The great football commentator Martin Tyler, almost out of nowhere, is responsible for one of the most harrowing moments of my life. He seems a lovely gentleman and all, and yet it doesn’t matter how many decades of broadcasting excellence he has behind him, there are a few words that can still wake me in the dead of night with a cold sweat.
Agueroooooo. I swear you’ll never see anything like this ever again. So watch it, drink it in.
If only I could spit it out.
Of all the “where were you?” moments in sporting history, I’ll tell you where I was when the little Manchester City striker scored the goal in the too-long stoppage time which sealed the English Premier League title in 2012: sitting in my lounge room in the middle of the morning with a dressing gown on, punching the lounge in disgust.
Only minutes earlier, Manchester United were wandering around Sunderland’s Stadium Of Light to the rapturous applause of their fans. They’d won their final game of the season thanks to a Wayne Rooney goal. Hearing bitter rivals City were trailing, and then level with Queens Park Rangers in added time, meant the title was almost in their keeping.
Almost instantly, word filtered through of City’s last goal and the United players, and time, stood still. Sir Alex Ferguson’s cheeks looked a little redder than usual, desperately looking around for confirmation of his worst fears from back in Manchester. The ripple through the crowd told him all he needed to know.
Sport doesn’t get as dramatic as that final day of that Premier League season, a league which insists every match in the final round of the season is played with a 3pm kick-off on Sunday. Producers tell camera operators to find the most pensive fans in the stadiums, preferably with a wireless in their ear to catch updates from other games around the country, and it’s television nirvana.
Grown men cry when their team wins the title on the final day. Grown men cry when their team is relegated on the final day.
Drama. And it’s time the NRL followed suit.
In a competition brimming with inequity – how are you ever going to get a balanced draw with 16 teams playing 24 games each season? – there’s one concept Peter V’landys and Andrew Abdo should be exploring in the next broadcast cycle: playing every game in the final round at the same time.
A Rabbitohs and Roosters match could be part of a magical two hours for the game.Credit:Getty
Make it a 7.30pm kick-off on a Friday. Tell broadcasters Nine Entertainment Co – the publisher of this masthead – and Foxtel, to create the best television product they can on the night. Give the viewer discretion about which match they want to watch, either on secondary channels or through a button which can toggle between games.
A new generation of sports lovers are growing up watching products like the NFL’s RedZone, in which a broadcaster chops and changes between matches played at adjacent times according to the game situation. It’s unapologetically chaotic, and somehow works. The NFL’s stop-start nature may lend itself to that format, but why can’t it work in the NRL?
From an integrity point of view, it also removes the ridiculous situation of teams who play later games in the final round knowing exactly what they have to do make the finals or achieve a position on the ladder? Why should the Raiders, who play the final game of the regular season against the Tigers, have the benefit of watching the Broncos on Saturday night and know exactly what they need to do to sneak into eighth spot? And why wouldn’t Ricky Stuart rest a few of his stars if his team was already guaranteed that spot?
This week, the NRL will sit down and try to figure out a tentative schedule for the first week of the finals. Near the top of their list of priorities will be factoring in recovery times for the finalists. The Sharks, and likely eighth-placed Raiders, both play on Sunday. That in itself provides obstacles for the week one schedule. With a small tweak, every team would be guaranteed a minimum seven-day turnaround.
As the NRLW season desperately tries to get clean air in the cluttered end-of-season fixture, a men’s competition which finishes on Friday night would give the women a chance to have all five games scheduled in prime time across the weekend.
The idea is likely to get short shrift with broadcasters, particularly Foxtel, who pride themselves on viewers wedding themselves to the subscription service for Cameron Munster contract speculation Monday through Wednesday nights to all eight games from Thursday until Sunday. Because why wouldn’t you want last-round belters like the Bulldogs-Sea Eagles and Warriors-Titans to have their own timeslot?
V’landys and Abdo have openly discussed the idea of taking the grand final on the road from next year under a Super Bowl-style proposal, potentially spitting out more than a century of rugby league tradition.
Now they should be drinking in the prospect of a manic NRL red zone, a concept we can all get behind in our tracky dacks on the lounge.
Stream the NRL Premiership 2022 live and free on 9Now.
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