelve years earlier in a rugby league game between Balmain and Eastern Suburbs. Unlike the St. Kilda versus Essendon game from 1996, after twenty-one minutes the players went back onto the SCG and played out the game:

It was, as often occurs during Sydney’s extremely erratic rainstorms, proposed to completely replay the game, even though that would have been hardly fair to a Balmain team that was leading by three tries to one and sixteen points to four.

In the end, despite a reasonable Rooster comeback, the final score was twenty points to twelve and the game was finished by 20:30 on the scheduled night.

Floodlight failures are by no means incredible rarities: there have been several in recent years in English soccer, including one involving the world’s second richest sporting team — Manchester United.

Another case of biting ears - this time from union

Ever since my brother back in 1990 - or was it 1989 as I only know it was a Canterbury versus Eastern Suburbs match - I have laughed at the claim that the object of rugby football is to bite people’s ears off!

My brother gained that impression from seeing rugby forwards seem to run into each other without an effort to dodge, as I have previously noted - though it’s more sensible to think that dodging in the dense “traffic”of the centre of a rugby field is not as easy as he would like to believe! He thought that when they hit each other the player with the ball would try to get his teeth around the opponents ear as if they were involved in a genuine combat sport.

It’s strange then that my first instance of biting ears in rugby came in a scrum - and so does my second! This time it’s from rugby union at a time when that code was still officially strictly amateur, though dual internationals like Ricky Stuart admitted it was shamateur and that union players before the Super League war put paid to ideals of amateurism did get renumeration. The ear-biter here was South African front rower Johann le Roux against All Black hooker and captain Sean Fitzpatrick. After a scrum had broken up, the two remained on the ground when le Roux bit.

There was apparently a lot of complaint about the general play of the Springboks in the short period between the end of apartheid and the end of official amateurism in rugby union.

Nonetheless, my late father would have been much more surprised at biting ears in rugby union than in rugby league, which he viewed as much more a “game for thugs” than union, probably owing to the fact that rugby league was the game of the working classes and union that of the upper classes. Even my brother when a child thought that rugby union was less violent and repetitive than league, though I found it much harder to understand because of the “loose mauls” which seemed senseless compared to the play-the-balls of league.

Vis-à-vis league, I (consequently) know almost nothing of the safety record of rugby union, but that does not mean I cannot say that many of the same principles must apply compared to genuinely violent sports like gridiron or ice hockey. It is possible that anger over the collapse of apartheid and the continuous protests that caused it may have affected the way South African rugby union teams played in the first half of the 1990s. It is also possible that anger at not being able to play for so long due to apartheid-related boycotts instilled a sense of determination to the point of aggression in these Springbok teams. I have not read anything to assess these arguments, regardless of their plausibility.

Rugby games where loser kicked a field goal

For a long time, rugby games where the loser scores an odd number of points have been if interest to me.

There are two reasons for this. The first is their relative rarity, because a team will not deliberately kick a one-point field goal unless it is ahead or (when tries were still worth three points) to level the scores. The second is that, as a person irresistibly lured to statistics, games where the losing club scores an odd number of points tend to produce the best Pick The Score dividends, since it takes a lot of skill to predict a team kicking a field goal and then being overtaken by opposition tries or penalty goals. In some cases, in fact, there have been games where no punter has predicted the exact correct score: in these cases prizes remain paid to whoever was closest.

The table attahced gives all NSWRL/ARL/NRL games where a team not winning scored at least one field goal since the reduction to one point in 1971.

In no more than 132 games since 1983, or just over four per season, has the losing team scored an odd number of points, and not one in the separate Super League competition of 1997.

In a mere twenty-two matches since 1983, approximately three ever four seasons, have both teams scored an odd number of points. The most in one season has been three in 1986, when the defensive tactics of “Wozzaball” made field goals much more valuable than they have been in the era of 10-metre defensive lines, uncontested scrums and the 40/20 rule. There were in fact more field goals (22) scored by South Sydney alone in 1986 than by all fourteen teams combined in 2000 (20).

Before the so-called differential scrum penalty, there were also very few field goals: only fifteen in 1980, nineteen in 1979, eleven in 1977 and 1975, a mere ten field goals in 138 games during 1976 and seventeen in 1974.

