Good of the game? You're kidding me
Published Date:
11 October 2007
AUSTRALIANS do make me laugh sometimes.
Castleford's Terry Matterson may have been giddy with the excitement of his side's razzle-dazzle success over Widnes in Sunday's National League One Grand Final, but his post-match pronouncements on franchises betrayed a deep-seated ignorance of the English game.
The former Brisbane and London loose forward, who has done a marvellous job with the Tigers this season, thanked "the Lord" that promotion and relegation is being phased out because "it has been hurting the game over here for a long time".
Well, aside from the fact that franchises, licences, whatever you want to call them, have yet to be accepted by the clubs, I would take issue with Matterson's definition of 'the game'.
Great Britain is not 'the game'.
Castleford and the other 11 clubs that will compete in Super League next season are not 'the game'.
'The game' has as much to do with clubs like Batley, Halifax, Featherstone and Oldham as it does the fat cats at the top of the sport.
And anyone who thinks that taking away the carrot of promotion is going to be good for them is clearly of unsound mind. Or Australian.
I would rather never see a Great Britain series victory over Australia than see Fax, Whitehaven, Widnes, Leigh and the rest denied the chance to compete for a place in the top flight on an annual basis.
Or does Matterson think that having a second-rate National League competition playing for peanuts in front of a few thousand supporters each weekend is 'good for the game'?
I have said it before and, without wishing to repeat myself, I will say it again: the challenge for the game's rulers is to find a way of making promotion and relegation work, not trying to scrap it altogether.
Build up National League One and Two, narrow the gap between all three divisions, but don't be fooled into pulling up the drawbridge so the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
One last thing: quite what "the Lord" has to do with rugby league administration is unclear.
Unless, of course, Matterson was refering to RFL chairman Richard Lewis, the home counties tennis ace who drew up this ludicrous blueprint in the first place...
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STUART Fielden's omission from the Great Britain squad may not be good news for Halifax's finest, but it is an indicator of the relative health of our game at the moment.
Fielden hasn't enjoyed the best of fortune since his world-record transfer to Wigan last year, with injury and the loss of his mother last autumn casting long shadows over his form.
It is a far cry from two years ago, when his performance against Wests Tigers in the World Club Challenge - when he almost single-handedly destroyed the NRL winners' pack at Huddersfield - underlined his status as the best front rower in the game.
Reputations seem to count for encouragingly little with new Lions boss Tony Smith though, who has had the conviction to leave out a player who would have a been a walk-up start under previous regimes.
Fielden must now take a deserved autumn off, by my reckoning his first decent break for five or six seasons, and come back stronger in 2008.
Given that form is temporary but class is permanent, you would be foolish to bet against him doing just that.
The full article contains 572 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
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Last Updated:
11 October 2007 3:40 PM
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Source:
n/a
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Location:
Halifax