Bye scheduling

[subsbligh]

I thought the clubs were given a say in when they wanted byes? This might have changed though.

Also, I don't get the argument that there's only one game as opposed to eight or "I don't want a weekend without footy".
They play exactly the same number of games over the season, it would just be a few weeks longer. Isn't that a better thing for fans?

Problem is, with the compromise, nobody wins.

The NRL on the bye weeks is piss poor without half the teams playing and the 34 best players unavailable.

Play a stand alone representative weekend over 3 weeks (or 6). Have a shits and giggles big money tournament (9s or a knockout/FA Cup style/World Club Challenge/UEFA Champions League-esque?) for the also rans.

I hate to say the trite words but State of Origin is dying in its current form. The passion is gone...what more is there to prove for Qld when you set a record that will never be broken that ends the debate about which state is dominant in rugby leage.

Will it go the way of All Stars weekend in other sports?

There's no biff anymore. There's no injustice, in fact Qld's ripping off blokes like Greg Inglis and Luke Keary. The Baby Boomers generational hatred has passed through Gen X and Gen Y and Qld is no longer the laughing stock of the country. Syndey wankers will always be egocentric, but that's not specific to football.

Take your biased NSW-media awards and Immortals list and all that shit. The lowest common denominator is that Qld won 8 Origin series, in a row. Qld dominated for 8 years, were playing for 10 in a row and NSW stopped the rot. No one will ever get close to that record. Every bar room debate starts and ends there on that question. Anything less, even a 3-peat or whatever will be a bit, meh, it's still not 8. It will be talked about in the same breath as the 11 in a row premierships won by the Dragons.

It's almost so insurmountable that it takes the passion and achievement out of everything less. The odds of building a window of opportunity to reach that level of achievement, let alone the closing out each of those crunch moments Qld has pulled from the fire on so many occasions. It just seems exponential.

You can see the approach to Origin changing. It's more professional. There's a higher level of intensity, stand alone coaches, development programs. It's an arms race. There's already State of Origin specialist players - Gallen. No hope of winning a premiership; prepares his season around Origin time.

Anyway, the equation is not that simple.

Scheduling the Origin series and byes etc is one piece in the puzzle.

Maybe we need a civil war.

 

[QUEENSLANDER]

Which should probably be the same response given when someone whinges about the fairness of when teams have byes.

But the supporters are the ones being jipped with the bye schedule as it is right now. We get pathetic quality matches and if you were a fan of wests, souths or eels, you have to deal with your team playing understrength 3 times instead of 1 - 2. Got nothing to do with the professionalism of the athletes, the fans are the ones who are losing out here, as well as the clubs which are being disadvantaged.

If we HAVE to have byes, why cant every team just have the same amount of byes on origin etc. Make it even and no-one can complain, everyone is under the same rule.

 

[Porthoz]

Yeah true. Do you think the players would be ok with a longer season even if most of them get byes in the middle? Players like Smith and Inglis who have been the most vocal, would be playing more games, wouldn't they?

Well, we would only have 24 weeks of competition, as the byes wouldn't exist anymore, so Origin players might have to play 1 or 2 games extra at most. On the other hand, they wouldn't have to back-up for their club within 3/4 days after an Origin game, which would be better for them.

On top of it, it keeps the NRL competition fair for everyone, doesn't serve up utter crap games during the Origin period, and doesn't keep punishing the same clubs over and over again for having better development/recruitment than others.

In total, you would have 24 NRL rounds with 4 rep weekends (Anzac included), as opposed to 26 NRL rounds with 1 rep weekend and Origin stuck in between. That means a single weekend of footy extra per year!

 

[Morkel]

Clearly the only fair thing to do is scrap Origin.