Fair To Say

In the wake of Queensland’s hat-trick of rugby league State of Origin wins, the media consensus seems to be that Origin is in good health. While you’d expect the Daily Telegraph to run the corporate line as part of its role as News’s propaganda arm, and Fairfax usually plays the parochial tune for the Sydney faithful as well, the normally independently scathing Crikey ran a puff piece from Jeff Wall stating “Origin again showed itself to be the pinnacle of rugby league in every repsect” [sic].

Rugby league officialdom must surely be counting the days until the 2009 State of Origin series, with last night’s 2008 decider confirming Origin’s premier place in the rugby league calendar in the areas where it really counts — ratings, crowds, and saturation media coverage.

What’s that, crowds? But wasn’t there a big kerfuffle pre-game about how ANZ Stadium wasn’t sold out for the decider, in what should be the most anticipated, watched, talked about and attended game of rugby league for the year in the entire world? This after a previous head-hanging about only 67,620 turning up to Origin 1 at the same venue, which hosts 83,500 at full capacity. Ah yes, here’s the Telly story about it: Unsold tickets an Origin insult. 76,000 of those 83,500 tickets had been sold on the morning of the match, and the published attendance was 78,751. Steve Mortimer told the Sydney football-going public that he and the players would feel insulted and embarrassed if a full house didn’t turn up.

What did the fans have to say about it? Over 250 comments by Telly readers in the reply section for that story, giving a huge laundry list of complaints. To save you the trouble of reading that long, long catalogue of whinges and criticisms, let me itemise them for you in order of popularity, with my own comments informed by having lived in Sydney for five years.

Tickets too expensive (70)
Time and time again the minimum price of $45 for an adult and $125 for a family comes up. By contrast, the AFL Hall of Fame Tribute match started at $25 for an adult, with $5 chopped off that for club members, and $59.60/$43.60 for families - admittedly for a lesser game, but numbers are numbers.

ANZ Stadium poorly designed/soulless (51)
Roy and HG call it the “Grand Old Girl” in jest, and the public isn’t laughing because they hate the place. The mood among the public is that the stadium has been foisted upon them by the Olympics and they’re going to have to pay for it for decades. I think this is overstated slightly because it doesn’t stop them turning up in droves when the occasion is right, nevertheless.

Better off watching live on TV at home/pub/mate’s (41)
This resonates very strongly with me. Sydneyites love their houses, love doing up their houses, and become devoted to their home theatre systems. Many homes in the broader Sydney area would have Origin parties, or at the least dinners and drinks. With no threat of the NRL preventing Channel Nine from showing the game live against the gate, as would usually happen with politically independent AFL, it makes sense to make use of your own home to enjoy the match. Plus league is made for TV anyway, it may be a cliche but that doesn’t make it any less true.

Food/drinks too expensive/bad/annoying (39)
Most of this argument could be made about any large sporting event in Australia, or indeed around the world. ANZ Stadium management last year bought out their catering provider to bring it in-house, which evidently hasn’t improved the product or its pricing compared to the Spotlesses of this world. Apparently they haven’t gone upmarket with “food courts” like Telstra Dome has either.

Cheap seats offer poor view (31)
The view isn’t that great from the back row at the MCG either, though of course Australian football, league and soccer are games best watched with the entire ground in view so being further away doesn’t hurt as much as with league. Comparisons with Suncorp, a smaller boutique stadium specifically developed for square pitches, also make Homebush look bad.

Soaring cost of living (26)
Petrol is only one problem. Interest rates, rent and putting food on the table also get plenty of mentions from the fans, proving that disposable income dries up fast when the economy is heading towards recession.

NRL lost its soul/way (24)
There are a lot of aspects to this complaint. Some of the vitriol is directed at David Gallop, though he about as hated as Andrew Demetriou and it could be argued that it’s good for there to be a little discontent with the boss of the league because that means he’s knocking club heads together for the overall good of the competition. (Which Gallop is not really doing beyond blowing some wind, to be truthful.) Many fans also identify with the Reg Regan faction, the bogan underbelly of the game who are dismayed at the cleaning up of the game from its more violent roots. Again, a complaint common to most football codes, especially in Australia. There is also an element of reaction against the commercialism of the game, though nowhere near as vocal as during the Super League wars.

Transport not easy/cheap enough (19)
Public transport is an ongoing problem in Australia, with deep-seated issues about cost-effectiveness, the influence of the car lobby in diverting funding to roads, and the lack of investment in upgrading old train technology… not to mention the seemingly interminable new ticket schemes that always seem to be five years away from implementation. League fans complain mostly about the parking at the moment, but as time goes on I think more will be forced to use the trains and buses, so this problem will only get worse.

Fans prefer soccer/AFL/union now (18)
Hard to argue with the numbers: 71,000 turned up to the same venue to watch the Socceroos in a meaningless dead rubber in World Cup qualifying against China with most of the stars rested, and the Origin decider can only pull 8,000 more. It’s going to be interesting to see how the Swans v Magpies AFL game goes this weekend - 64,222 for the corresponding fixture last year and an all-time high of 72,393 in 2003.

