The NRL’s Wheel of Misfortune

“I always said I would act for the fans and I have been inundated by people saying the good work we have done is evaporating.”

- Peter V’Landys

deep exhale

That’s from today, in a piece from Code about how Peter V’Landys, ARLC chairman, is planning on “stopping the wrestle” and effectively rescuing the game from the pesky bugbear of “defence” and “competitive parity.”

I think it’s fair to say that even the most ardent, one-eyed backers of the V’Landys regime would be able to see that, after the small sample size of the opening four rounds of the 2022 NRL season, the overall product has been a cut above the “sliders turned to 100”, arcade-style nonsense that was dished up throughout 2021.

Well, actually, I lie, because that implies a certain base level of rational criticism and self-awareness from a regime and supporter base so blinded by self-aggrandising displays of administrative peacocking. Except, it isn’t mating season, and people have long since learned to “see through the scoreboard” for what the game has become.

The hallmark of an entertaining sporting competition is ostensibly, parity. Or at least, a rational level of parity within the confines of traditional sporting factors such as deep-seated organisational ineptitude and “superteams” (see NBA circa 2010-2018).

Competitive parity isn’t an idyllic Valhalla where everyone wins and loses the same amount of games and everyone has a good time. No, but it does factor in a certain degree of intangible variance, an “off day” where a Penrith might lose to a North Queensland through sloppy ball handling, ill-discipline and fatigue.

In 2021, Penrith could have an “off day” against North Queensland and “only” win by 30.

In 2021, after four rounds, you had 3 teams winless in North Queensland, Canterbury and Manly, all careening to historically bad points differentials (although Manly would eventually recover thanks to the returning Tom Trbojevic). At the top end of the ladder, Penrith and Parramatta remained undefeated, while a further four teams had only dropped one game.

12 months later, after four rounds, only one team remains undefeated (Penrith) while only one is yet to sing the team song (Wests Tigers). Penrith, who are undefeated, have a measly +58 differential, a mark 36 points worse off than their 2021 form. Wests sit last with a -38 differential, which isn’t currently worst in the league (Canterbury and St George are on -49 and -50 respectively), but that -38 mark is in stark contrast to last year’s cellar dwellers, with Manly (-122), Canterbury (-106), North Queensland (-105) and the 2021 Tigers (-62) all far worse off.

Last year, there was a 216 point differential between best and worst after four rounds. That disparity this season? 108 points. Exactly half.

The most interesting part of those figures though is they all include blowout results from the weekend. The Bulldogs lost 44-0 in Melbourne while the Dragons got trounced 48-14 by Parramatta, and yet their differentials are still representative of a bad team in a normalised year of NRL statistics, not the cartoon version of last year.

But let’s get back to the original leadoff, that quote from V’Landys. All that “good work” that is being undone.

What, exactly, do you quantify as good work? Is it creating a year rife with so many statistical outliers that it created records that may never be broken in the modern era? Cody Walker had 37 try assists last year. In 2019, the last truly unaffected year, the leading mark was 25 by Mitchell Moses, with only two other players cracking 20.

Alex Johnston, one of the great try scorers in the modern game with or without help, scabbed 30 tries in 2021. Again, winding it back to 2019, the leader was Maika Sivo, with 22. In fact, the inflation was so ridiculous that in 2019, 26 players scored 10 or more tries, and Sivo was the only one to crack 20. In 2021? 43 players scored double digit tries, with five crossing 20+ times. Hell, three of those 20+ scorers all played in the same backline (Tom Trbojevic - 28, Jason Saab - 26, and Reuben Garrick - 23).

So I’d like to amend V’Landys’ quote, if he’d be so kind as to allow a ghostwriter.

“I always said I would act for the fans and I have been inundated by people saying the good work over-inflation we have done caused is evaporating reverting back to the mean.”

- Peter V’Landys, with ghostwriter

There were some other gems in the article, which you can read here if you’re so inclined.

For someone constantly trumpeted as the game’s greatest saviour (you returned the sport two weeks earlier than everyone else, settle down), one of the sharpest minds in the Australian sporting landscape, what we’re constantly seeing is the man is little more than a cheap marionette being passed around the boardroom, everyone getting a turn imposing their will. A genie with endless wishes.

Today, we also found out through the great man himself that the wrestle was back. I had to go for emergency dental surgery this afternoon because my jaw hit the floor so hard. I was in complete shock. Why had no one told me this?

Oh wait, because the wrestle isn’t back. No, in fact, this dreaded wrestle which you claim had been banished and is slowly creeping back in, never left in the first place.

A team giving away deliberate six-agains last year defending a yardage set to get their defensive line organised? That’s wrestling, champion. The wrestle never left, the consequences did.

The cherry on top was perhaps this absolute pearler.

“The brilliant players like Trbojevic and Tedesco aren’t the same players as they were last year because the balance has gone too far.”

- Peter V’Landys

I know I, as a fan, was in absolute awe watching the specimen that is Tom Trbojevic receive a crash ball against tired forwards in the glances at timepiece 16th minute for his third try of the match. To me, that was unreal rugby league, not this to-and-fro, defensive nonsense we’ve been dished up now.

The brilliant players are brilliant because they find ways to impact the game and rise above the struggle to show class. Brilliant players lose their shine if their theatre is reduced to little more than Thursday night touch football.

No one remembers a banner play from last season, because in the regular season, there were no banner plays. Every feat of “champagne rugby league” was devalued because the frequency had upshot so much it was like discovering goon for the first time. “How much for all this alcohol?” I distinctly hear my 18 year old self ask the clerk at Dan Murphy’s in disbelief.

If anything, 2021 has had a negative impact on how we view these stars. 2021 has created negative discourse about how we measure the performances of a Tedesco, a Trbojevic, a Cleary. The goalposts have shifted to an unsustainable metric, a regression to normalcy in turn diminishes anecdotally the feats of years gone past. If this keeps up, we run the risk of effectively asterisking the entire careers of the modern day greats, a product of their era rather than a star of their era.

It’s how we dismissively view the achievements of athletes of the 1960s. Penalised for their era, for a perceived lack of athleticism and skill relative to today. Bill Russell won 11 NBA championships as a player, and yet far too often you hear “yeah but he played in the 60s” as his greatest knock.

Rugby league administration feels like a huge game of Wheel of Fortune. Except, instead of John Burgess presiding over our game, it’s RL Stine, and there’s no money on the board, just bankrupt slots waiting to be cashed.