Do the NRL want a Club from NZ their Competition?

[Davo5]

7 hours ago, Allora said:

 

They have been really badly run for many years.

When my team plays them I have little or no interest in watching the game at all to be honest.

Why do they remind you too much of Parra ??

[Balmain1969]

13 hours ago, Yorkshire Knight said:

Warriors are one team representing the whole of NZ whereas there are 5 NZ union teams. Not really an accurate comparison. Combine those 5 teams then compare them. When you do combine them, you get the All Blacks. And at this stage, it’s not really a contest anymore 

So the comment was made that the Warriors are the biggest Club Rugby team in NZ, and your argument is that if you combine all the Union teams together they are bigger????? That's like saying Sydney isn't the biggest city in Australia because if you combine Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth its really not a contest.

[kiwis 13 6]

Do they want the NZ Warriors in the NRL? YES for the money!

Do they want NZ to have a Fair go in the competition! NO

[Yorkshire Knight]

1 hour ago, Balmain1969 said:

So the comment was made that the Warriors are the biggest Club Rugby team in NZ, and your argument is that if you combine all the Union teams together they are bigger????? That's like saying Sydney isn't the biggest city in Australia because if you combine Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth its really not a contest.

No that’s not the same at all. Read my comment again 

[Pulga]

5 hours ago, Yorkshire Knight said:

No that’s not the same at all. Read my comment again 

It's identical.

The original comment said that the Warriors are the most popular team in the biggest city in NZ (Auckland). This is true.

Then you start rambling on about combining other teams outside of Auckland... Sit down mate.

 

[Yorkshire Knight]

17 minutes ago, Pulga said:

It's identical.

The original comment said that the Warriors are the most popular team in the biggest city in NZ (Auckland). This is true.

Then you start rambling on about combining other teams outside of Auckland... Sit down mate.

 

Nope original comment stated that the Warriors are the most popular rugby club in NZ 

[Balmain1969]

18 hours ago, Yorkshire Knight said:

Nope original comment stated that the Warriors are the most popular rugby club in NZ 

Which they are

[Yorkshire Knight]

31 minutes ago, Balmain1969 said:

Which they are

Again:

On 12/08/2019 at 00:10, Yorkshire Knight said:

Warriors are one team representing the whole of NZ whereas there are 5 NZ union teams. Not really an accurate comparison. Combine those 5 teams then compare them. When you do combine them, you get the All Blacks. And at this stage, it’s not really a contest anymore 

 

[Oxford]

54 minutes ago, Balmain1969 said:

Which they are

So you've agreed to agree!

As to the thread the Warriors are in a very similar position to the Dragons. I'm a fan of both which does make me biased but they do tend to get the rough end of decisions for mine. I don't think this is blatant so much as unconcious/ subconcious effects. In the same way I think the lower clubs are assumed to be slowing the game down more that the dominant clubs. Other than that an awful lot of refs get out of the wrong side of the bed in Auckland and Perpignan. Now I've never been to Auckland but getting up in the P O is like winning the lottery and I know this cos I did it just today!

[Mr Wind Up]

1 hour ago, Balmain1969 said:

Which they are

It's very embarrassing for RU, as the most popular sport in NZ, to have its local club play second fiddle to RL in the biggest and most important city in the country. Poor union. Forever destined to be cr4pola.

[Oliver Clothesoff]

Always found the notion that Rugby League referees deliberately give decisions against the sport’s two major “foreign” sides, Catalans and NZ, a strange one. 

 

[The Future is League]

29 minutes ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

Always found the notion that Rugby League referees deliberately give decisions against the sport’s two major “foreign” sides, Catalans and NZ, a strange one. 

 

I would say in the Warriors case its just the poor standard of refs in the NRL, due in my opinion to the 2 ref system.

[The Great Dane]

7 hours ago, The Future is League said:

I would say in the Warriors case its just the poor standard of refs in the NRL, due in my opinion to the 2 ref system.

It's nothing to do with the two ref system, in fact people seem to forget that things were just as bad before the second ref was introduced and that the whole reason that the second ref was introduced in the first place was as an attempt to address things being so bad.

There are two major things that screwed the NRL reffing system:

1. The introduction of rules and/or "interpretations" as they are sometimes called, that are either contradictory to other rules (e.g. loose carry and dominant tackles) or are too subjective and/or difficult to enforce in the moment (e.g. the new stripping rules and blockers).

2. The introduction of the idea of "game management", where it is suggested to referees that it is their job to manage the "flow" of the game, i.e. not interrupt the game by giving out penalties for "minor offences" too often and instead allow the game to play on without to much interference.

