Debatable - 23

Debatable is written by the Otago University Debating Society, which meets for social debating every Tuesday at 7pm in the Commerce Building. This week’s motion is “that rugby league is better than rugby union”. Will Chisholm argues the affirmative while Paul Hunt argues the negative.
 
Affirmative
Is code just not doing it for you anymore? Switch to rugby league. It’s heaps better.
 
History is a good place to start. It tells us that rugby union is a game for boring bourgeois traditionalists. League was formed as a sport by a group of disaffected working-class union players who couldn’t afford to play as amateurs and wanted to rewrite the rules to create a more entertaining spectacle. The parallels with the World Series movement in cricket are striking.
 
As a result of union’s conservatism, it is stuck with a set of over-complicated rules that no end of minor tweaking has ever managed to clarify. Crowds don’t want to watch scrums, lineouts, pick and go or excessive kicking. Union’s rules could be simplified to showcase the skills fans want to see – running rugby, big collisions and a creative kicking game. But then we’d all be playing rugby league.
 
You’re probably sick of the Rugby World Cup already. Don’t worry – the Kiwis’ league team won the more important one three years ago. And the joy of such an underdog prevailing is one that no All Blacks fan ever feels.
 
The social impact of sport matters too. Tragically, the conventional wisdom claims that league players don’t always respect women. An outrageous claim – the NRL has a Women in League round, and reports of antifeminist behaviour by league players are a grand conspiracy from the union-biased media.
 
The real outrage should be over union’s appalling record on race issues. Twenty-eight African nations boycotted the ’76 Olympics because the All Blacks toured South Africa that year, and the ’81 Springbok tour is a dark stain on New Zealand’s history. Despite all this, the NZRU still doesn’t get it – in 2010, it took a significant campaign of media pressure for them to finally apologise to Maori players who weren’t selected on racial grounds for tours to South Africa from 1928 to 1960. League is far more enlightened. Also in 2010, on the second anniversary of Australia’s long-overdue apology to the Aboriginal stolen generations, Kevin Rudd was watching the Indigenous All Stars team play in a game of rugby league that raised more than $A2 million for Aboriginal health and education programmes.
 
And David Lange, Roger Douglas and Helen Clark are all big league fans – which should cover most people’s political tastes, all within the fourth Labour government!
 
And Ray Warren is the greatest sports commentator ever to pick up a microphone.
 
And Manu Vatuvei plays the trumpet proficiently.
 
 
Negative
Union is universally more popular across the globe than League. We only need to look at the comparative World Cups. Union attracts far more sponsorship, viewership and contains more teams with a realistic chance of winning. Union can even claim to be a nation’s (ours, obviously) national sport. League plays second fiddle to cricket (great game also) in Australia, and barely features on any other nation’s radar.
 
Firstly, let’s respond to the assertion that union is a game for ‘boring bourgeois traditionalists.’ Let’s take the example of a secondary school union competition known as quad. The two schools for comparison are Wellington College and Christ’s College. Taking an objective approach, Wellington College is a school which is demographically diverse and inclusive; it accepts all people within its zone regardless of how much their parents earn. It excels in a diverse range of fields including kapa haka and Stage Challenge. Christ’s College, in contrast, only accepts students from privileged backgrounds, who just employ each other, epitome of ‘boring bourgeois traditionalists.’ Given the analysis Chiz (from Christ’s) provided, one would expect Christ’s College to be better than WC at Union. Is this true? No. WC recently won its ninth consecutive Quad title beating Nelson Boys. Christ’s couldn’t even make the final. They might just be unlucky that such a great school is competing at Quad. But it proves the point - rugby is generally played better by individuals who go to diverse and well-rounded institutes, not the bourgeois elite.
 
Secondly, union is much more dynamic and unpredictable than league. Take the example of scoring a try in league. The fact you have to hand over the ball after six tackles means there are only two ways to score a try. One is that the team is close to the line and grubbers or bombs to a winger, or the ball is passed along the backs and the other team is outflanked. Whereas in rugby set pieces, ruck/mauls and the ability to hold the ball as long as you want mean that tries are scored in a variety of ways. Mess at the breakdown is good. That’s why Richie McCaw is popular - it’s much more skillful to play the referee and other team to win back possession, than to make six tackles.
 
The comparison with World Series cricket is silly. In league and union, players either play one or the other at a point in time. The same players play all formats in cricket. Daniel Vettori is the best 20/20 bowler, one-day bowler and best test all-rounder all at the same time (God, he’s good). Secondly, test cricket is the best form of the game anyway. John Key likes union, and he’s more popular than those three put together.
 
Posted 2:16am Monday 12th September 2011 by Will Chrisholm and Paul Hunt.