Match #	Clubs	Scores	Points Totals	Match Date
#1	Newtown	6 tries, 5 goals	28	Sunday, 23 May 1971
	Canterbury	4 tries, 2 goals, 2 field goals	18
#2	Eastern Suburbs	2 tries, 5 goals	16	Sunday, 27 June 1971
	St. George	3 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	16
#3	Canterbury	3 tries, 1 goal, 1 field goal	12	Saturday, 8 April 1972
	South Sydney	6 tries, 4 goals	26
#4	Balmain	1 try,  2 goals, 1 field goal	8	Tuesday, 25 April 1972
	St. George	3 tries, 3 goals, 2 field goals	17
#5	Penrith	5 tries, 2 goals	19	Sunday, 16 July 1972
	Newtown	4 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	19
#6	Eastern Suburbs	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	11	Sunday, 20 May 1973
	St. George	4 tries, 4 goals	20
#7	Newtown	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	11	Sunday, 24 June 1973
	Manly	3 tries, 2 goals	13
#8	St. George	4 tries, 2 goals, 2 field goals	18	Sunday, 05 August 1973
	Eastern Suburbs	4 tries, 3 goals, 2 field goals	20
#9	Penrith	2 tries, 3 goals, 2 field goals	14	Sunday, 11 August 1974
	Manly	5 tries, 7 goals	29
#10	Penrith	2 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	13	Sunday, 30 March 1975
	Manly	8 tries, 4 goals	32
#11	North Sydney	1 try, 1 goal, 2 field goals	7	Sunday, 17 August 1975
	Eastern Suburbs	6 tries, 6 goals	30
#12	South Sydney	1 goal, 2 field goals	4	Saturday, 10 May 1975
	Eastern Suburbs	1 try, 2 goals	7
#13	Eastern Suburbs	2 tries, 5 goals	16	Sunday, 28 March 1976
	Penrith	2 tries, 2 goals, 2 field goals	12
#14	Penrith	5 tries, 4 goals	23	Sunday, 23 May 1976
	St. George	3 tries, 1 goal, 1 field goal	12
#15	Parramatta	1 try, 2 goals	7	Saturday, 17 July 1976
	Canterbury	1 try, 1 goal, 2 field goals	7
#16	North Sydney	1 try, 3 goals, 1 field goal	10	Sunday, 27 March 1977
	Canterbury	2 tries, 2 goals	10
#17	South Sydney	1 try, 3 goals	9	Sunday, 16 April 1978
	Penrith	1 try, 2 goals, 1 field goal	8
#18	Newtown	6 tries, 4 goals	26	Sunday, 9 July 1978
	North Sydney	3 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	18
#19	Penrith	3 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	18	Sunday, 30 July 1978
	St. George	3 tries, 5 goals	19
#20	North Sydney	3 tries, 8 goals, 1 field goal	26	Sunday, 13 August 1978
	Western Suburbs	4 tries, 7 goals, 1 field goal	27
#21	Newtown	1 try, 4 goals, 1 field goal	12	Sunday, 29 April 1979
	Balmain	4 tries, 2 goals	16
#22	Western Suburbs	3 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	14	Sunday, 1 July 1979
	South Sydney	4 tries, 2 goals	16
#23	Balmain	1 try, 2 goals, 1 field goal	8	Sunday, 19 August 1979
	Cronulla	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	11
#24	Cronulla	2 tries, 4 goals	14	Sunday, 22 July 1979
	Canterbury	1 try, 4 goals, 1 field goal	12
#25	Western Suburbs	4 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	21	Sunday, 25 May 1980
	Parramatta	2 tries, 5 goals, 1 field goal	17
#26	Newtown	1 try, 4 goals, 1 field goal	12	Saturday, 4 April 1981
	Western Suburbs	2 tries, 3 goals	12
#27	Parramatta	2 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	13	Sunday, 26 April 1981
	North Sydney	3 tries, 3 goals	15
#28	Newtown	2 tries, 1 goal, 1 field goal	9	Saturday, 30 May 1981
	North Sydney	3 tries, 1 goal	11
#29	Canterbury	1 try, 4 goals, 1 field goal	12	Sunday, 31 May 1981
	Cronulla	3 tries, 5 goals	19
#30	Parramatta	3 tries, 5 goals, 1 field goal	20	Sunday, 30 August 1981
	Manly	4 tries, 4 goals	20
#31	Penrith	1 try, 1 goal, 1 field goal	6	Sunday, 30 August 1981
	Balmain	5 tries, 5 goals	25
#32	Canterbury	1 try, 4 goals, 1 field goal	12	Sunday, 4 July 1982
	Newtown	1 try, 4 goals, 1 field goal	12
#33	Eastern Suburbs	3 tries, 1 goal, 1 field goal	12	Sunday, 18 July 1982
	South Sydney	2 tries, 2 goals, 2 field goals	12
#34	Cronulla	6 tries, 6 goals	36	Sunday, 6 March 1983
	Eastern Suburbs	4 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	25
#35	South Sydney	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13	Sunday, 10 April 1983
	Penrith	7 tries, 4 goals	36
#36	Penrith	3 tries, 3 goals	18	Sunday, 17 April 1983
	Balmain	2 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	17
#37	South Sydney	2 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	15	Sunday, 8 May 1983
	Canterbury	6 tries, 5 goals	34
#38	Balmain	3 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	21	Sunday, 15 May 1983
	Parramatta	7 tries, 7 goals	42
#39	Eastern Suburbs	5 tries, 4 goals	28	Sunday, 12 June 1983
	Cronulla	1 try, 1 goal, 1 field goal	7
#40	Balmain	1 try, 2 goals, 1 field goal	9	Sunday, 10 July 1983
	Manly	3 tries, 2 goals	16
#41	Illawarra	2 tries, 1 goal, 2 field goals	12	Sunday, 31 July 1983
	North Sydney	2 tries, 1 goal, 1 field goal	11
#42	Parramatta	2 tries, 3 goals	14	Sunday, 3 June 1984
	Canterbury	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13
#43	Western Suburbs	1 try, 1 goal, 1 field goal	7	Sunday, 8 July 1984
	St. George	5 tries, 3 goals	26
#44	Penrith	2 tries, 4 goals	16	Sunday, 28 April 1985
	South Sydney	1 try, 3 goals, 1 field goal	11
#45	St. George	3 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	19	Saturday, 4 May 1985
	Balmain	3 tries, 6 goals	24
#46	Penrith	1 try, 2 goals, 1 field goal	9	Sunday, 19 May 1985
	Western Suburbs	3 tries, 3 goals	18
