State of Finality

After watching Origin I, it occurs to me that there’s a lot of similarities between the codes of Australian politics and Rugby League.

Apart from the fact that in both codes one can only pass backwards and play stops every time anyone is tackled, in the modern era they have both become slug fests.

The actors have been trained to within an inch of their lives and there’s no free flowing back line activity any more.

Indeed, in last night’s game there were maybe three examples of players doing risky things such as the chip and chase, or the speculative cut-out pass, and the like.

In all three cases the ball was lost thus reinforcing the concept that possession, front row runs and low-risk footy  is the way to go.

In politics the same is true although it hasn’t got quite to the same degree of sophistication as yet, with the odd back bencher and nutty minister regularly opting for the risky chip and chase.

Fortunately for both teams in the political code there isn’t much chance of another team breaking into the duopoly of origin, so winning the game is predicated on minimising mistakes.

Being as boring as that is, it is no wonder that the good footballers (in the case of rugby league) and the talented all rounders (in the case of politics) eschew both codes in favour of rugby union/AFL or business, respectively.