The introduction of "interpretations" such as e.g. the loose carry has introduced a situation where a strip isn't considered a strip based on the refs subjective discretion, which, naturally, leads to different refs having a different definition of what a loose carry is, which leads to inconsistency in how the rule is enforced, as something that is considered a loose carry by one ref is an illegal strip to another, which creates confusion and justifiable outrage amongst fans when two strips that are more or less identical are "interpenetrated" in two completely different ways. 

The introduction of "game management" is even more insidious because it's basically lead to a situation where refs intentionally enforce the rules inconsistently, and has lead to a situation where not only are the teams playing Russian roulette with the rules as they know that refs aren't going to call them e.g. offside every time that they are offside, so they stand offside every single tackle and try to predict when a ref is going to actually give them a penalty, but it's also lead to situations where the refs only call offside e.g. three times in a game to not interrupt the flow of the game to much, and e.g. all three of those penalties were against the one team even though in actual fact that team committed the offence less then the other team who were literally standing offside every single tackle and were never penalised.  

So yeah it's nothing to do with the two ref system at all, it's other ideas that have been introduced over the past 10-15 years that are the problem, but nobody wants to address those issues because it'd be difficult, the NRL and lot of people at the NRL would have to admit not only that they were wrong, but that their decisions have lead to a lot of clubs and people being screwed, and also a lot of people would have to be fired, which would also be difficult, so instead of the NRL throws more and more expensive technology at the problem in the hopes that it'll make a difference.

[Dunbar]

On 11/08/2019 at 13:10, Yorkshire Knight said:

Warriors are one team representing the whole of NZ whereas there are 5 NZ union teams. Not really an accurate comparison. Combine those 5 teams then compare them. When you do combine them, you get the All Blacks. And at this stage, it’s not really a contest anymore 

Here is a little analogy to help you understand the error in your thinking.

Robert Pershing Wadlow is the tallest man who ever lived at 8 feet 11 inches.  Now, if you add up all of the little people in the cast of Time Bandits they are collectively taller than Mr Wadlow.

Question (and don't rush into answering this, take your time)... who is the tallest man who ever lived?

[Yorkshire Knight]

1 hour ago, Dunbar said:

Here is a little analogy to help you understand the error in your thinking.

Robert Pershing Wadlow is the tallest man who ever lived at 8 feet 11 inches.  Now, if you add up all of the little people in the cast of Time Bandits they are collectively taller than Mr Wadlow.

Question (and don't rush into answering this, take your time)... who is the tallest man who ever lived?

I bet you think you’re smart after that one don’t you? Even a preschooler could identify the fallacy in that analogy.

Nonetheless let me explain it in a way you could understand. Consider a town that has 5 supermarkets but only 1 fast food joint. Due to competition, the 5 supermarkets will naturally share the customer base. Whereas the fast food restaurant faces no such competition therefore is able to get more customers than the individual supermarkets. 

But what if all 5 supermarkets share the same parent company and as a result, the number of customers for each supermarket is tallied together. 

Question (and don't rush into answering this, take your time)... who has more customers?

[The Future is League]

2 hours ago, The Great Dane said:

It's nothing to do with the two ref system, in fact people seem to forget that things were just as bad before the second ref was introduced and that the whole reason that the second ref was introduced in the first place was as an attempt to address things being so bad.

There are two major things that screwed the NRL reffing system:

1. The introduction of rules and/or "interpretations" as they are sometimes called, that are either contradictory to other rules (e.g. loose carry and dominant tackles) or are too subjective and/or difficult to enforce in the moment (e.g. the new stripping rules and blockers).

2. The introduction of the idea of "game management", where it is suggested to referees that it is their job to manage the "flow" of the game, i.e. not interrupt the game by giving out penalties for "minor offences" too often and instead allow the game to play on without to much interference.

The introduction of "interpretations" such as e.g. the loose carry has introduced a situation where a strip isn't considered a strip based on the refs subjective discretion, which, naturally, leads to different refs having a different definition of what a loose carry is, which leads to inconsistency in how the rule is enforced, as something that is considered a loose carry by one ref is an illegal strip to another, which creates confusion and justifiable outrage amongst fans when two strips that are more or less identical are "interpenetrated" in two completely different ways. 

The introduction of "game management" is even more insidious because it's basically lead to a situation where refs intentionally enforce the rules inconsistently, and has lead to a situation where not only are the teams playing Russian roulette with the rules as they know that refs aren't going to call them e.g. offside every time that they are offside, so they stand offside every single tackle and try to predict when a ref is going to actually give them a penalty, but it's also lead to situations where the refs only call offside e.g. three times in a game to not interrupt the flow of the game to much, and e.g. all three of those penalties were against the one team even though in actual fact that team committed the offence less then the other team who were literally standing offside every single tackle and were never penalised.  

