Quote:
Originally Posted by undercoverbrother
It is on life support 'cuz it is propped up by owners and not driven by fans/new players. FYI, it is still popular in pockets of the UK, mostly the north, the birth place of the game. It has no useful international game to speak of and is seeing players leave to go play union. The only games that draw any real attention of Orgin games.
You need to watch more rugby. There are lots of example's of counter rucking in this years 6N, Super rugby, Pemiership, Rabo Direct (stupid name for a league). Also, the very fact the game has the ability to punish those that have poor technicque is a postive. The games from this past weekend had plenty examples of counter rucking, ripping the ball in the tackle, and other techniques used to game possession.
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I watch plenty of rugby, likely more than most as we get tons of games from a variety of league on my cable package. I see very little of the type of action you posted above, I see plenty of grinding, which I definitely enjoy, but it's very different than the speed game of League. I like both, but if I'm not invested in an outcome I prefer the speed of league most of the time.
As for your first paragraph, I'm not sure what your basis is. It's propped up by owners and not driven by fans? The only games that draw attention are origin? The average attendance per round in the 2012 NRL season was around 15,000, not all that far off from what we see in the NHL. The Final drew 82,000. This for a sport played largely in one area of a small country in the middle of nowhere.
There has never been an international component, although oddly enough there's actually more of one now than there has been in the past.
Players have routinely left to play Union, then returned to League, then gone back to Union. It's not a new development, it's something that has occurred in Australia for a long time.
It's never going to be a global game the way Union is, but to say it's on life support is a massive overstatement.