BY JOHN DAVIDSON
Well, we know where we’re goin’
But we don’t know where we’ve been
And we know what we’re knowin’
But we can’t say what we’ve seen
I’ve ummed and ahhed for quite a while about doing this piece. I’ve thought about it often, and put it off.
Partly as some will write it off as just an angry rant in the best Howard Beale Network-mode. Others may pidgeonhole it as too negative, or pessimistic. But the truth, honesty and speaking from the heart, should not be ignored.
Probably Nigel Wood getting an OBE is the final nail in the coffin, maybe not. There’s literally tonnes of examples of the fact that English rugby league is on a road to nowhere. That the sport in the UK is, pardon the music puns, in dire straits and need of drastic help.
There’s a malaise, a dsyfunction across the English game that is far-reaching and perhaps unstoppable. It’s entrenched, it’s widespread and if anything, it’s growing. So many people involved in the sport in the UK are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Many refuse to even acknowledge that we have a problem at all.
So, for starters:
Only in rugby league would someone like Wood, with at best dubious and controversial reign at the top of the sport, be awarded an OBE.
Only in rugby league would a match be allowed at Odsal when the pitch doesn’t even meet the necessary minimum requirements. What a farce.
Only in rugby league would someone like Anthony Gelling be allowed to continue to play while admitting he punched his partner in the face. Not only allowed to play while in court, but handed the man of the match award on the day he was in court to boot.
Yes he got off the charge, but it remains that he admitted assaulting a woman. The fact he was not stood down in this instance, until at least the court case was resolved, is disgraceful.
Only in rugby league would the RFL make a major decision on academies and not put the CEO of the sport up for wider media questioning. The same CEO who has barely done an interview with anyone in the past six months, despite massive issues in the sport.
Either the RFL got the controversial academy decision right, or it got it wrong, but either way to cave in after a backlash shows what little fortitude or backbone the governing body has. The communication of the reasons for the decision was dire. More accountability, better communication and transparency is needed, as ever.
Only in rugby league would we still be waiting for a punishment and decision on Featherstone for breaching Covid rules and partying in their own stadium bar during lockdown, despite the incident happening months and months ago.
Only in rugby league would be still be watiting for a punishment and/or a decision on London refusing to travel to Toulouse over Covid concerns, despite that also happening months ago.
Only in rugby league would we have Super League clubs acting like they are Premier League teams and unreasonably controlling the media and limiting journalists’ access. These clubs think they are global brands that millions follow and care about worldwide – they’re not.
They need to realise they are small fry in the national scale of English sport, they are niche in an ever-decreasing pond. They need to realise they actually need every sliver of media coverage they can get, anything remotely of any interest, and then some. Be open, not closed off.
Examples of this include clubs with a press room the size of a cupboard, that demonstrates their disdain for media. Another who won’t let its players be interviewed after games, and another who’s head coach decides which players can and can’t be interviewed each week. There’s also who’s head coach stops off to have a pint with his mates after a game, leaving journalists waiting hours for the post-match press conference, and another club so anal that most of its squad is off limits and it screens every interview in a paranoid manner to limit any remotely newsworthy topics.
This is Super League, not North Korea, but you wouldn’t know it.
Only in rugby league would we have a streaming service where one of the main commetators departed the BBC after eight women accused him of sexual assault, and the other commentator who drunkenly abused several members of the RFL in a video that has done the rounds on social media.
Would they be employed as commentators in other sports?
Only in rugby league would we have journalists claiming to be independent and impartial despite being paid regularly by the RFL.
Only in rugby league would we have a situation where concussion is a major global health issue, being addressed by other codes, but we do nothing and put our heads in the sport.
Only in rugby league would we have regular poor refereeing performances, ones that have major consequences, but yet nothing is done about the referees department, nor ever improved. Again, nothing to see here.
Only in rugby league would we let owners run riot, operate with impunity and do and say what they want despite bringing the sport into disrepute.
Only in rugby league would we let certain individuals own or finance more than own club at the same time, or own one club while running another. The conflicts of interest are enormous.
Only in rugby league would we have a worryingly reduced TV deal, one that could prove almost fatal for the future, but virtually nothing is said or written about it in the media. No analysis, no reporting, just plain sailing.
Only in rugby league would we have farcical post-match press conferences on Zoom dominated by journalists sitting at home who have not actually bothered to turn up to games.
I could go on and on and on, but by now you clearly get the point.
More examples of his atrophy can be found across UK rugby league, not just at the RFL and in clubs but in the media and other sections of the sport too. We have directors of rugby too high and mighty at some clusb to respond to calls or texts, we have coaches seemingly too important to be interviewed.
We have leaders and administrators unanswerable and unaccountable to anyone they don’t deem worthy.
Where has all this got us? As Talking Heads once sang, on a Road to Nowhere.
Step outside the rugby league bubble in England for a minute, I implore you, and the sport barely exists. It is tiny. It is living off past glories, off a previous profile.
Participation is decreasing, apathy is growing and money is leaving the game at an alarming rate. The gap between the NRL and the British game is growing year on year, as the last World Cup showed us. This year’s World Cup, if it goes ahead, could be a bloodbath for the northern hemisphere sides.
Meanwhile, we don’t have the people in power capable of turning things around, nor a robust enough media to hold them to account.
But still delusion and fantasy lingers. Still nothing changes.
A reality check is coming, for many, and when it does finally arrived it’s going to be brutal.
We’re on a road to nowhere
Come on inside
Takin’ that ride to nowhere
We’ll take that ride