So yeah it's nothing to do with the two ref system at all, it's other ideas that have been introduced over the past 10-15 years that are the problem, but nobody wants to address those issues because it'd be difficult, the NRL and lot of people at the NRL would have to admit not only that they were wrong, but that their decisions have lead to a lot of clubs and people being screwed, and also a lot of people would have to be fired, which would also be difficult, so instead of the NRL throws more and more expensive technology at the problem in the hopes that it'll make a difference.

When i watch NRL games I'm not even sure that some refs know all the laws of the game.

[DoubleD]

2 hours ago, Yorkshire Knight said:

I bet you think you’re smart after that one don’t you? Even a preschooler could identify the fallacy in that analogy.

Nonetheless let me explain it in a way you could understand. Consider a town that has 5 supermarkets but only 1 fast food joint. Due to competition, the 5 supermarkets will naturally share the customer base. Whereas the fast food restaurant faces no such competition therefore is able to get more customers than the individual supermarkets. 

But what if all 5 supermarkets share the same parent company and as a result, the number of customers for each supermarket is tallied together. 

Question (and don't rush into answering this, take your time)... who has more customers?

NZ Warriors

[kier]

There are two parts to the argument.

This season it is without doubt that the Warriors have suffered three losses that have been down to referee errors. In these three cases there have been official apologies from the NRL management and in many cases refs/touchies have been sanctioned for the errors.

The six competition points however, remain lost and what could/should have been a good season is now looking like a failure (such is the competitive nature of the NRL.

The second point is if this is a systematic failure of the NRL/officials going back decades....?

The recent comments by Blake Green have been echoed by other Australian players such as Steve Price, Kevin Campion and Brent Tate. All experienced footballers who have been dismayed by the officiating while playing for the Warriors, and are convinced that there is a bias in the overall decision making.

I agree that there is bias. What I don't think exists is an overt conspiracy but just the usual, unconcious, bias that all humans are susceptible to. It doesn't have to been massive, it's just that in such a close league these marginal decisions can have huge repercussions on a season.....still irritating though.....and I'm not sure how to combat it as it's a universal human failing. Perhaps a second NZ side would create a different perspective among refs?

[Allora]

2 hours ago, kier said:

There are two parts to the argument.

This season it is without doubt that the Warriors have suffered three losses that have been down to referee errors. In these three cases there have been official apologies from the NRL management and in many cases refs/touchies have been sanctioned for the errors.

The six competition points however, remain lost and what could/should have been a good season is now looking like a failure (such is the competitive nature of the NRL.

The second point is if this is a systematic failure of the NRL/officials going back decades....?

The recent comments by Blake Green have been echoed by other Australian players such as Steve Price, Kevin Campion and Brent Tate. All experienced footballers who have been dismayed by the officiating while playing for the Warriors, and are convinced that there is a bias in the overall decision making.

I agree that there is bias. What I don't think exists is an overt conspiracy but just the usual, unconcious, bias that all humans are susceptible to. It doesn't have to been massive, it's just that in such a close league these marginal decisions can have huge repercussions on a season.....still irritating though.....and I'm not sure how to combat it as it's a universal human failing. Perhaps a second NZ side would create a different perspective among refs?

Easy fix, get Henry Perenara to be one of the Refs that always officiate the Warriors games.

That will cut out some of the cries of Bias.

 

[kier]

As it happens Perenara is the ref most Warriors fans dislike the most.....it's as if he's so keen to be "neutral" he always decides against us....

[Balmain1969]

9 hours ago, Yorkshire Knight said:

I bet you think you’re smart after that one don’t you? Even a preschooler could identify the fallacy in that analogy.

Nonetheless let me explain it in a way you could understand. Consider a town that has 5 supermarkets but only 1 fast food joint. Due to competition, the 5 supermarkets will naturally share the customer base. Whereas the fast food restaurant faces no such competition therefore is able to get more customers than the individual supermarkets. 

But what if all 5 supermarkets share the same parent company and as a result, the number of customers for each supermarket is tallied together. 

Question (and don't rush into answering this, take your time)... who has more customers?

Ok, this is my last go at this and then I'm done.

Firstly, where I'm from Supermarkets and Fast Food restaurants don't generally compete for the same clientele so that was a bit of a confusing analogy. In any case lets look at the cause of all the confusion here.

The statement was made that the Warriors are the biggest club Rugby Team in NZ, which I think everyone here has agreed is true. The point you are trying to make is that RU is bigger than RL in NZ, again this is absolutely true but has nothing to do with the original statement.

Now to show how big an achievement this is by the Warriors, consider they are up against 1 other team in the same city and 4 others around the country in a place where RU is basically a religion, and don't forget they haven't exactly had a bucket load of success and they are bigger than each of the other 5 individually.

