Resurgent NRL will wipe out rugby

Nimble league back better than before and plodding union should be worried

It’s hard to distinguish between the canned applause and the real stuff for league, after an astonishingly good NRL relaunch. Far from succumbing to the virus, league has somehow managed to bounce back better than ever.

And the nomad Warriors’ surprise win over the Dragons simply added to the golden glow, although anyone who knows the shabby history of the Auckland club will not get carried away with their 2020 prospects just yet.

The game’s new dictator, Peter V’landys, didn’t muck about. One major rule change and a return to using one referee, along with TV’s “virtual crowd noise”, has seen some kind of miracle emerge from nearempty stadiums.

League has just taken a huge step forward in the code war, which I believe will have a significant impact in Australia, with serious effects here.

In a time of crisis, league’s weakness became a strength, while the opposite is true for rugby union.

League remains a backyard sport, which is why its manipulated World Cups have only moderate impact and undergo constant format and scheduling changes.

League’s strongholds are pockets in England, Australia and New Zealand, and those places are barely connected. And it has never weighed itself down with the committee approach, being ruled by individuals both great and small for many years.

This means league can move really fast, get on with the job, and react to a changing world. Had rugby union come up with the fake crowd noise idea, the trials would have lasted longer than the pandemic.

Rugby union talks big but is making little headway in providing fans around the world with an actionfilled professional sports experience. It is an often laborious game, of inexplicable rules, and increasingly out of touch.

Rugby’s best international tournaments — the World Cup and Six Nations — have grandeur league will never match. An All Blacks test is a sight to behold.

Below that, I believe more than ever that union will get wiped out by league in this part of the world because spectators and new players will increasingly be attracted to the simpler, faster, more open game, a true professional club system, plus the personalities and constant storylines.

One of the key changes is the “six again” rule for ruck infringements, which makes for quicker play-theballs and a game that never seems to stop.

The initial estimates are that the ball is now in play for about 57 minutes. Tired defenders create more attacking opportunities.

On initial viewing, I don’t like aspects of the new “six again” rule, whereby the tackle count is restarted for ruck infringements, rather than a penalty being awarded.

These “six again” calls, signified by a meek bell sound, occur so quickly, the TV commentators have trouble spotting them. There is no time to analyse what happened, to have any idea whether the call was justified. It was even hard to decipher what tackle they occurred in.

This massive change for the game is hidden in plain sight, and yet its effect is so profound — alongside a sole referee who does far less nitpicking compared with two — that in the end, this probably won’t matter.

League is going for continual flow. To some degree, it is now saying that the overall look is more important than getting all the rulings right.

As rugby weighs itself down with virtually everything, league has set itself up for the future.

And Benji Marshall’s wonderful performance for the Wests Tigers, who blitzed the Cronulla Sharks in a second-half comeback, showed that veterans have a place in the new age as well.

As for the fake crowd noise, it is quite sophisticated and worked surprisingly well, although the timing didn’t seem quite right during the Warriors-Dragons match.

The sooner it goes, the better, of course. The real stuff, with crowds reacting and shaping a game, inspiring and intimidating players, giving the referee important advice, is absolutely crucial to proper sport.

But for now, the clever fake sounds will do.

The noise should send a shiver up the spine of rugby union, a game which is collapsing below All Blacks level with massive financial problems beyond its control.

Even here, league has been able to move quickly. According to a report over the weekend, V’landys will cut expenditure at NRL headquarters, and send about $6 million to each of the 16 clubs to help them survive the pandemic.

I’ll happily press the applause button for that.