#47	Cronulla	4 tries, 5 goals	26	Sunday, 2 June 1985
	Manly	2 tries, 1 goal, 1 field goal	11
#48	Eastern Suburbs	3 goals, 1 field goal	7	Monday, 1 July 1985
	Canterbury	2 tries, 3 goals	14
#49	Balmain	2 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	15	Sunday, 4 August 1985
	St. George	2 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	17
#50	Manly	2 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	15	Sunday, 23 March 1986
	St. George	2 tries, 4 goals	16
#51	North Sydney	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13	Sunday, 20 April 1986
	South Sydney	5 tries, 5 goals, 1 field goal	31
#52	St. George	1 try, 1 field goal	5	Saturday, 10 May 1986
	Eastern Suburbs	1 try, 3 goals	10
#53	North Sydney	2 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	15	Sunday, 18 May 1986
	St. George	4 tries, 5 goals, 1 field goal	27
#54	Balmain	3 goals, 1 field goal	7	Saturday, 24 May 1986
	North Sydney	3 tries, 2 goals	16
#55	St. George	1 try, 3 goals, 1 field goal	11	Sunday, 25 May 1986
	Canterbury	2 tries, 3 goals	14
#56	Canberra	5 goals	10	Saturday, 31 May 1986
	St. George	1 try, 1 goal, 1 field goal	7
#57	South Sydney	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13	Sunday, 1 June 1986
	Balmain	5 tries, 5 goals	30
#58	Balmain	2 tries, 3 goals	14	Sunday, 29 June 1986
	Manly	1 try, 2 goals, 1 field goal	9
#59	Penrith	1 try, 3 goals, 1 field goal	11	Sunday, 27 July 1986
	Manly	2 tries, 1 goal, 1 field goal	11
#60	Balmain	2 tries, 2 goals, 2 field goals	14	Tuesday, 2 September 1986
	North Sydney	1 try, 1 goal, 1 field goal	7
#61	Balmain	5 tries, 8 goals	36	Saturday, 13 September 1986
	South Sydney	1 try, 3 goals, 1 field goal	11
#62	Western Suburbs	1 try, 3 goals, 1 field goal	11	Sunday, 15 March 1987
	Manly	4 tries, 3 goals	22
#63	Western Suburbs	2 tries, 1 goal, 1 field goal	11	Sunday, 29 March 1987
	South Sydney	2 tries, 3 goals	14
#64	Canberra	8 tries, 7 goals	46	Sunday, 19 April, 1987
	Western Suburbs	2 tries, 1 goal, 1 field goal	11
#65	Cronulla	3 tries, 3 goals	18	Monday, 20 April 1987
	Manly	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13
#66	Parramatta	2 tries, 2 goals	12	Saturday, 9 May 1987
	North Sydney	1 try, 1 field goal	5
#67	Balmain	3 tries, 1 goal, 1 field goal	15	Sunday, 14 June 1987
	Canterbury	2 tries, 5 goals	18
#68	Manly	5 tries, 3 goals	26	Sunday, 21 June 1987
	Western Suburbs	4 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	25
#69	Canberra	4 tries, 3 goals	22	Sunday, 21 June 1987
	Illawarra	2 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	15
#70	Eastern Suburbs	2 tries, 3 goals	14	Sunday, 21 June 1987
	North Sydney	1 try, 4 goals, 1 field goal	13
#71	St. George	2 tries, 2 goals, 2 field goals	14	Monday, 29 June 1987
	Eastern Suburbs	1 try, 1 goal, 1 field goal	7
#72	Canberra	4 tries, 3 goals	22	Sunday, 5 July 1987
	St. George	2 goals, 1 field goal	5
#73	Eastern Suburbs	2 tries, 1 goal, 2 field goals	12	Sunday, 5 July 1987
	Balmain	2 tries, 2 goals	12
#74	North Sydney	4 tries, 5 goals	26	Sunday, 19 July 1987
	St. George	4 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	23
#75	Illawarra	3 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	17	Sunday, 16 August 1987
	Manly	5 tries, 4 goals	28
#76	Canterbury	4 tries, 3 goals	22	Saturday, 26 March 1988
	Canberra	3 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	17
#77	Eastern Suburbs	2 tries, 2 goals, 2 field goals	14	Friday, 22 April 1988
	North Sydney	2 tries, 3 goals	14
#78	South Sydney	3 tries, 5 goals	22	Sunday, 1 May 1988
	Balmain	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13
#79	Cronulla	3 tries, 3 goals	18	Sunday, 12 June 1988
	Parramatta	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13
#80	Balmain	2 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	15	Sunday, 19 June 1988
	Canberra	6 tries, 7 goals, 1 field goal	39
#81	St. George	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13	Sunday, 26 March 1989
	Eastern Suburbs	3 tries, 1 goal	14
#82	North Sydney	1 try, 1 field goal	5	Sunday, 2 July 1989
	Canberra	2 tries, 2 goals, 2 field goals	14
#83	Penrith	1 try, 3 goals, 1 field goal	11	Saturday, 29 July 1989
	Parramatta	3 tries, 3 goals	18
#84	North Sydney	1 field goal	1	Sunday, 20 August 1989
	Newcastle	3 tries, 1 goal	14
#85	Cronulla	1 try, 2 goals	8	Saturday, 7 April 1990
	Canberra	1 try, 1 goal, 1 field goal	7
#86	Canberra	4 tries, 5 goals, 1 field goal	27	Sunday, 3 June 1990
	Newcastle	3 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	21
#87	St. George	1 try, 2 field goals	6	Sunday, 8 July 1990
	Manly	1 try, 3 goals	10
#88	Newcastle	3 tries, 3 goals	18	Sunday, 8 July 1990
	South Sydney	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13
#89	Eastern Suburbs	3 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	21	Sunday, 29 July 1990
	South Sydney	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13
#90	Parramatta	1 try, 3 goals, 2 field goals	12	Friday, 10 August 1990
	Newcastle	1 try, 3 goals, 2 field goals	12
#91	Eastern Suburbs	3 tries, 2 goals	16	Sunday, 26 August 1990
	Cronulla	2 tries, 1 goal, 1 field goal	11
#92	Western Suburbs	2 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	15	Sunday, 24 March 1991
	North Sydney	3 tries, 3 goals	18
