[Bullseye]

Hardest player of his generation : Thu Oct 11, 2018 2:51 pm  

http://www.totalrl.com/rugby-league-her ... eneration/ Great interview.

http://www.totalrl.com/rugby-league-her ... eneration/ Great interview.

Re: Hardest player of his generation : Thu Oct 11, 2018 3:34 pm  

Bullseye wrote:

http://www.totalrl.com/rugby-league-heroes-the-hardest-player-of-his-generation/

Great interview.

Yeah, really good read. Never got to see him play as I'm an 80's kid but love watching some of the clips on a certain streaming site of the old Ashes test matches, they were brutal. Can't believe how much RL has changed since my first game back in the late 80's and there just aren't the "characters" (grade A bell ends are not "characters" btw ) there used to be. I do miss the biff, I have to admit. Whilst I was never a fighter myself I used to love a bit of a scuffle at The Willows but i can't remember the last time I saw a decent scrap on a rugby field!!

Re: Hardest player of his generation : Thu Oct 11, 2018 3:34 pm  

Great article.


Still works out keenly in the gym now down Cas.


Bateman is the closest modern day player to Mal that I can think of.

Re: Hardest player of his generation : Thu Oct 11, 2018 4:13 pm  

SaleSlim wrote:

Yeah, really good read. Never got to see him play as I'm an 80's kid but love watching some of the clips on a certain streaming site of the old Ashes test matches, they were brutal. Can't believe how much RL has changed since my first game back in the late 80's and there just aren't the "characters" (grade A bell ends are not "characters" btw ) there used to be. I do miss the biff, I have to admit. Whilst I was never a fighter myself I used to love a bit of a scuffle at The Willows but i can't remember the last time I saw a decent scrap on a rugby field!!

Trouble is any player showing that kind of character is immediately branded as a thug/bell end etc through faux outrage of any other teams fans.

I'm all for bring back the biff, and a lot of people call for it, but as they say they don't like it up em when it's against their players so we over sensitive the game and make it bland which in turn encourages play acting etc.

Used to always say every game should be stopped after 10mins, have a bit of biff to sort the men out from the boys and then get on with game.

Watch first half of SOO 1 THIS YEAR to see how game should be played and how refs should let things go.
If that were a SL game thered have been 25 penalties, it would have taken 60mins and thered be an outcry for public executions.

Re: Hardest player of his generation : Thu Oct 11, 2018 4:38 pm  

See this is where we go wrong in rugby league, on both sides of the world. Instead of dealing with isolated issues, we put 'blanket' fixes in place with little/No thought of how it will affect the game, no consideration of the unintended consequences.

We used to have acts of thuggery, cheap shots, coward punches, so what we did is ban fighting completely. We should simply have cracked down on the thuggery with huge bans. 2 props letting off steam with a fair trade of blows is a great spectacle, or a team mate coming to the defence of his playmaker who's been hit late/high with a vindictive shot from an opposing forward.... This was all part of the fabric of our game and in line with the whole ethos of being enemies on the field, and having a pint together afterward. Now, the games gone soft, we have play acting, and we have snotty little wingers and half backs running their mouths off and acting like big hard men, when in the old days that sort of behaviour would soon have been knocked out of them. The only gobby half backs back in the day were ones who could really handle themselves. We've lost a big part of the gladitorial nature of the game, and for the wrong reasons. I fear we will never get that back now... many people will be glad and say it's safer, but I don't care about that, the game is worse off for it.

The shoulder charge rule is similar - instead of hammering people who got it wrong (therefore forcing them to be less reckless with the technique), we ban it completely and lose some of the most spectacular collisions from our game.

The game was rough and tough, a fair fight was part of the game and should still be, as should immediate retribution for deliberate foul play.... yes it comes with an element of danger/risk, but that's what you sign up for and actually enjoy as a rugby league player, and that exists with or without fighting/shoulder charges. And in the modern day, we're better equipped than ever with technology to stamp out needless thuggery with draconian punishments that will act as a deterrent, but still allowing the room for a good old fashioned and relatively harmless head to head battle.
ahhh I miss the old days. (And am completely fine with the neanderthall status this may tag me with).

Re: Hardest player of his generation : Thu Oct 11, 2018 5:16 pm  

Superted wrote:

See this is where we go wrong in rugby league, on both sides of the world. Instead of dealing with isolated issues, we put 'blanket' fixes in place with little/No thought of how it will affect the game, no consideration of the unintended consequences.

We used to have acts of thuggery, cheap shots, coward punches, so what we did is ban fighting completely. We should simply have cracked down on the thuggery with huge bans.

