Hi...

Surprised to see very little if any, discussion on the great State Of Origin Rugby League this week.

Usually there is a lot of banter before & after the games.

Has it now got to where the interstate matches were at before State of Origin, where Qld players were playing for NSW & they were thrashing Qld year after year & nobody watched the games.  Even the Imortal Roma raised Queenslander Artie Beetson played for NSW!!!   Rugby League was Sydney centric with those poker machine funded silvertails even promoting the cesation of 'pointless' interstate games.

After a childhood of enduring the humiliation of Qld teams, it is just sooo good to see the situation reversed. 

Super League changed the game for the better & forever, and the Broncos showed how a club & team aught to be operated in the modern game despite the opposition of the NSW ARL/NRL.

GO QUEENSLANDER ... 7 IN A ROW!!!!!!

ps. Maybe Gallon is really a Queenslander?  He's the only NSW player who consistently plays like one.

CUPIE WROTE.

Great game the other night, great game NRL. Just watch chanel 9's digital Chanel GEM 7.30pm Friday Night Footy, the best team of them all is giving the Broncos a lesson in NRL as we speak.

deb-gary wrote:

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artie"last name spelt Beetson and to start a debate REAL FOOTBALL is played in all countries of the world and uses a ball that is round.

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 Thanks for that.   I have edited my post.    Spelling was never my strong suite.

By the way if we want to be pedantic, "artie' is Artie with a capital I think.

yeah Tezza , I believe 'they' all have wrestling coaches .

but then I don't know why they would want wrestling coaches .

when I played Football - it was Men were Men & th Women let em prove it .

now it's all kissy kissy , huggy huggy . I call it th 'weekend mardi g rs'.

I believe 'they' call it 'bonding' , I'da thunk it was a team.

Oh , I watched th 1st 10min of 'state of oranges' . I have NOT watched any

football since.

Richo.

Go West Coast & Freo!  Yep I live in Qld, but am a West Aussie at heart.  Can't understand rugby at all, they just seem to want to kill each other.

Cheers!

Chris

The perennial argument and rivalry between the different ball games perhaps stems from the individuals' background and their understanding of the rules & skills of the various codes. Not to overlook the 'tribalism' aspects.

For my part, as a lad, soccer was considered a sissies game in the suburbs where I lived. Our culture was largely that of railway workers from the industrial English Midlands where Rugby League was the game. However in other suburbs of the same town where families of Welsh miners lived, soccer was the go.

We all thought that Rugby Union was the game of the private schools and we were from the working class families, all going to public schools, so no Rugby for us.

Our knowledge of Australian rules was minimal, and we thought that it was a glorified form of the 'forcing back' game that swarms of kids played in the school grounds at big lunch. It was commonly called aerial ping pong. In those days it seemed to us to be played only in far away Victoria.

None of us had ever watched a game or knew any of the rules or skills of either Soccer or Aussie rules.

Many at our school got involved with field hockey towards the end of our primary school days. This gave us a rudimentary understanding of soccer tactics, because of many similarities in the flow of the two codes.

Although I have some understanding of the game (soccer), I feel that for me, it has been let down by its failure to modernise to the degree that hockey has. e.g. Moving to synthetic surfaces- though not such an issue with soccer I think; but in particular by abolishing the off side rule; modifying the obstruction rules to give advantage to the striker, all leading to a faster, higher scoring and free flowing game that usually involves lots of scoring & finishes with a result not a scoreless draw.

I am also concerned at the smell of corruption, internal dis-unity and spectator violence that surrounds international soccer. But then with respect to corruption, I have the same view of the Olympic Games gravy train.

But you can't ignore the world wide popularity of soccer. It must have something and is the only code that can realisticaly claim to be the world game.

But then Aussie Rules attracts fantastic fanatical crowds in southern states while soccer frequently plays to almost empty stadiums in this country.

Although Aussie rules has broken out of Victoria into SA & WA and more recently into some of Qld & parts of NSW, it is really just an Australian game with nothing to compare with the Qld v NSW State of Origin or the international competition mainly between Australia, NZ & Great Britain/ England and France, plus a few emerging countries.

Rugby Union stole a march on RL when the RL code imploded during the super league era, and RU established first class international competitions.  They claim that RU is 'the game that's played in heaven'.  That's not an issue with me as I probably won't get there.

I can happily watch - almost any RL game especially if there is a Qld based team involved, international RU and any hockey game, but soccer and Aussie rules leave me cold. IMO watching soccer is like watching grass grow and Aussie Rules is still to me much like 'forcing back' or 'aerial ping pong'.  I have absolutely no concept of Aussie Rules tactics, rules or skills.

But then American football is another story .. I dislike it too.

Why all the debate on which is the better/tougher game of football?

I think that you will find that anyone who as played any code at a reasonable standard can appreciate the skills required to play any form of football at an elite level.

The debate will rage but you will never convert real supporters of any code to switch.

Appreciate it for what it is or don't watch.

Jack Mac wrote:

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Why all the debate on which is the better/tougher game of football?

I think that you will find that anyone who as played any code at a reasonable standard can appreciate the skills required to play any form of football at an elite level.

The debate will rage but you will never convert real supporters of any code to switch.

Appreciate it for what it is or don't watch.

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 I'm with you Jack ....  G

Jack Mac wrote:

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Why all the debate on which is the better/tougher game of football?

I think that you will find that anyone who as played any code at a reasonable standard can appreciate the skills required to play any form of football at an elite level.

The debate will rage but you will never convert real supporters of any code to switch.

Appreciate it for what it is or don't watch.

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 Ditto.  I respect and appreciate the athletisism and skills of most sports, especially these codes of "football".

My sport was Netball, playing, umpiring and administration.  Most burly, fit, athletic footballers are buggered after the first 15 mins of this sport.

However, each sport requires skills and fitness only the dedicated die hards can achieve.

I do get a bit miffed at the professionalism of sport these days.  The big dollars paid to young, inexperienced athletes at the peak of their careers at about 22 years of age.  Too much money and not enough brains to manage it.

The clubs provide financial counselling and investment and management advice, but it's no good if they don't take any notice of the advice.

Then it stops being sport.

Normally I fall asleep watching soccer waiting for someone to score.  I wake up after the end of the game only to find the score is STILL  nil all....No wonder it has the most violent spectators of any sport in the world, they must get sooo frustrated waiting for their team to score, or for that matter, ANY team to score.

Cheers

Jon

 I haven't had a good footy discussion for ages