#93	Parramatta	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13	Friday, 5 April 1991
	Brisbane	4 tries, 5 goals	26
#94	Balmain	1 try, 2 goals, 1 field goal	9	Sunday, 7 April 1991
	Eastern Suburbs	3 tries, 3 goals	18
#95	Illawarra	2 tries, 2 goals	12	Sunday, 14 April 1991
	Balmain	1 try, 2 goals, 1 field goal	9
#96	Newcastle	3 goals, 1 field goal	7	Sunday, 14 April 1991
	Eastern Suburbs	1 try, 1 goal, 1 field goal	7
#97	Parramatta	2 tries, 4 goals	16	Sunday, 12 May 1991
	Balmain	3 tries, 1 goal, 1 field goal	15
#98	South Sydney	3 tries, 1 goal, 1 field goal	15	Sunday, 12 May 1991
	Manly	4 tries, 4 goals	24
#99	Manly	1 try, 4 goals, 1 field goal	13	Sunday, 18 August 1991
	Canberra	3 tries, 1 goal	14
#100	South Sydney	3 tries, 5 goals, 1 field goal	23	Sunday, 18 August 1991
	Cronulla	6 tries, 3 goals	30
#101	Manly	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13	Sunday, 12 April 1992
	Newcastle	3 tries, 2 goals	16
#102	St. George	3 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	17	Sunday, 26 April 1992
	Balmain	3 tries, 5 goals	22
#103	Canterbury	2 tries, 1 goal, 1 field goal	11	Sunday, 5 July 1992
	Newcastle	1 try, 4 goals	12
#104	Newcastle	4 tries, 3 goals	22	Sunday, 30 August 1992
	Canberra	2 tries, 1 goal, 1 field goal	11
#105	Newcastle	3 tries, 3 goals	18	Sunday, 21 March 1993
	Western Suburbs	1 try, 2 goals, 1 field goal	9
#106	North Sydney	3 tries, 5 goals	22	Saturday, 3 April 1993
	Western Suburbs	1 try, 2 goals, 1 field goal	9
#107	Illawarra	1 try, 1 field goal	5	Friday, 21 May 1993
	St. George	1 try, 2 goals, 1 field goal	9
#108	Eastern Suburbs	1 try, 1 goal, 1 field goal	7	Saturday, 22 May 1993
	Balmain	3 tries, 3 goals	18
#109	Canterbury	3 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	17	Sunday, 27 June 1993
	North Sydney	4 tries, 1 goal	18
#110	Penrith	4 tries, 4 goals	24	Sunday, 4 July 1993
	Newcastle	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13
#111	Balmain	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13	Sunday, 4 July 1993
	Illawarra	4 tries, 1 goal	18
#112	Western Suburbs	1 try, 3 goals, 1 field goal	11	Sunday, 25 July 1993
	Newcastle	3 tries, 4 goals	20
#113	Gold Coast	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13	Sunday, 8 August 1993
	South Sydney	3 tries, 2 goals	16
#114	Newcastle	1 try, 2 goals, 2 field goals	10	Sunday, 3 April 1994
	Manly	1 try, 4 goals, 1 field goal	13
#115	Manly	5 tries, 4 goals	28	Sunday, 17 April 1994
	South Sydney	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13
#116	Manly	2 tries, 6 goals, 1 field goal	21	Sunday, 8 May 1994
	Brisbane	2 tries, 1 goal, 1 field goal	11
#117	Canberra	5 tries, 4 goals	28	Sunday, 23 April 1995
	Western Reds	4 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	21
#118	North Sydney	1 try, 2 goals, 1 field goal	9	Friday, 19 May 1995
	Brisbane	3 tries, 3 goals	18
#119	St. George	3 tries, 1 field goal	13	Friday, 16 June 1995
	Newcastle	4 tries, 4 goals	24
#120	Sydney Tigers	2 tries, 5 goals, 1 field goal	19	Sunday, 7 July 1996
	St. George	5 tries, 5 goals	30
#121	North Sydney	4 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	25	Sunday, 14 July 1996
	Sydney City	5 tries, 5 goals	30
#122	Brisbane	4 tries, 4 goals	24	Monday, 15 July 1996
	Newcastle	3 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	19
#123	North Sydney	2 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	15	Monday, 29 July 1996
	Cronulla	2 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	15
#124	Balmain	1 try, 2 goals, 1 field goal	9	Friday, 18 April 1997
	North Sydney	3 goals, 1 field goal	7
#125	Sydney City	5 tries, 6 goals, 1 field goal	33	Saturday, 6 September 1997
	North Sydney	3 tries, 3 goals, 3 field goals	21
#126	Parramatta	3 tries, 1 goal, 1 field goal	15	Sunday, 29 March 1998
	North Queensland	3 tries, 1 goal, 2 field goals	16
#127	Melbourne	4 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	21	Saturday, 27 June 1998
	Auckland	4 tries, 4 goals	24
#128	Penrith	3 tries, 1 field goal	13	Saturday, 4 July 1998
	Newcastle	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13
#129	Western Suburbs	3 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	17	Sunday, 12 July 1998
	Newcastle	4 tries, 1 goal	18
#130	St. George	2 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	15	Sunday, 23 August 1998
	Parramatta	2 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	15
#131	Melbourne	5 tries, 3 goals	26	Friday, 26 March 1999
	Canterbury	3 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	17
#132	Canberra	3 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	21	Sunday, 25 April 1999
	Newcastle	4 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	21
#133	Penrith	3 tries, 1 goal, 1 field goal	15	Sunday, 16 May 1999
	Newcastle	4 tries, 2 goals	20
#134	North Sydney	3 tries, 4 goals, 2 field goals	22	Sunday, 18 July 1999
	Manly	4 tries, 6 goals	28
#135	St. George Illawarra	1 try, 2 goals, 1 field goal	9	Sunday, 12 March 2000
	Wests Tigers	2 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	15
#136	Newcastle	5 tries, 3 goals	26	Sunday, 23 April 2000
	Parramatta	3 tries, 5 goals, 1 field goal	23
#137	Penrith	5 tries, 6 goals	32	Sunday, 4 June 2000
	Wests Tigers	5 tries, 5 goals, 1 field goal	31
