Don’t mind the credibility gap

Many of rugby league’s innovations are in order to win support from new fans and gain the attention of the media, generally trying to bridge that credibility gap from which other sports don’t suffer. That’s why expansion is pursued with such relentless zeal, that’s the reason for all the nicknames, fuzzy mascots and general razamataz of Super League and that’s why, as I discussed in my last article, rugby league wants to have its international competition but goes through bizarre contortions to ensure bad teams seldom have to play against good teams.

We want the approval of those who criticise us so badly that you often get the impression rugby league is jumping up and down, crying out to the media and the population in general that we’re a real sport and you can take us seriously. It’s ironic then that these efforts often fail, spectacularly.

One of my friends at university has an avowed dislike of either code of rugby, but is a big fan of soccer (he’ll hate me for calling it that) and an Everton season-ticket holder.  He described to me how ridiculous it was that there is no promotion to Super League and that the title is decided via a play-off system. To his mind the whole regular Super League season from the end of January to mid-September is pointless: the team at the top wins nothing and the teams at the bottom don’t suffer anything.

Even though I can appreciate his point about the play-offs, no-one can deny they’ve been a success for rugby league, with crowds of 60-70,000 packed into Old Trafford to witness the end of the season. The removal of promotion and relegation, however, remains a joke; I’d love to know why the Crusaders deserve more than Barrow to be in Super League this season. Yet the adoption of the franchise system and the inclusion of Celtic Crusaders a mere three years into their existence were in order to present rugby league as a sport with national credentials; instead we looked a sport with national pretensions. We shouldn’t have done this just because non-rugby league fans may have been impressed; on the other hand, we shouldn’t be doing away with the play-offs just because non-rugby league fans might find them silly. 

The search for greater credibility always seems to reduce credibility. Perhaps this is because deficiencies tend to be highlighted rather than removed: rugby league’s attempts at international competition highlight our lack of international competition; having a team in London highlights that there is little support in London. Although, that given you’ll never hear the league-bashers or expansion-haters mentioning the 2,000 children and 1,600 adults playing league in the capital, that’s for sure.

That thousands of people are playing and enjoying rugby league in London is fantastic. When we attempt expansion badly, such as Celtic Crusaders last year and the likes of Paris Saint Germain in times past, it doesn’t impress the rugby league haters, while serving only to weaken our game. On the other hand, when expansion is done sensibly, like the RL Conference, it serves to strengthen our game … even though the rugby league haters will still point and laugh, because that’s what they do.

That’s the thing: whatever we do there are some people who just won’t take rugby league seriously. Take Stephen Jones, the tiresome little creep, and his recent mockery of the World Club Challenge. John Drake in the Rugby League World argued that if the WCC could not be expanded or improved we should question the point of it. Why? Knowing that an expanded WCC is highly unfeasible, and that moving it to the end of the season is undesirable, why not let it continue in its current form? Jones won’t be impressed if we expand it, nor will it bother him if we do away with it.

None of this is to suggest that we shouldn’t be trying to gain new supporters or persuade people that ours is a sport worth watching, but we obsess over doing so to such a degree that we often hurt ourselves in the process. We shouldn’t be doing things just to bridge the credibility gap: we should do them because they’re good for the game. Whether you think they’re good for the game or not is a matter of opinion, but the good of the game is about more than what non-rugby league fans think of us. 

Keep Your Eye on Rugby League