Sydney not the sporting capital (15)
Have to agree with the fans here, Mortimer’s off his rocker. I don’t care if most incoming planes land at Sydney, that’s a matter of geography. Melbourne’s in the top five sporting cities in the world, Sydney’s barely in the top hundred.

NSW selectors pick wrong players (13)
There is a big fan backlash against Bob Fulton and the NSW selection committee for their history of dud picks, Braith Anasta being just the latest in a string of decisions based more on reputation and league politics than talent and performances. Also in the gun is Phil Gould who, while not directly involved at this stage, uses his various media commitments to campaign for particular favourites of his… including the cursed Anasta, who threw away Origin 3 in the last minute to cap off a horrible night of awful kicking and dithering decision making. Willie Mason has also come under a lot of criticism, but it seems his close ties to the Telegraph and the Eastern Suburbs league mafia make him indispensable from a marketing if not an onfield perspective.

Sydneyites just not passionate enough (13)
One of the excuses that Sydneysiders kept throwing at me when I lived there for the discrepancy in attendance numbers between Sydney and the rest of Australia - note that this is not just a Melbourne-Sydney thing, other Australian cities have very high attendance levels compared to Sydney’s population - was that Sydney was such a vibrant city with so many more entertainment outlets that people just had too many options, and thus sport had to share time and headspace with many other recreational pursuits. To be blunt, that’s a load of crap. Queensland has better beaches. Melbourne has better cafes. Perth has better women. Adelaide… well, they might have a point there. The fact of the matter is that Sydney people just don’t care as much about sport. They’re happy to go along when someone wearing two blues (or red and white) is winning, but sorry to say they’re a bunch of bandwagon hoppers. It’s un-Australian in my opinion, but there it is.

Mortimer should STFU because he and his mates don’t pay (11)
Mortimer is an Origin legend but he deserves this criticism, although perhaps not as much as others in the media who get free rides without contributing as much to the game in return.

Too much money/hype in the game (10)
Willie Mason should shut up too, to be honest. Getting on his high horse in the Telegraph, of all places, to say that rugby league players are underpaid is the height of hypocrisy. You can bet he’ll be off to the south of France to get his euros for free in the Elite Two Championship when he stops getting picked for Origin… next year, perhaps?

Midweek night games harder to get to (10)
One of those things that Gallop has his hands tied on by Nine, unfortunately.

NSW keeps losing (9)
Fairweather barrackers those New South Welshpeople, fair dinkum. I suppose it’s a bit harsh to criticise when the Blues have just come off a record thrashing, but Origin 3 turned out to be close throughout.

Cold weather (9)
Did I just say fairweather barrackers? Now this surprises me. I thought the southern states were supposed to be freezing tundra and Sydney was balmy all year round? These Sydneyites don’t know real cold until they’ve stood at Torquay Oval in a roaring gale with the wind straight from Antarctica fair up your khyber and sleet from the Southern Ocean slicing into your cheeks. But I digress.

Origin concept is dated, should be less games (8)
This is one that I expected to hear a lot more of. Three games per year may be one or two too many, it’s pure marketing science that you can overexpose a good product. One-day cricket is a fine example, I don’t know of too many people who can reel off the last five winners of the VB Series and Origin football may need a little bit of a hiatus, or at least a scaling down. Fans who complain about the deleterious effects of rep football on club performances are a good sign for the NRL, but perhaps the fact that the Melbourne press didn’t say boo to the fact that the Storm have disgracefully been denied top spot on the ladder through two of their five losses being from most of their team being on Origin duty tells Gallop something about the health of the code.

Rugby league is thuggish (6)
I thought that was what the fans liked about the game?

Origin is rigged (6)
Pretty hard to make that one stick. There is the occasional “show business result” in game 2 to ensure a live rubber in game 3, but the best team generally wins the series.

Minority of yobbo fans (6)
Minority!? Okay, that’s a cheap shot. Another generic criticism you could make about any major sport. You don’t hear much about drunken yobbo behaviour and arrests in the press much from Origin games, perhaps because everyone’s usually on the same side.

Beer cut off after half time (5)
I am surprised this is not more prominent. Perhaps it’s why the above complaint is also not more of a problem.

Origin eligibility too loose (4)
This is a perennial problem with Origin formats. Whereas in league you have to figure out where Tongan and Papua New Guinean players fit in, for AFL you have to decide who Irish and Korean players get to play for. Not a huge issue though.

Corporate freebies get best spots (3)
True of most big sports.

Players’ off-field antics (3)
Hasn’t been too bad this year apart from the odd shooting. Haha, the odd shooting! That’s a little gag for all of you who have lasted this long.

Poor pre-match entertainment (1)
What? I liked the humungous drums!