11-on-11: Did we just glimpse rugby league's future?

Sydney Morning Herald

4 days ago

Andrew Johns talks life, love and rugby league with Ryan regularly, and likes the idea. Ricky Stuart championed 11-on-11's most meaningful trial in 2008, when Robinson and Brad Arthur coached the Knights and Storm under 20s trial of the concept.
At the time, Melbourne's wrestle-heavy choke-hold on the NRL premiership was tighter than ever, and several rule changes were explored to combat it.
Eleven-on-eleven went no further than the under 20s contest, which featured six players on each bench and permitted no fewer than 20 interchanges.
Seventeen years on, the NRL has one referee and six-agains to create a high-octane product accentuating ball-in-play time and athleticism – to the tune of record TV ratings and attendances.
The impact of ruck infringement calls on the fly is huge, though, with momentum swinging like rarely before, often to the soundtrack of a pinging whistle or tolling 'six again' bell.
Just thinking about 11-on-11 in six-again times is enough to induce cardiac arrest.
Then again, set restarts were meant to kill off rugby league's big man once and for all – but they, too, are just getting fitter and faster by the day.
Payne Haas' evolution as a superhuman front-rower has simply been fast-tracked, while a 33-year-old Josh Papalii is still a bashing, barging match-winner.
When the Roosters and Dolphins lost their starting props Leniu and Naufahu Whyte, Francis Molo and Aublix Tawha on Saturday night, forwards on both sides shuffled in and the edge back-row positions made way.
Alex McKinnon proposed a shift to 12-on-12 last week, writing for Fox Sports, where the obvious position to drop out would be lock.
But would taking out one of the few positions to play both sides of the field these days only accentuate channel-based attack – where back-rowers, centres and wingers rarely leave their assigned edge? Would it foster the predictable play that taking a player off the paddock is trying to avoid?
With four players sat in the Suncorp sheds, Mark Nawaqanitawase, the Roosters' code-hopping specimen with a background in rugby sevens, played accordingly and roamed from his right wing to the left in one attacking set.
Sam Walker eyed the Dolphins' diminished defensive line with added relish, though he has never needed extra space or incentive to play what is in front of him.
Fewer players on the field would open up the game for creative types given the space and fatigue added to a contest.
It could also reduce the amount of concussion-inducing collisions like the kick-off return where Siua Wong was belted out of the game. It's a lot harder to muster that kind of impact when you're completely gassed.
That same exhaustion could bring more head knocks through poor tackling technique into play, though.
When the Roosters and Dolphins had four players sin-binned at once, just as the Easter Monday Tigers-Eels clash went down to 12 on 11 earlier this year, the footy still stopped and started – it wasn't all scintillating, off-the-cuff attacking brilliance.
Passes sailed wide of the mark, plays ran into touch and penalties were found in the ruck. But on Easter Monday, especially, chip kicks and flick passes were chanced and trick shots attempted.
Albeit in shallow, 10-minute samples, the play was more akin to the 1980s and '90s, when Canberra and Brisbane would let the ball sing with long, looping passes and coast-to-coast plays didn't involve four choreographed block runners.
The space on offer looked a bit like when Cliffy Lyons and Steve Mortimer seemed to enjoy acres of open pasture and changed their minds on a whim about how to use it.
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Given the reduction of on-field player numbers has been floating around for at least 30 years now, it might never happen.
We might stick with 13-on-13, just as the field has stayed at 68 metres wide (except in Las Vegas, of course).
But as far as fiddling with the fabric of a sport goes, rugby league does it more often than most – such as introducing tackle counts in 1967, increasing them from four to six in 1971 and expanding the offside rule from five metres to 10 in 1993.
The game is also hunting for 70-odd new players to fill the shiny new expansion sides coming to Perth and Papua New Guinea.