When plans were drawn up for the restart of the 2020 Super League season I got annoyed with the nay-sayers. I couldn’t understand the negativity. At that stage we had gone four long months without rugby league, trying to entertain ourselves with Joe Wicks videos and re-runs of sporting events from a time when you could watch for the price of a TV licence. I didn’t want to hear about how the rebooted season wouldn’t finish, or how it would be rendered meaningless should it reach its conclusion. Could we not just get on with it and enjoy it for what it was, I asked? No asterisks, just let it play out.
Less than six weeks after the restart I regret to report that even my enthusiasm is waning. My patience tested to its limit by the machinations of a league run like a sixth form 5-a-side tournament. Failure to introduce sufficiently stringent restrictions has led to several mini outbreaks of the modern scourge that is Covid-19. That in turn has led to at least one fixture being swapped and/or postponed every weekend since members of Hull FC returned positive tests following their 54-18 defeat to Salford Red Devils on August 9. But the real kicker - the real straw that left the camel looking for a back surgeon - was today’s announcement (September 9) that Super League positions and therefore playoff places will now be decided on ...(checks notes...) points percentage.
Mashing the keypad of their Casio calculator, the RFL have come to the conclusion that Catalans Dragons now head the Super League table going into this weekend’s round of games. The Dragons have 10 points from just seven games played which the game’s very own Rachel Rileys have decreed gives them the edge over Saints with their piffling 14 points from 10 outings. But fear not, fellow Saints, because in order to swipe the League Leaders Shield from under our noses the Dragons and the rest of our top flight rivals have been set the devilishly tricky task of managing to complete 15 games in 2020 while still maintaining that higher points percentage. Whatever the Hell that is.
See, that is the other problem with this solution. It is not simple. No longer will you be able to take a quick scan of the league table before the Thursday night kick-offs and be able to ascertain instantly what the implications are of a win or a loss for one side or the other. You’ll need to be Rachel Riley too, though you will at least reserve the right to disagree with her on Jeremy Corbyn if you like. But get set for an evening in front of Hull-Wakefield with your Casio in your hand rather than a bottle of something cold. And there’s no use hoping that one of Barry or Terry will explain it to you as we go. O’Connor has already reported severe headaches following the news.
There was very probably every need for a contingency plan given the government’s mixed messaging about where we are with Covid-19. From Monday (September 14) you can’t gather in households in groups of more than six but at the same time you must get on a busy train with a group of anti-mask strangers otherwise Costa Coffee will die. Kevin Sinfield was murmuring about the need to prepare for the worst last week, stringing together a halfway coherent sentence about alternate arrangements should teams be unable to fulfil their scheduled 20 fixtures before November. But in announcing it now they have sent out a very loud and clear message that they have all but given up hope of completing the season as planned.
So tell me why any of us should continue to care? Why should we continue to watch? Many won’t, and the chances of attracting new fans to a sport in which the team that wins the most points may not top the table are greatly reduced also. It would have been far more sensible to continue to try to complete the fixtures and then introduce a mechanism such as this (but probably not this) if and when we reach the point where curtailment is unavoidable. A bit like they managed to do in the infinitely more intelligently run EFL Leagues One and Two in football. Rocket scientists are over qualified for working this shit out.
As it is there is nothing to stop Catalans or potentially any other side from reaching the 15-game threshold with a healthy enough points percentage that they can afford to cite Covid issues for the last five rounds and have their players rest up for the knockout games. I’m not suggesting that Steve McNamara - rugby league’s Alan Partridge and a man who let us not forget wants to increase interchanges just at the moment that we have introduced measures to make the game faster and more watchable - would pull such a stunt. But the fact that he is now operating in a system open to such abuse is startling. At least it would be if not for the fact that this is rugby league.
So if you were a nay-sayer, or like me you have just become one after one shit show too many, rest assured that I am no longer annoyed at you. Instead I just sit sadly alongside you, tolerating this absolute bollocks and hoping that we will soon wake up on a bright spring day in a time not ravaged by Covid so that we can once again look forward to a rugby league season.
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