Season 2016 has been an embarrassment

[I bleed Maroon]

With it now looking likely that Melbourne and Cronulla will make up the Grand Final spectacle, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the NRL as a competition has had a year to forget in almost every facet. I don't have enough time in the evening to go back over the clusterfuck that was Parramatta, the referees from onfield all the way up to the coveted bunker have had arguably their worst year since reunification.

There was the predictable media dramas involving player behavior of varying severity, from the low end, you've got the Emerging Origin fiasco that the media feasted on despite it being a microwave snack, all the way up to the full gourmet fuckstick scandals like Dogfucker and Cockhead Norman. The massive PR beatup that Jarryd Hayne's late season return prompted was pretty embarrassing too. The **** just got done failing hard at his millionth "dream" and he returns to Australia to a heroes welcome. Beats the **** out of me why people get excited over that shit, man.

All of this sprinkled with a bit of divisive rule changes that leave a bitter taste even today and you've got a recipe for a fucking disaster of a year right there. Then you factor in who is going to the Grand Final, and the playstyles that will be on display that are neither interesting nor exciting. Grind, wrestle, grub act, more wrestle, another grub act, Gallen whinge, Smith whinge....How is this GF going to be in any way beneficial to the NRL as a product? And why do they get such a free ride with the refs every. Single. Year? Is the sin bin dead just for their benefit? Why, why why, I demand an explanation. Is it because they're panicking about AFL expansion in Sydney and are just desperate to fight back hard with their only investment in Victoria? The AFL already have 2 teams that are seeing burgeoning success, whether they make their GF or not. I hope the NRL enjoy their 40 or so thousand Storm fans they get to the GF that the Herald Sun will completely ignore.

I dunno man. I just feel like when I take a step back and observe the whole picture, it isn't a great one that I'm seeing at the moment. Being a fan of a sport should never be this frustrating.

 

[Sproj]

Great rant!

An AFL team does drugs, they get suspended and finish last. An NRL team does drugs, they get rewarded with a holiday, no consequences and a GF appearance. The NRL once again sending a strong message that cheating won't be tolerated and if you do so, you'll be punished with a premiership potentially.

 

[Cult]

NRL fans need to take a stand and not turn the NRL Grand Final on at all.

 

[Aldo]

I agree. I'm getting sick of sticking up for league. It's been the first year I've started to question my passion for the game just with the poor level of officiating alone. Absolutely abysmal.

 

[ivanhungryjak]

Embarrasment is on par for the NRL though unfortunately.

 

[Scorchie]

The writing was on the wall when we ended 2015 with Joey on the floor in Toowoomba.

There was no coming back from that for 2016.

 

[Huge]

Great rant!

An AFL team does drugs, they get suspended and finish last. An NRL team does drugs, they get rewarded with a holiday, no consequences and a GF appearance. The NRL once again sending a strong message that cheating won't be tolerated and if you do so, you'll be punished with a premiership potentially.

Which NRL team did drugs ? Couldn't be the Sharks, they get tested more often than anyone. Are you linking something from 5 years ago with the current team ? If you're unhappy with how it was dealt with then contact the NRL and ASADA who seemed satisfied with the outcome. You do realize it's over , done and dusted. Move on with your life. Penalty served and now all clean so what's the problem. The Sharks didn't decide the penalty so any anger should be directed at those that did.

 

[john1420]

Which NRL team did drugs ? Couldn't be the Sharks, they get tested more often than anyone. Are you linking something from 5 years ago with the current team ? If you're unhappy with how it was dealt with then contact the NRL and ASADA who seemed satisfied with the outcome. You do realize it's over , done and dusted. Move on with your life. Penalty served and now all clean so what's the problem. The Sharks didn't decide the penalty so any anger should be directed at those that did.

The problem here Huge is "penalty served"

Now of course I know that they did serve the penalty that was handed down, and on that basis you can claim "penalty served"

But you cannot simply overlook the fact that the penalty was a joke, and not a penalty at all

If I get assaulted, the bad guy gets caught but given 3 weeks in jail and is then free, should I be satisfied? All is well due to "penalty served"?

