Anyone who contemplates a "hybrid" game has his head firmly in the sand, or up something.
It's always the Mungoes who raise the spectacle, because they have failed to realise that we are not two similar games.
We are chalk and bloody cheese, mate!
Here are the reasons that it will never happen, and the Mungoes will have no idea what I'm on about, because their environment is so small
and limited...
1. It's not always what the fans want.
2. There is no way that anything other than a full contest scrum will ever be entertained by the Rugby fraternity, because "our" scrum is
one of the many contests in the game, whereas "their" scrum is nothing more than a re-start, and a bloody insult at that! To even suggest
that the "hybrid" version might have uncontested scrums suggests that that's about where the conversation stops!
3. It's almost not worth mentioning the line out, because they will never see the worth of that - way too intellectual for them..
4. There are about 100+ countries playing Rugby and who have never heard of Rugby League, nor could care less. Why should we, one of the
world leaders of the game, alienate ourselves for the sake of a few hundred thousand east coast of Australia fans of a game that is going
nowhere and never will? Many of those 100+ countries will ever make it to the top tiers, but don't tell them that, otherwise they might
stop trying!
5. It is hard enough for Australian Rugby to be taken seriously by the majority of the rest of the world, and we are one of the top four
nations. Why should be prostitute ourselves, when we don't need to? The Northern Hemisphere people already think we're trying to bastardise
the game, when we're not!!
6. Ours is a game for all shapes and sizes and this is a fundamental tenet of Rugby - even the promoters of the ELV's recognised this.
Happily, so does Geoff Carr.
7. Ours is a game of contests. Mungoes think the tackle is the only contest that needs to exist. Wrong, wrong, wrong!!
7. Ours is a players game, not a spectators game. Those at the top of the ARU would do well to remember it.
8. What is Phil Franks trying to achieve? Nothing more than a social experiment where we already know the outcome and the fulfillment of
his dream to make a quick quid..it's been done, before mate, and no doubt will be tried again in another 10 or 20 years when the Mungoes
are having another down day, where the World Cup didn't go according to the script!
9. Any serious student of either game knows that the two are so far apart that there is no prospect of bringing them close enough to
satisfy the purists. It just can't happen....my advice to the Mungoes is:
a. remove the scrum from your game,
b. take the word "Rugby" out of your name,
c. call yourself something else like "Bashball",
d. stop trying to invent international teams and have artificial world cups,
e. be true to yourselves and your own game,
f. hang onto your own fans for grim death, and
g. forget about trying to be like us.. or to be blunt, ...... bugger off!!