#138	North Queensland	2 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	17	Saturday, 17 February 2001
	Brisbane	4 tries, 1 goal	18
#139	Sydney Roosters	4 tries, 4 goals	24	Sunday, 11 March 2001
	Canberra	2 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	17
#140	Sharks	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13	Saturday, 7 April 2001
	Sydney Roosters	4 tries, 3 goals	22
#141	Parramatta	3 tries, 4 goals	20	Sunday 05 May 2002
	North Queensland	3 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	19
#142	St. George Illawarra	4 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	21	Sunday, 12 May 2002
	Canberra	4 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	21
#143	Sharks	6 tries, 5 goals	34	Saturday, 8 June 2002
	St. George Illawarra	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13
#144	Newcastle	3 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	21	Sunday, 28 July 2002
	Bulldogs	4 tries, 3 goals	22
#145	Penrith	5 tries, 5 goals	30	Saturday 03 May 2003
	Manly	5 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	29
#146	Brisbane	3 tries, 6 goals, 1 field goal	25	Friday, 5 September 2003
	St. George Illawarra	4 tries, 5 goals	26
#147	Bulldogs	3 tries, 2 goals	16	Sunday, 3 October 2003
	Sydney Roosters	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13
#148	Penrith	7 tries, 6 goals	40	Sunday, 30 May 2004
	Bulldogs	5 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	29
#149	Canberra	5 tries, 4 goals, 2 field goals	30	Sunday, 25 July 2004
	New Zealand	5 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	29
#150	Bulldogs	3 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	21	Saturday, 4 June 2005
	South Sydney	3 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	21
#151	Brisbane	5 tries, 4 goals	28	Sunday, 17 July 2005
	Melbourne	2 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	15
#152	Bulldogs	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13	Saturday, 6 August 2005
	Newcastle	4 tries, 6 goals	28
#153	St. George Illawarra	1 try, 1 goal, 2 field goals	8	Friday, 2 June 2006
	Parramatta	1 field goal	1
#154	Newcastle	5 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	25	Friday, 29 June 2007
	South Sydney	5 tries, 4 goals	28
#155	Newcastle	3 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	17	Saturday, 21 July 2007
	Sydney Roosters	4 tries, 2 goals	20
#156	Sydney Roosters	5 tries, 5 goals, 1 field goal	31	Sunday, 5 August 2007
	New Zealand	5 tries, 5 goals, 1 field goal	31
#157	Brisbane	5 tries, 5 goals	30	Sunday, 26 August 2007
	Canberra	3 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	19
#158	Parramatta	4 tries, 3 goals, 2 field goals	24	Friday, 28 March 2008
	Newcastle	4 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	23
#159	South Sydney	4 tries, 4 goals	24	Monday, 23 June 2008
	Gold Coast Titans	4 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	23
#160	Cronulla	2 tries, 4 goals	16	Saturday, 19 July 2008
	Newcastle	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13
#161	Brisbane	5 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	25	Friday, 22 August 2008
	Gold Coast Titans	3 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	21
#162	South Sydney	4 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	25	Sunday, 24 August 2008
	Canberra	7 tries, 6 goals	40
#163	St. George Illawarra	2 tries, 2 goals	12	Sunday, 3 May 2009
	New Zealand	2 tries, 1 goal, 1 field goal	11
#164	Gold Coast Titans	3 tries, 3 goals	18	Sunday, 24 May 2009
	Manly	3 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	17
#165	Manly	4 tries, 4 goals, 2 field goals	26	Saturday, 19 June 2010
	South Sydney	4 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	25
#166	North Queensland	3 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	19	Saturday, 26 June 2010
	Cronulla	4 tries, 1 goal, 2 field goals	20
#167	Canberra	3 tries, 4 goals	20	Saturday, 24 July 2010
	Cronulla	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13
#168	Sydney Roosters	7 tries, 6 goals	40	Friday, 11 March 2011
	South Sydney	5 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	29
#169	Cronulla	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13	Saturday, 09 April 2011
	Manly	3 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	19
#170	Gold Coast Titans	4 tries, 4 goals	24	Saturday, 30 April 2011
	Sydney Roosters	2 tries, 2 goals, 1 field goal	13
#171	Canterbury	1 try, 1 goal, 2 field goals	8	Friday, 22 July 2011
	Parramatta	1 try, 1 goal, 1 field goal	7
#172	Canberra	4 tries, 4 goals	24	Monday, 25 July 2011
	St. George Illawarra	4 tries, 1 goal, 1 field goal	19
#173	Sydney Roosters	6 tries, 6 goals	36	Saturday, 20 August 2011
	Cronulla	4 tries, 4 goals, 1 field goal	25
#174	Canberra	3 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	19	Saturday, 03 March 2012
	Melbourne	4 tries, 4 goals	24
#175	Cronulla	3 tries, 4 goals	20	Saturday, 16 June 2012
	New Zealand	3 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	19
#176	New Zealand	3 tries, 3 goals, 1 field goal	19	Saturday, 21 July 2012
	Newcastle	4 tries, 4 goals	24
#177	Cronulla	3 tries, 4 goals	20	Saturday, 18 August 2012
	South Sydney	1 try, 1 goal, 1 field goal	7

