IT WAS good to see the Magic Weekend back in Newcastle, which in my view should become its permanent home.
And it was good to see the record Sunday afternoon crowd of 32,862, although that didn’t lead to a record crowd for both days overall. The crowd that the Magic Weekend seems able to attract at Newcastle seems stubbornly stuck in the low 60 thousands and there is little sign that the attendance will climb much beyond that figure.
And yet the games for the most part were tremendous contests, other than the one-sided game between Hull KR and Salford.
There were some great individual incidents, many of them performed by younger players, such as Guillermo Aispuro-Bichet’s brilliant try for the Catalans against Leigh on Saturday, or George Flanagan’s brilliant try-saving tackle of Cade Cust on the line for the Giants against Hull FC, the superb offload by Davy Litten for Lewis Martin’s try in the same game.
There was also the brilliant finishing for a debut try by Noah Booth for Hull KR, or the superb field-goal by Jack Sinfield that put Leeds two scores ahead of St Helens on Saturday evening.
The Magic Weekend is a great showcase for some of the young talent in our competition, although the other side of the coin is that plenty of club representatives from the NRL will have been in attendance and will no doubt have an eye on some of those young stars.
The one negative was the abusive reception some St Helens supporters gave their players and coach after their defeat by Leeds Rhinos.
So bad was the abuse, apparently, that Jack Welsby refused to go to the St Helens fans after the game to acknowledge their support, having heard abusive comments when standing behind the posts waiting for a Leeds conversion.
Welsby was strongly supportive of his coach and yet Saints are now clinging to a top-six place by their fingernails with five wins from ten matches.
They now have a chance to regroup, without a Challenge Cup semi-final game this weekend, but there has to be a nagging thought that the St Helens directors could take drastic action to replace their coach, although it’s hard to say who would be an obvious replacement.
And I had great sympathy for the Saints coach when his winger Lewis Murphy was sinbinned for leaping to catch a high kick and accidentally colliding with the head of the Rhinos’ Alfie Edgell.
I don’t think anyone could describe Murphy’s leap as reckless. He was clearly trying to catch the ball and the contact with Edgell’s head was clearly accidental. But on a scale of dangerous actions, it couldn’t even be described as careless, in my view.
While I’m totally supportive of a desire to eliminate careless play that leads to contact with the head, at some point we surely have to accept that in a collision sport accidents will happen, with no blame being attached to the player making contact.
No go for the Roosters
Sydney Roosters’ owner Nick Politis is clearly a wealthy and very successful club owner.
But his idea of buying Salford Red Devils and rebranding them as Manchester Roosters is clearly unrealistic.
It would be like someone from this country announcing he was going to buy the Sydney Roosters and rename them the Sydney Red Devils.
Such an aim would be greeted with derision from the Roosters fans and the same is true of the Red Devils supporters.
Having said that, if an Australian club owner were to be in the market to buy Salford, or London Broncos, for example, I’m sure most supporters would welcome such a move with open arms.
But before making a move for an English club, it would be sensible for any Australian to educate himself about the history and culture underlying our game.
Can we follow the AFL’s example?
I was quite taken at the weekend by an article in the Sydney Telegraph written by their sports editor Phil ‘Buzz’ Rothfield, who was comparing the support the AFL, which is the body that runs Aussie Rules football, gives to its outpost clubs compared to what the NRL does.
And Rothfield observed that in the NRL the existing clubs have far too much influence on decision making, which then inevitably ensures that decisions about the future of the game will be skewed in favour of the existing clubs.
“NRL clubs are often caught up in their own self interests,” wrote Rothfield.
“They worry only about themselves, rather than take a whole-of-game position on any decisions that are made around the future of the sport.
“’What’s in it for us’,” is the most common phrase whenever expansion is spoken about.
“It’s one area where the AFL plays Rugby League off the park.
“I’m going to use the (AFL’s) Gold Coast Suns as an example.
“The AFL has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the club since its inception in 2011.
“Finally it’s paying off. They now have a competitive footy team and their crowds are up 24.6 per cent.
“Last year they were given a $34 million grant from the AFL.
“The more powerful clubs like Hawthorn, the West Coast Eagles and Richmond received between $16 million and $18 million. And no-one complained.
“The clubs are happy for the Suns and (Sydney based) GWS to get almost double their money because it’s a long-term big-picture investment in key growth areas that will make the game bigger and better in the long run.
“Now compare that to the (Gold Coast) Titans. They get $17 million from the NRL annually, the same as all the clubs.
“They have to put up with their richer rivals setting up junior academies and school development programs in their own backyard. Just catch and kill your own. The Warriors, Roosters, Rabbitohs and Melbourne all have a footprint on the Gold Coast.
“The same is happening to the Storm in Victoria.
“It’s taken them more than 25 years to build solid junior development foundations in an AFL city – with little or no outside help from the NRL.
“Finally they have local players coming through … so the Rabbitohs decide to set up their own academy south of the border to pinch them.
“This Titans club is now fighting hard to fend off an AFL surge on the glitter strip.
“The question is … would it be better if the NRL handed out the annual cash grant on a user-needs basis like the AFL does.”
Of course it would, and exactly the same argument could be applied in this country.
Surely the money that is available from the centre could be targeted towards the clubs that actually need it.
That might include London Broncos, it might also include Newcastle Thunder, Midlands Hurricanes and any other clubs that might be regarded as expanding Rugby League’s footprint in this country.
But unfortunately the RFL has no power to direct financial support to where it is actually needed.
League Express Podcast
Those readers who tune in to the League Express Podcast each week will know that the presenter, my Australian colleague Jake Kearnan, has now returned to his home country.
Jake has been a great host for almost two years and we will continue the Podcast, hopefully from this week, even though we will be 12,000 miles apart.
And on the subject of Podcasts, I will feature on the Everything Rugby League Podcast this week, which will go online on Tuesday.
