Horse 2908 - The Winner Is Football... No Really, It's Football

The Festival of The Boot for 2021 has been and gone (well the bit that I care about anyway) and that now leaves football fans across this wide brown land searching for the next pig skin clad glory. 

My hope is that 2021/22 brings the A-League and W-League to new heights and as always, my hope is that Rugby league especially, dies (for it is a silly game that does not need to exist).

In this post I annoy practically everyone in Australia with this absolutely unscientific and obviously biased ranking of the various football codes:

1 - Football

Football with its limited number of rules and very small requirement for equipment, can be played in warehouses, alley ways, car parks, on the street, and obviously on proper pitches.

It deserves its place as 'The World Game' because it is really one of only a few games where the size of the player is irrelevant and where even gender is actually a secondary constraint.

Because football needs only rudimentary equipment, the pool of players is massive and it is little wonder that the football World Cup is bigger than the Olympics and that national sides and club sides can play each other in international club tournaments. Super Rugby sort of attempts this and the Rugby League World Club Challenge Cup also very weakly attempts this but they're just dog and pony shows in comparison with any major football tournament.

You're also not that likely to play any of the other codes of football indoor or on rocky surfaces but you will find kids in the middle of nowhere kicking a football around.

2 - Australian Rules Football

The only real thing against Australian Rules Football is that it can not be played in the inner city and in alley ways. The game which is designed to be played on a cricket field (and was invented to keep cricket players fit over the winter (though given that I've seen eskys of beer out in the middle of local cricket matches, this is debatable)) and needs that big field.

There's been loads of tactical variations over the years and coaches and playing staff are constants trying to out think the opposition.

Because the field is so big and wide and long, Australian Rules Football more than any other is less dependent on individual superstars (even though they certainly exist) as it is on very big team efforts. A 50m run in any other code will have been massive and gotten you more than half way but in Australian Rules Football, it might only get you out of your own circle.

3 - Gaelic Football

Gaelic Football is a fast and free flowing game which lends itself well to being played on a vast ground but is cramped into a rugby/football pitch.

The passing and long kicking aspects of this game are superior to the carrying style games of football but it is still in second place to Australian Rules Football which simply does every single aspect better.

I will say that the accuracy needed to score a goal in Gaelic Football is Higher than in Australian Rules but the roundness of the ball makes control and bounce more predictable.

4 - Rugby

Rugby is the carrying game which is the domain of rich private schools. It also caught on in New Zealand as the dominant form of the carrying game.

It rewards possession by allowing a side to maintain and keep the ball through the process of rolling mauls and rucks and also allows for a kicking style game.

Really, this is the only form of Rugby which should exist because the rules are relatively sensible. 

5 - American Football

American Football is an insanely complex and tactical game. Unfortunately, the stop-start nature of the game means that it takes several hours to complete 60 minutes of game time.

Admittedly just like cricket, this means that the story takes a long time to develop and this lends itself well to having barbeques and treating the whole thing as though it were a day out. It's just that this is less about it being football and more about it being everything else.

American Football relies on people with computers analysing thousands of plays and coming up with new plays which should hopefully create yardage and lead to touchdowns. Unlike Rugby, the game is paused once the ball is grounded; so there is literally zero skills that that the two codes of Rugby have, any kind of passing game. The two codes of Rugby have all kinds of hand off and wrap around plays whereas these are rare in American Football.

6 - Rugby League

Rugby League is the worst code of football because it took the game of Rugby and then added the compromises of American Football to it.

The Rugby League split from the Rugby Football Union over the issue of payments to the players in 1895. A similar schism happened in Sydney in 1907, for precisely the same reason. The Rugby Union preferred to keep the game amateur; mostly because it was the game played by private school kids.

In theory, I should be against the upper class version of the game but the game itself is mechanically stupid. The introduction of the tackle count, the removal of the line out, and the clearance of scrums, means that Rugby League is a faster game but far more predictable in terms of tactics and really it is not a whole lot removed from the game of force-em-back. 

Rugby League used to be a better game before 1967 but the introduction of television and the tackle count had rendered it last on the list. The game doesn't reward possession either because if you do manage to hold the ball for six tackles, you're forced to hand it over. American Football rewards possession after a side has made 10 yards, by resetting the down count.

What doesn’t help is the constant tweaks to the rules, that make it virtually impossible for the casual fan to keep up with. I estimate that since the Super League war there has been about 100 rule changes; including rules that have been added and subsequently scrapped.

It adds even further pressure to match officials too, as interpretation of the rules by both them and fans causes confusion.

Conclusion:

If I was Grand Poohbah and Lord High Everything Else then I would decree that all of the Rugby League clubs either reconcile with Rugby, or disband and join either the AFL or the A-League. I'm sure most Rugby League fans won't know the difference. Apart from Souths, Penrith, Canberra, and St George fans, everyone else can sort themselves out. Those clubs are the only four with any value that I can see.