BY DAN

Ricky Stuart made minor waves when the noted that he needed to have a chat with Andrew Abdo.

As he said:

The six agains that go against my poor blokes, I see those tackles every week by certain teams and nothing is done. You tell me why because I’m not allowed to. I’m not allowed to talk about the ref. But I hope Andrew Abdo has an answer for us all.

For most this was vintage Sticky. Complaining about the refereeing because his chargers weren’t good enough. A distraction where accountability would have been more appropriate. Some less charitable may have assessed it a blow-up, a reaction out of frustration, and I don’t doubt that played a part. The Tele called it “stunning”. Fox said he “called out” Abdo. Paul Crawley even went into bat for his mate. It was all so rote that when the day ended with him being ‘investigated’ (farkn lol) it barely registered. I hope the NRL enjoys its $25k.

It’s a combination of easy opinion and slow news day (or at least it was until the Daly Cherry-Evans news came through). Given the reflexive writing you can understand that the opinions that followed were reactive. Occam’s Razor and all that. Stick was cranky. His team had been thumped. The conversation followed about the rights and wrongs of what he did without searching for any complexity and meaning in them. Which is a shame, because I think the actual reason for the comment was more focused on next week, not last.

Work with me here. Stuart has created a team that is stout on the edges and fast in the middle. It wants to use its line speed to win that side of the ball. To do that it needs consistently slow rucks. So they try to win in contact, so they can slow the ruck. Failing that they do everything they can, hopefully within the rules, to make sure the play the ball is slow as possible. This isn’t new, for almost any team, but that slow ruck is so advantageous to this team right now that Stuart desperately wants to keep it loose.

Against Manly he instead came up with a ‘tight’ ruling. As the Rugby League Eye Test has pointed out, there’s been a stark increase in infringements, particularly in the attacking twenty. This is leading to a dramatic increase in blow outs and debacles like Sunday night. It fucking sucks, purely from a spectacle perspective. You can call it the crackdown no one wanted, but that assumes a causality we can’t prove. As likely is Sunday night’s situation, with Atkins refereeing a tight game, Canberra not adjusting quick enough to suit his palate (or palette, or pallet, pick your fighter).

Either way Stuart doesn’t want to see that again. It doesn’t suit his side, and they can be a very good footy team with a less strict interpretation of the rules. It’s not 4D chess to think he was being strategic in his complaint.

It’s been a part of the coach’s weaponry since day dot, across the completion. Shit across sports. NBA Coach Phil Jackson was as famed for using the media to get games mediated in his preferred manner as Wayne Bennett has been expert in doing it in the NRL. Ivan Cleary has done it with glee during this recent run. Rick might not have their record, but the grand design is worth noting. That’s actually the interesting bit of this, not that he went ‘whack’ (nothing makes me less likely to click a link).

Stuart won’t mind that the reaction was predictable. That’s the point. The noise begets the action. Abdo will play his part in the dance, and referees around the league will internalise the norm so quickly Michelle Foucault would be proud. After another round of blow outs the league might even have a quiet word with referees about the tight reign.

And Stick will be happy. Because maybe that’s what he wanted all along.

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