Of course not, I am now mad at both the court system for handing down a sham of a penalty, and also still mad at the guy who smashed me (for 2 reasons now; 1 for doing it and 2 for essentially getting away with it)

Sure it's not his fault that he got away with it, but the injustice remains all the same

Huge, you have a bit of "Shark love" which is totally fine, but due to that you feel less aggrieved than the rest of us and therefore much more able to let it go and focus on the "penalty served"

But for the rest of us, who have been cheated against, we remain angry at the injustice

The Sharks got away with cheating, and so we remain aggrieved, and while we may be angry with the NRL/ASADA, we remain angriest at the club that actually did the cheating - this is not an unreasonable position

In fact, I think it is fair too say that many of us would still be angry even if the penalty was a 2 year ban. Our anger is only heightened by the fact that we feel the penalty was non existent

I respect your position on this Huge, but surely you can see that people without "Shark love" can't be expected to see it the same way you do?

 

[I bleed Maroon]

Truly horrible.

 

[Sproj]

Fitting team to win it all really.

 

[Big Pete]

Let's face it...

Anything less than a premiership and this year was always going to suck as a Broncos supporter. Constant reminders of the club's biggest heart-break, unrealistic expectations each and every week followed by the inevitable slump that haunts every top flight side. It was a rough year that turned really ugly at the end leading to another heart-breaking exit that served only to re-open old wounds.

It made a difficult season unbearable. Brisbane have endured tougher seasons, but they were usually supplemented with good action. 2003 comes to mind, Brisbane finished 8th that year, couldn't win a game to save themselves and yet there was a lot of positives to draw from that season.

On the other hand, I just see so many negatives. Newcastle were the worst team I've ever had the displeasure of watching on a weekly basis, Sydney & Souths lost the plot, Canterbury & St George played the most boring brand of football I've watched, Wests Tigers were a soap opera, the Warriors a disgrace and on top of that you had the Eels fiasco. Who am I forgetting? Oh yeah, Manly, probably the biggest non-entity in the game provided little joy.

For me, it isn't so much Cronulla that summed the year up. I actually thought they played some enterprising footy and took a bunch of players like Ennis, Barba, Lewis, Townsend, Bukuya, Heighington, Prior etc who were supposedly washed up and turned them into a champion side. For me it was Melbourne who played the exact same brand of footy last year and yet were rarely bothered on top of the table. Last year it was a real fight for them to even make the Top 4, this year they made it with relative ease.

I thought the prelim final between Canberra and Melbourne summed up the year in a lot of ways. Both teams completed their sets and defended their lines well but the match was lacking in terms of creativity and ball-play. The critics all called it an instant classic, but I saw it as anything but as both sides rarely played any footy. It was robotic, it was boring and it seemed like whenever any player had the cajones to play what was infront of them we actually got a game of football.

I think the game is in a lull at the moment. We've got this generation of great players like Slater, Smith, Cronk, Thurston, Inglis etc. at the tail end of their careers and we're just waiting for the next generation to step up and take over. So far it's been the same song and dance for 11 years and the excitement just isn't there.

On top of that, it just doesn't seem like the code is growing. While business analytics suggest otherwise, crowd figures have stagnated, there's little talk of expansion and we're still trying to figure out how to develop talent. As it stands, we have 400 players signed onto Top 25 deals. To think the game can't find an extra 50 is a sad indictment on the code.

There's other issues as well. The games we choose to represent the code, the media coverage, the judiciary, the refereeing, representative duties, gambling so on and so forth. It's all had a dramatic effect and has prevented the NRL from being anything more than a mediocre organisation.

Let's face facts, it's uncool to be an NRL fan.

It's a great sport.

But it's a shitty code we follow.

 

[Mr Fourex]

Fitting team to win it all really.

** Premiers 2016 Cronulla Sharks


another year that should be marked with an asterix in the record books tbh.

 

[Fernando]

Well yeah there's certainly a few negatives around the game, but I think it's matter of perspective. Like Sharks supporters would be madly in love with the game right now.

As much as it hurts I think a lot of the bitching comes about because we failed to win a premiership, for the tenth straight year. 10 years!

In that time we've seen the Dragons, Rabbits, Cowboys and Sharks all win comps, and Brisbane haven't been able to. We've also crashed out in heartbreaking style on a few occasions so I think Brisbane supporters are just a bit frustrated and down on the game right now

 

[pennywisealfie]

Let's face it...

Anything less than a premiership and this year was always going to suck as a Broncos supporter. Constant reminders of the club's biggest heart-break, unrealistic expectations each and every week followed by the inevitable slump that haunts every top flight side. It was a rough year that turned really ugly at the end leading to another heart-breaking exit that served only to re-open old wounds.

