Bellamy and the rest of us old grumps – are we killjoys? But there’s so little joy to kill. I’ve seen one decent post-try celebration this year, when Daly Cherry-Evans picked up a corner post and used it as a crutch, making light of the criticism that he’s an old man. It was funny enough, but it didn’t impress those of his teammates who were ignoring him and walking back for the restart. Too clever by half, maybe.
While the NRL deals with post-try celebrations, can it also do something about pre-try celebrations? These happen when an opposing player has fluffed a play-the-ball or spilt the pill in a tackle, and everyone in the defending team throws somersaults, high-fives and khawds as if they’ve won the premiership. It’s when the referee blows a penalty, and the favoured team runs around chest-bumping like they’ve done something. It’s even worse in rugby union: the Wallabies woke me from my doze during the Lions series when they were suddenly partying like it was 1999. Had they defeated the mighty Lions? No, they’d won a scrum feed.
Then there’s the barrage of music. Over in the AFL, Geelong’s multi-premiership-winning coach Chris Scott asked himself what would be the one thing he would change in the game. Salary cap auditing? Don’t think so. Umpiring? Nup. What he would change is the music they play after goals are scored. Not change it for better music. Any music to celebrate, he said, ‘is not my thing at all’. Who can argue? You’ve already been beaten into submission by Sweet Caroline. Has the celebratory moment become so empty and soulless that it needs to be filled with … with something, anything, as long as it’s louder than cheering?
We all know where it’s come from, and here’s where a prime ministerial intervention is due. Anthony Albanese has declared that Australians do things the Australian way, and especially not (Excuse me while I kkkhhhawd!) the American way. We are patriots. He can start our patriotic progress by cleaning up rugby league, which has adopted these embarrassing theatrics from the NFL, where the simple enjoyment of a touchdown as touchdown is as insufficient as having three no-alcohol beers and expecting to fall on your face. In the NFL, a touchdown is merely the curtain-raiser for a Broadway show. The NFL is what our NRL players watch, NFL stars are who they idolise, and if they can’t achieve $100 million contracts, then they can at least celebrate their scores like people who do.
If the federal government can mandate a new NRL franchise, then it can ban ridiculous, rehearsed peacocking. If it can ban social media for under-16s, it can ban celebrations for penalties or opposition errors, celebrations for a bench player coming on (or off), and especially those celebrations that are cooked up with the purpose of creating or promoting social media viruses.
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Maybe we can start with a themed week: a Sensible Round. No Sweet Caroline or other singalongs, no ground announcers trying to rev up the crowd by starting a chant, no tired fireworks displays, no canned music of any kind, and while they’re at it, an iron dome on the rectangle of play against trainers in blue or yellow shirts and touch judges, except for medical reasons.
A cap of two minutes on the preparation of hair. Knock-ons only being called when the ball has gone forward, and passes only being allowed when the ball has gone backward. Okay, some of those have nothing to do with celebrations, but the Tigers were right – khawd it feels good to get it off your chest.
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