Most hilarious joke I’ve ever seen

A few days ago, trying to find any footage of rugby games from twenty years ago when my brother used to say the object of the game was biting ears, I found the most hilarious typo/joke combination I have ever seen:

• “At 2:20 look for Fatty Vautin in Roosters jumper. Very rare as he spent alot of his time in reverse grade.”

• ”Reverse grade?... you mean the grade where they have drink beer and have a shower before the game, then run around backwards....·”

Although I am sure that “reverse grade” was a typo, the reply is just so funny!! In actual fact Vautin spent the vast bulk of his time with the Roosters in first grade, playing at most six games in reserve grade at the tail end of the 1990 season. The way it could be believed that even strongly-built and fast rugby players could run around backwards is ludicrous, as is that they would do that when the object of rugby is to move the ball forwards!

My brother knew the story

For a long time, I have had a vivid memory of a day in 1990 when Canterbury-Bankstown were playing Eastern Suburbs and I watched on Channel Nine in our old Keilor Downs house, when my brother interfered and asked why I was watching the rugby when football games of probably lower standard were on at the same time. My brother’s response when I refused to turn off the rugby was:

1. “they run a few metres and get tackled”
1. later my brother would say, in an even more silly fashion, “they run a few centimetres and get tackled”
2. at a later game between Illawarra and Canterbury-Bankstown, he ludicrously spoke of “centimetres gained” when Channel Nine listed “metres gained” as a statistic to understand the game
2. “rugby always repeats perfectly”
3. “a try will never happen”
4. “the aim of rugby is to bite ears”
1. later he joked about Geoff Bugden, a classy but injury-plagued prop forward, that his lost front teeth were “embedded in somebody’s ears” rather than knocked out
2. in later years, my brother made an even more absurd joke of a “sharp mouthguard” being developed so rugby players could bite opponent’s ears off.

