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Rugby League Experimentation in the All-Star Match

Mardo Gray, Rugby League correspondent

The 2012 Rugby League season has kicked off with regional tours and the Indigenous All-Star game. The 3rd NRL All-Star game, pitting Australian Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander players against the rest of the NRL took place on Saturday the 3rd Feb on the Gold Coast. This high profile game containing some of the best plays in the world of rugby league, was a extremely close with the score changing several times, before ending 36 – 28 to the NRL all stars.

The Indigenous side led for most of the match with South's Rabbitoh's player, Nathan Merrit starring with two tries. However the NRL managed to hold on and surge ahead in the final quarter in what was a nail biting finish and put pay to any complaints from some pundits that the All-Star game was pointless.

This controversy pops up with every rugby league match other than club competitions, even the State of Origin, and seems to be driven by club coaches wanting to protect their own players. However, the opinion of NRL all-star coach Wayne Bennett, the most respected leader in league, and the passion shown, especially by the indigenous team, shows that this game does matter. The only downside was an injury to international Greg Innes., which could have happened in any game or contact training session.

This year the game took on extra roll of experimentation with three new rules. An unrestricted interchange bench of seven, allowing for quick changes, useful for injuries and use of the big men. A form of advantage for minor penalties of restarting the tackle count rather than giving a free kick, which sped up play. And most controversially, a power play, where the opposition team had to take off two players, leaving 13 on 11. The first two rules are popular with the league media and coaches so far, but the power play is not as popular. I was watching it with several Country Rugby League coaches and we all agreed it was making what is a essentially a simple game, unnecessarily complicated.

In other news, the pre-season games are well under way, Cronulla defeated manly at Manly, with repeat offender bad boy Todd Carney Starring on Debut for his new club.

The season proper starts on Thursday March 1st with the Newcastle Knights, under new super-coach Wayne Bennett, set to play his old club, St George.

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