Dogs v Eels

Because it was old Fred’s 94th birthday I watched a game of rugby league with him. His idea.

I haven’t watched a regular season game for quite some time. Hasn’t the game changed?

With the ten meter rule and ultra quick play the ball, it felt like a violent game of touch.

Invariably the first three tackles were dummy half runs. 30 meters gained.

Each tackle had about 4 defenders involved. 400kg on 100kg; they are just asking to rack up injuries. Of which there were many.

The fourth and fifth tackles usually involved the attacking team unleashing a set move involving passing behind decoy shepherd runners. These moves had nothing to do with what the defense were doing at the time.

The forwards, when taking the ball up on the fourth and fifth tackles, looked they were auditioning for the lead role in the upcoming movie on the life of Artie Beetson. Every time, they attempted the off-load. And about half the time they lost the ball. It would be even more often if defenders weren’t so heavily penalised for stripping the pill. But really, the way these guys hold the ball so loosely in tackles, they deserve to be stripped.

They seem to have stopped bombing the ball on the sixth; they kick for the line, presumably because they enjoy a scrum so much.

The aerial drone shot of the scrum was beyond laughable.They were hardly touching each other; it was like a bunch of blokes standing uncomfortably close to each other while the half back tossed the ball to his backs.

Most of the tries were the result of the outside defending backs getting out of defensive position and then being confused as to who they should tackle. That much hasn’t changed in the game since I was a kid.

And the art of converting a try seemed to have been lost on this particular night.

Every single try went to the video ref to check for off-the-ball infringements because of all those shepherd decoy runs. Another few minutes wasted. If these passes behind decoy runners need slow motion video examination for legitimacy after every try then surely they need to be banned from general play?

As a spectacle this game between Canterbury-Bankstown and Parramatta had the appeal of watching a dog and an eel flap around in the shallows of a lake trying to figure out how to fight each other.