The idea of a “sharp mouthguard” is so laughable and funny I cannot help chuckling whenever I think of it!

What, however, has surprised me in the past day is that my brother, before he watched the initially-mentioned game between Canterbury-Bankstown and Eastern Suburbs, actually knew even in 1990 as a ten-year-old of the one verifiable case in rugby league of someone actually biting ears. This was by Frank Farrell, nicknamed “Bumper” against St. George prop Bill McRitchie in 1945 during a scrum. What this does mean – and nothing else – is that my brother’s attack on rugby was actually based more on known facts than I thought.

Still, even with this alleged biting, rugby really is not that violent a game because contact is so rigidly restricted to the player holding the ball. This is why rugby has never been as dangerous as gridiron or ice hockey – sports where the aim would be literally to kill, were the aim of rugby what my brother in 1990 said it was. In fact, rugby league authorities in Australia understand exceptionally well that rules, playing conditions and efforts to be severe on serious offenders do a lot more to keep a sport fairly safe than heavy armour.

Indeed, in the early days of gridiron players were killed on a regular basis, with eighteen deaths in top-level gridiron in 1905 and according to some sources twenty-six in 1909. Ice hockey has also produced a number of deaths and near-deaths, most notably when Buffalo Sabres goalkeeper Clint Malarchuk had his jugular vein cut by a skate during a game on 22 March 1989 against the St. Louis Blues. He was lucky to survive, but the incident shows how much sharper ice hockey skates have become since my old Rules of the Game book of the 1970s was published. Howie Morenz and Bill Masterton also died on the ice during National Hockey League games, but in rugby league there is no record of someone dying during the season or training.

A weakness for outside backs

Having a look at a few rugby players on the web for the first time in a while, I foundthis 2008 list of the thirty best players of the past thirty years, excluding those not eligible to play for Australia:

1. Andrew Johns
2. Wally Lewis
3. Brad Fittler
4. Darren Lockyer
5. Allan Langer
6. Mal Meninga
7. Peter Sterling
8. Laurie Daley
9. Brett Kenny
10. Bradley Clyde
11. Mick Cronin
12. Steve Walters
13. Glenn Lazarus
14. Steve Rogers
15. Gorden Tallis
16. Shane Webcke
17. Steve Roach
18. Terry Lamb
19. Ricky Stuart
20. Ray Price
21. Andrew Ettingshausen
22. Danny Buderus
23. Jonathan Thurston
24. Cameron Smith
25. Graham Eadie
26. Steve Mortimer
27. Benny Elias
28. Wayne Pearce
29. Nathan Hindmarsh
30. Cliff Lyons

Although I have not access to enough rugby league footage to tell if this list really is accurate, what I do know about rugby league (the Super League war reduced my interest in the game I must confess) I can state that the main flaw with the list is positional. There is not a single winger in that list; though wingers never win player-of-the-year awards, that should hardly mean they should be omitted.

• Eric Grothe senior would be the obvious choice to rectify this omission: for one thing he was one of only two players

Also, with fullbacks and centres, the list is not only weak but also places the few in those positions in odd places:

• Darren Lockyer
• Mal Meninga
• Mick Cronin

are all very high given the lack of outside backs in the list as a whole. Then Graham Eadie, though from my limited experience watching the sport the bets player I have seriously seen, is a little too old (he first played in 1971) to be a part of a list covering the period from 1978 to 2007.

As for inside backs, it is hard to see apart from his bad injury record (his last injury-free season was in 1989) how Greg Alexander was not preferred over Steve Mortimer or Cliff Lyons.

Storm controversy shakes nation

These last two days, I have had the biggest news since my return from the holiday in Europe and America - and probably for longer than that.

Rugby team the Melbourne Storm have been found to be rorting the salary cap through keeping two accounts. This process has allowed the Storm to hide $1,700,000 in excess player payments. These were made in increments of about $15,000 on game days under the guise of hospitality payments, and the club’s owner, John Hartigan, says that he believes the players did not recognise they were obtaining income from two separate sources. In fact, Hartigan says that:

“five people at the club knew what was going on”

As a results of the NRL’s findings, the Storm have received punishments that I find utterly beyond comprehensibility for doing so. They have lost quite literally everything in terms of premierships, and will be deprived of all points for games won this year - something I find extremely harsh given that:

1. it could according to news I heard yesterday lead the Storm to refuse to play
2. the loss of a strong-performing club would deprive the NRL of revenue and could serve to reduce crowds and even the audiences who watch on pay television (there is little free-to-air NRL broadcasting)
3. it could ruin the NRL’s one successful effort to expand beyond the heartland of Australia’s population (Nowra to Bundaberg) and the Wet Tropical Coast

There would be those who even say that the NRL’s finding the Storm are rorting the salary cap is a natural consequence of the very existence of such rules.

