Rugby League: 1998 - good and bad

By Peter Jessup

For the past four years, rugby league has been courting disaster.

There have been sacked, sorry and sadly lacking administrators, Super League, spurious competitions like the World Challenge Cup and the Rest of the World versus Australia.

Four years ago kids were wearing Winfield Cup jerseys, television coverage was at an all-time high, crowds who were not predominantly traditional league fans flocked to Ericsson Stadium to see the Warriors.

But were it not for the fantastic performances from the Kiwis, 1998 would have been a year to forget.

Drugs scandals at Newcastle took the gloss off their grand final triumph of the year before, and tainted the otherwise positive entry of the Melbourne Storm.

Adelaide and Gold Coast were wound up, and their demise after Hunter, Perth and South Queensland put the expansion experiment into reverse.

The Warriors beat the best and were thrashed by the rest, with dismal losses to Souths, Gold Coast and Adelaide during the finals run-up being the pits of their performances.

And there was sniping all round in the sale-and-purchase process. The game cannot afford to carry on like this - the fans are sick and tired of watching it pulling itself apart.

Fortunately, there are positive aspects aplenty - locally, nationally and internationally.

The Auckland competition, which has struggled as the Warriors waned, will enjoy a cash injection when the sale of the club is completed, with the cheques to be signed once the National Rugby League grants the club a franchise licence, expected in February.

The Auckland Rugby League, whose board meetings have invariably been tied up with Warriors' business, can go back to running competitions from schoolboys to Super 10.

Mark Graham brings experience and mana to the Warriors which only he carries in New Zealand league. The players respect him, they say they are learning from him, and there is a disciplined, focused feel about the place.

Unlike former coach Frank Endacott, Graham will not have to worry - this year, anyway - about the club being sold or losing his job.

The players are all contracted through the season, many through to 2000, so barring injury the side should enjoy stability.

Matthew Ridge has had time to recover from the stomach, groin and shoulder injuries that dogged him last year. Lee Oudenryn (leg splints) and Syd Eru (fore-arm) have had off-season surgery to correct niggling problems.

At national level, the Kiwis will go into the new tri-nations series against Australia and Great Britain full of confidence, with a young and developing team already familiar with each other's play.

Jarrod McCracken, at 28, is a veteran and you would not want to tell him he could not go on for another four years. The Paul brothers, Stacey Jones, Richie Barnett and Gene Ngamu are in their mid-20s.

Nathan Cayless, Tony Puleatua, Lesley Vainikolo and Ali Lauitiiti are around 20. There is plenty of gas there and plenty of will to win.

Quentin Pongia, home to collect the New Zealand Rugby League's award for player of the year, expressed much interest in the expansion into South Africa and said it was an exciting time for the game and the players and would give them and their South African counterparts more opportunities.

And Endacott seems assured of another two years as national coach through to the World Cup. He has a great rapport with the side and the challengers have a way to go to prove they are better.

Junior Kiwi coach Gary Kemble and Graeme Norton need more top-grade and international exposure, Mark Graham is unproven in the top job at an NRL club and that is even more true of Canterbury outsider Gerard Stokes, and Mike McClennan, returning after a break of some years.

The NZRL is smartening up its act, with a new constitution due in March being a big step. A business plan released after the last board meeting of the year admits that "politics and gamesmanship have been for far too long the hallmark of our administration.

"It could be that in the future the board will appoint a number of successful business and sports people [say four] to run the game on a fixed term contract.
This would remove the committee-style management we have had in the past."

On the drawing board are a better marketing scheme, appointment of a coaching development officer (maybe Frank Endacott?), more tests against France and Papua New Guinea, more internationals for schoolboys, under-18s and the Junior Kiwis.