Compare them to the Melbourne Storm, possibly the most successful team over the last 20 years. They have 9 AFL clubs in the same city alone with Nth Melbourne having the lowest membership of 42,500, the Storm currently have 25,100 members.

So just to summarize:

Are the Warriors the biggest Club Rugby Team in NZ - YES

Is RU bigger than RL in NZ - Absolutely

Is it an amazing achievement by the Warriors to be the biggest Club Rugby Team in NZ - Definitely

[frank]

Well summed up there Balmain.

[Davo5]

11 hours ago, Yorkshire Knight said:

 

But what if all 5 supermarkets share the same parent company and as a result, the number of customers for each supermarket is tallied together. 

 

Wouldn’t happen the OFT would step in.

Question (and don't rush into answering this, take your time)... who has more customers?

KFC ??

[Yorkshire Knight]

1 hour ago, Balmain1969 said:

Ok, this is my last go at this and then I'm done.

Firstly, where I'm from Supermarkets and Fast Food restaurants don't generally compete for the same clientele so that was a bit of a confusing analogy. In any case lets look at the cause of all the confusion here.

The statement was made that the Warriors are the biggest club Rugby Team in NZ, which I think everyone here has agreed is true. The point you are trying to make is that RU is bigger than RL in NZ, again this is absolutely true but has nothing to do with the original statement.

Now to show how big an achievement this is by the Warriors, consider they are up against 1 other team in the same city and 4 others around the country in a place where RU is basically a religion, and don't forget they haven't exactly had a bucket load of success and they are bigger than each of the other 5 individually.

Compare them to the Melbourne Storm, possibly the most successful team over the last 20 years. They have 9 AFL clubs in the same city alone with Nth Melbourne having the lowest membership of 42,500, the Storm currently have 25,100 members.

So just to summarize:

Are the Warriors the biggest Club Rugby Team in NZ - YES

Is RU bigger than RL in NZ - Absolutely

Is it an amazing achievement by the Warriors to be the biggest Club Rugby Team in NZ - Definitely

Okay a lot to deconstruct here but I’ll do it nonetheless. 

The analogy is absolutely accurate. What makes you think the NZ Super Rugby teams and the Warriors are competing? Most of the time, fans are overlapping and it’s not a mutually exclusive decision to follow one or the other. Same goes from buying from the Supermarket and buying from the fast food restaurant. Of course you’ll get the group who exclusively follow one but they are not a huge factor here considering that it’s NZ which I’ll elaborate on. 

As someone who has been to NZ, I found that for the most part, code tribalism is not really as strong as what it is in Australia. Kiwis are a patriotic bunch therefore will support any teams representing the country or city regardless of the code.

This is a huge contrast to Australia where the code tribalism is much more prevalent and blatant. I’ve seen and read instances where Aussies actually hope that their own national teams in other codes don’t do well because “it’s good for our game”. It’s even apparent in the Aussie media. For instance, you’ll often have the Victoria media only covering the AFL while not giving the time of day to anyone else. And if they do cover other competing sports, it’s usually to highlight the negatives. Football in Australia knows this very well, always being on the receiving end of such propaganda by the AFL media. 

It’s no secret that code tribalism in Australia, to an extent, is drawn along state lines. You have the rugby league hotbeds of NSW and Queensland, and AFL dominance in Victoria, SA, WA etc. So taking into account the strong tribalistic aspect, it’s then no surprise to see that the Melbourne Storm are smaller than all the other AFL teams in Melbourne. 

Getting back to NZ, it is much easier for the less popular sports to gain public support. The NZ media plays its part as well by giving coverage to other sports. You even have a former Warriors player Monty Betham who watches the All Blacks. You had a former All Black like Carlos Spencer who was involved in the Auckland 9s. The Warriors recently adopted a breathing technique of the All Blacks. There was a picture of the current All Blacks captain wearing a Warriors jersey and who has attended training sessions at the Warriors. These are just some of the examples which proves my point. I’m yet to see anything remotely close to that in Australia. 

With that in mind it should become more apparent why, in the unique case of NZ, it’s inaccurate to compare one team representing the whole country to 5 teams who directly compete with each other.

Comparing the All Blacks and Warriors makes for a much more accurate comparison. 

 

[Dunbar]

Everybody else: "the New Zealand Warriors is the biggest rugby team in New Zealand "

Yorkshire Knight: "Yes, but when you add them together, the Union teams are bigger"

Everyone: "Yes, we know but that's not what we are saying, we are saying that the Warriors are the biggest individual team"

YK: "Yes, but when you add them together, the Union teams are bigger"

Everyone: "Yes, everyone is happy to concede this and that Union is the bigger sport but the original point was that the Warriors are individually the biggest rugby team in New Zealand"

YK: "Yes, but when you add them together, the Union teams are bigger"

and repeat.