Whilst agreeing with the vast majority of your post it's this bit that I want to focus on.
Your absolutely spot on but it doesn't just apply to the biff element of our game.
We have a problem with time wasting in our game.
Instead of penalizing time wasting we now have rules for conversions, penalties, drop outs, scrums that say you get x amount of time for this then we stop the clock, if you throw the ball away we stop the clock, if you pack down with the wrong number of players we stop the clock.
99% of the time that's what the offending team want.
What they should do is just penalise them and get on with the game. They soon stop doing it.
How many times do you see all teams pack down with 5 men, ref stops game, someone walks 30 metres to join the pack and half way across one of the 5 gets out and walls away pretending the 6th player is there to replace them and we have another minute of messing around. Props don't put their heads in and we stop the clock.
Simple, if you don't pack down with right number of players or correctly it's a penalty.
Drop outs, why do teams throw the ball away? Because they want a rest and take as long as possible to do out. What do we do? Give them seconds then stop the clock and then we wait forever for them to take it as at least the clocks stopped. No, 20 seconds then if you don't take it is a penalty.

The game is 90% good, there's a problem with 1 aspect of the game and we bring a"directive" our rule in and it makes the 90% of the game that was good, worse!

Believe it or not I know a referee and he told me they'd been sent an email from Ganson (this was about may) asking why the game was going the way it was and what did they think they could propose.
I picked 3 things and this was one of them.
(I won't bore you with the other 2, unless you want me too).

Re: Hardest player of his generation : Thu Oct 11, 2018 7:10 pm  

Ryan Bailey

Re: Hardest player of his generation : Fri Oct 12, 2018 5:11 am  

Bullseye wrote:

http://www.totalrl.com/rugby-league-heroes-the-hardest-player-of-his-generation/

Great interview.

Takes me back to that Ashes win in 1970 when I was at all 3 matches having arrived to live in Sydney a couple of years earlier. The first in Brisbane we were hammered - the only thing we won was the fight when Cliff Watson gave the Aus. front row a perfect demonstration of the Liverpool Kiss! About 7 changes were made for the next at the Sydney Cricket Ground incuding bringing in Millward for Hardisty and my namesake into the pack! We won this and played almost the same team to secure a 2-1 win in the final game at the SCG.

Mal mentioned Johnny Whiteley who coached that win and who was in the team that secured the last Ashes win in England in the late 50's. Saw all 3 matches in that series too.

Mal Reilly was truly great and one of the best English players I have seen play here in Aus.

Re: Hardest player of his generation : Fri Oct 12, 2018 7:57 am  

As a Wakefield fan I always find this hard to say but MR was and is my all time favourite player. There I feel dirty for loving this Cas I on but there you go.

Tbf there is more to this than local rivalry because when I saw Mal play it was in the maroon of Manly not the Amber of Cas.

As a young Pom growing up in Dee Why just north of Manly Mal was a ray of light who gave me and my dad our pride back.

Although at that point we were still fairly competitive at RL the Uk was generally on the slide and poms were considered soft and lacking in moral fibre but at the time not in skill - that humiliation was yet to come.

Jeez I took some crap at school and then everyones favourite team signed this skilfull Englishman - but - they also knew he’d be too soft for the Aussie game.

Well he wasn’t in fact he was borderline phycopathic. Skill was not the issue it was his perchant for hunting down the oppositions hard man and frankly maiming him in some cases.

It terrified the Aussies and it demanded and got respect and from that point on my life became a lot easier.

He was a joy to watch but for giving me back a little pride for that I’m truly gratefull. Wish we had those kind of players now but we don’t and we probably never will again.

Re: Hardest player of his generation : Fri Oct 12, 2018 8:19 am  

vastman wrote:

As a Wakefield fan I always find this hard to say but MR was and is my all time favourite player. There I feel dirty for loving this Cas I on but there you go.

Tbf there is more to this than local rivalry because when I saw Mal play it was in the maroon of Manly not the Amber of Cas.

As a young Pom growing up in Dee Why just north of Manly Mal was a ray of light who gave me and my dad our pride back.

Although at that point we were still fairly competitive at RL the Uk was generally on the slide and poms were considered soft and lacking in moral fibre but at the time not in skill - that humiliation was yet to come.

Jeez I took some crap at school and then everyones favourite team signed this skilfull Englishman - but - they also knew he’d be too soft for the Aussie game.

Well he wasn’t in fact he was borderline phycopathic. Skill was not the issue it was his perchant for hunting down the oppositions hard man and frankly maiming him in some cases.

It terrified the Aussies and it demanded and got respect and from that point on my life became a lot easier.

He was a joy to watch but for giving me back a little pride for that I’m truly gratefull. Wish we had those kind of players now but we don’t and we probably never will again.

Possibly the greatest post I've ever read on the importance of sport and sporting heroes as a youngsters. Fantastic