The Rant: Isn’t this 13 v 13?
By Warren Smith
Thursday, June 28, 2007 at 12:51pm
LET’S cut to the chase - North Queensland has won the lottery after being hit with a fine and not the loss of two competition points for its 14th man breach against Canberra.
The Cowboys administration should be in the queue at the nearest Townsville newsagent buying as many Golden Casket tickets as they can get their hands on, while the administration of the NRL should be hiring an explosives expert to defuse one of several ticking time-bombs it has on its hands.
The reasoning for North Queensland being hit with a fine as opposed to the loss of two points was made known in the NRL media release that stated: “The Cowboys are fortunate that several factors mitigated the breach, including being in possession of the ball at the time and that the players in question were at no stage involved in the play.â€
Somebody is going to have to explain to me how there is any difference between having 14 players on the field while you’re in attack as opposed to having 14 out there while you’re defending.
Is the statement intimating that players have to be within one or two passes of the ball to actually be “involved†in the play?
We know that the ball can travel from sideline to sideline and back again in the space of one play, so how is anybody on the field for the attacking team not involved in the play?
The defensive team all have the task of numbering up on their opponents, and they hardly stop worrying about the man they’re marking just because he isn’t in the vicinity of the play the ball, do they?
Cowboys winger Brenton Bowen was a long way from the ball but he certainly considered himself to be involved in the play. Why else would he step off the field when he realised his team had 14 on the park at the same time?
The whole situation smacks of a line of thinking that will continue to get the NRL into situations it could avoid and that rationale is “close enough is good enoughâ€.
It was there in evidence again on Monday night, when the official game clock at Suncorp Stadium was left running after time-out had been called by the referee, with the game running short by who knows how far as a result.
The 16 clubs in the NRL will spend something like $200 million between them to compete in 2007, and we can’t get the clocks right.
You’d laugh yourself silly if it wasn’t so serious.
From:
http://blogs.foxsports.com.au/league/index.php/foxsports/comments/the_rant_isnt_this_13_v_13/