It made a difficult season unbearable. Brisbane have endured tougher seasons, but they were usually supplemented with good action. 2003 comes to mind, Brisbane finished 8th that year, couldn't win a game to save themselves and yet there was a lot of positives to draw from that season.

On the other hand, I just see so many negatives. Newcastle were the worst team I've ever had the displeasure of watching on a weekly basis, Sydney & Souths lost the plot, Canterbury & St George played the most boring brand of football I've watched, Wests Tigers were a soap opera, the Warriors a disgrace and on top of that you had the Eels fiasco. Who am I forgetting? Oh yeah, Manly, probably the biggest non-entity in the game provided little joy.

For me, it isn't so much Cronulla that summed the year up. I actually thought they played some enterprising footy and took a bunch of players like Ennis, Barba, Lewis, Townsend, Bukuya, Heighington, Prior etc who were supposedly washed up and turned them into a champion side. For me it was Melbourne who played the exact same brand of footy last year and yet were rarely bothered on top of the table. Last year it was a real fight for them to even make the Top 4, this year they made it with relative ease.

I thought the prelim final between Canberra and Melbourne summed up the year in a lot of ways. Both teams completed their sets and defended their lines well but the match was lacking in terms of creativity and ball-play. The critics all called it an instant classic, but I saw it as anything but as both sides rarely played any footy. It was robotic, it was boring and it seemed like whenever any player had the cajones to play what was infront of them we actually got a game of football.

I think the game is in a lull at the moment. We've got this generation of great players like Slater, Smith, Cronk, Thurston, Inglis etc. at the tail end of their careers and we're just waiting for the next generation to step up and take over. So far it's been the same song and dance for 11 years and the excitement just isn't there.

On top of that, it just doesn't seem like the code is growing. While business analytics suggest otherwise, crowd figures have stagnated, there's little talk of expansion and we're still trying to figure out how to develop talent. As it stands, we have 400 players signed onto Top 25 deals. To think the game can't find an extra 50 is a sad indictment on the code.

There's other issues as well. The games we choose to represent the code, the media coverage, the judiciary, the refereeing, representative duties, gambling so on and so forth. It's all had a dramatic effect and has prevented the NRL from being anything more than a mediocre organisation.

Let's face facts, it's uncool to be an NRL fan.

It's a great sport.

But it's a shitty code we follow.

BP, I don't agree with a some things you say. But jesus, this is the most spot on post I've seen.

 

[Battler]

The issue with the NRL for me today is that I don't give a damn about any other side apart from the Broncos. Even origin is starting to piss me off because of how badly it impacts the regular season.

Officiating is a deadset disgrace: game 3 of origin was just so blatant it would be investigated in any other sport, and you can add the second half of our semi to that list as well.

 

[Organix]

The problem here Huge is "penalty served"

Now of course I know that they did serve the penalty that was handed down, and on that basis you can claim "penalty served"

But you cannot simply overlook the fact that the penalty was a joke, and not a penalty at all

If I get assaulted, the bad guy gets caught but given 3 weeks in jail and is then free, should I be satisfied? All is well due to "penalty served"?

Of course not, I am now mad at both the court system for handing down a sham of a penalty, and also still mad at the guy who smashed me (for 2 reasons now; 1 for doing it and 2 for essentially getting away with it)

Sure it's not his fault that he got away with it, but the injustice remains all the same

Huge, you have a bit of "Shark love" which is totally fine, but due to that you feel less aggrieved than the rest of us and therefore much more able to let it go and focus on the "penalty served"

But for the rest of us, who have been cheated against, we remain angry at the injustice

The Sharks got away with cheating, and so we remain aggrieved, and while we may be angry with the NRL/ASADA, we remain angriest at the club that actually did the cheating - this is not an unreasonable position

In fact, I think it is fair too say that many of us would still be angry even if the penalty was a 2 year ban. Our anger is only heightened by the fact that we feel the penalty was non existent

I respect your position on this Huge, but surely you can see that people without "Shark love" can't be expected to see it the same way you do?

I don't think there is scientific evidence enough to suggest how long the effects of taking PEDs last.

Also, could someone please explain to me how the backdated suspension was only for three months at the end of a season that basically allowed Gallen et al. to miss only three regular games and some potential Four Nation matches? I actually just want to have that explained without bias.

 

[Huge]

Perhaps a little reading about the penalty from the NRL perspective. Shouldn't be hard to find.

 

[Organix]

Just thought I'd ask on here. Maybe you could explain it?