The market has a pretty good way of sorting itself out. No thought has had to go into salary cap alternatives (you don’t have to be too creative to think of a few) because it’s now so entrenched – there’s serious doubt, however, that the salary cap would survive a legal challenge.

To say they player payments are not “subjected to an artificial limit” because they “play for a sum which is contractually agreed upon with the club” is simply naïve and does not reflect an understanding of how a free market works. Of course a contractual agreement on a maximum fee payable is an “artificial” limit when negotiated in the context of a salary cap. It’s a form of price fixing which we don’t tolerate anywhere else in the market.

In fact, the NRL has consistently been active in preventing salary cap breaches for a long time: the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs were stripped of a likely premiership for that reason eight years ago after having won nineteen consecutive games. It is easy for me to imagine that the future could produce even more secretive payments by the next power club in the NRL. What would the NRL do if it found out such breaches after more success than the Storm have already garnered?

Although one Julie says that salary cap should be challenged in the courts - and I know very well how the NSWRL’s player draft was struck down in 1991 - I recall reading when the issue of challenging the draft was discussed in the AFL that many believed a salary cap could be legal even if a player draft is not. It is probably for this reason that the Storm do not want to challenge the legality of the salary cap in court - besides fear that it would fail for whatever reason.

The 1985 and 1994 rugby grand finals — the bomb

The 1985 and 1994 NSWRL grand finals, though very different in themselves, tell together a quite interesting tale of a weapon developed in the 1970s called the “bomb”. In rugby league, a “bomb” is a very high kick into or near the opposition in goal area, which aims to produce a try or to tie the opposition down by a line drop-out.

The 1985 grand final, in which St. George were aiming for a cleansweep of all three grades and started as hot favourites having not lost any of their last ten games, saw Canterbury captain Steve Mortimer use the bomb as a means of keeping St. George in their own in-goal. Although the Bulldogs were able to force a huge number of line dropouts, they only scored one try (but could have scored three or four with better finishing) and were lucky to win after Steve Morris scored for the Dragons.

Apparently the repetitive manner in which Mortimer bombed the ball to Dragon fullback Glenn Burgess was seen as likely to destroy the game if other sides had copied Canterbury. A law was introduced whereby a ball taken on the full in goal led to a 22 (later 20)-metre tap restart, which made the bomb (initially) less effective.

The 1994 grand final is often seen as a perfect farewell by a red-hot Canberra side to Mal Meninga’s career. In fact, like St. George’s unbelievably poor tackling in 1975, Canberra’s big win — which actually flattered Canterbury — was achieved despite quiet games from Steve Walters and Brett Mullins, plus a number of elementary errors and missed opportunities. Canberra took quite a number of wrong options and their ball handling was far from perfect, denying themselves two intercept tries.

However, what watching the 1994 grand final reveals most is Canterbury’s woeful mistakes at the rear. To see them — supposedly a top team — miss every single bomb put to them is utterly shocking. What this really reflects is how Ricky Stuart and Laurie Daley — for all their skill — were taking advantage of the fact that specialist fullbacks were a thing of the past. Stuart put up eight “bombs” during the match and neither Wilson, nor Ryan nor winger Daryl Halligan could take a single one cleanly. A decent specialist fullback would have taken every single Raiders kick on the full rather than dropping easy catches or unnecessarily trying to take difficult ones.

Canterbury used two fullbacks - Scott Wilson and Matt Ryan, who should never have played away from five-eighth or centre respectively. In the 1993 major semi-final, St. George’s Noel Goldthorpe did the same thing to a team that would have had an incomparable record but for this weakness.

So ingrained had the loss of specialist fullbacks become that the causal reader of Rugby League (or I would imagine even the more insider-oriented Rugby League Week) does not realise Scott Wilson should have never played anywhere but five-eighth: almost all his first grade career was at fullback even though he was hopeless there in top company. Even Canberra’s Brett Mullins was basically a winger not a fullback. Having watched Graham Eadie’s wonderful performances for Manly in the 1970s, I can confidently say a genuine fullback of his class would have been worth fifty points (no typo) to Canterbury on September 25, 1994. Had I then been a sports master at school merely watching Canterbury would really have taught me to teach suitable kids the essentials of fullback play to the exclusion of anything else to prevent such an atrocious exhibition ever occurring again. It is true that against other sides of that era who relied less on kicking a specialist fullback was an expensive luxury. However, to imagine a team could, as Canberra did, deserve to win a grand final by fifty or sixty points without playing superlatively well can do no credit to rugby league as a game!

It is honestly a travesty of justice that Daryl Halligan, whose elementary mistakes cost Canterbury twenty points, overtook Eadie — who is about the best player I have seen on Visual Entertainment Group DVDs — in overall points scored in NSWRL matches! Even counting his accuracy as a goalkicker, I feel watching the game now that I would have sacked Halligan just for the tries he gave away failing to catch bombs.