Upon making my trek to Melbourne’s rugby Mecca on Thursday for the Melbourne Rising v Perth Spirit game I encountered some problems with the National Rugby Championship’s 7:30 PM kick off time slot.
I almost missed the game in fact, coming from cricket training and then after picking up the sister from rowing or some minor sport, I was pushing it for time. My nose wouldn’t stop running and I was in no mindset for any rugby but it was determination that kept me going, well that and proving my mother wrong.
I know it is on prime time and that Foxtel’s Rugby HQ just happens to slot in perfectly with the timing but Thursday, is that really the day? Maybe in a competition with say 32 teams and 16 games a week they can have a Thursday night game like in the NFL but for a local third tier rugby competition with only 4 games a week it doesn’t really bode well for the rest of the weekend.
Thursday Night Rugby Has No Place
If I was in charge, and don’t I wish I were, there would be one game on Friday night, not Thursday, 2 on Saturday and then one on Sunday to finish up the weekend. This way there is no school or work night games and no interfering with each other and with only 4 games that should be easy to do.
Maybe the fact there was only 2,097 people at the game is some indicator but at most of the games this year for the NRC I doubt there will ever be more than that. Even the Rising’s first game only drew a few hundred more.
The next problem is that you are going to get the odd game, on national prime time TV that is a rout. Just tries after tries. Don’t get me wrong though, tries are awesome, new rules for tries and heaps more of them makes me happy and gets the crowd to the game but if you are going to have a smashing on a prime time game this isn’t the way to go. Now 44-24 isn’t exactly an all out, one team gets the victory in the first minute type game but it will happen and there isn’t much you can do to avoid it.
Maybe these games are the right way to go and maybe that fact of Foxtel getting 3 straight hours of rugby is a good thing for people and it tickles the fancy of some. I’m not here to say rugby is bad and this whole competition might be a bad idea as I’ve already explored that before but this could be just another step that needs to be taken to stop that from happening.
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