Evans, Bennett push for hybrid rugby

[laura]

Evans, Bennett push for hybrid rugby
AAP - March 25, 2008, 11:34 pm

Former Wallabies assistant coach Alex Evans and Brisbane Broncos mentor Wayne Bennett are pushing a proposal to create a hybrid game to introduce schoolchildren to the common basics of the two sports.

The Australian newspaper reports that officials of both rugby codes have given "tentative backing" to the proposal.

Evans first raised the idea with Bennett three years ago.

"It's Alex's idea but I support it," former Australian rugby league Test coach Bennett told the newspaper.

"it gives kids opportunities. It's such a big career if you've got ability and one game might not suit you but the other game might.

"You've got a lot of similarities between the two codes. At school level we should look at introducing a hybrid game that would give kids the opportunity to make choices about what code they want to play.

"The last time he brought it up, I said why don't you talk to your administrators and I'll talk to ours and see if they want to come together to have a yarn about it."

Evans is hoping to make a pitch to Australian Rugby Union boss John O'Neill this week, the newspaper says.

Queensland Rugby Union chairman Peter Lewis is backing the Evans-Bennett plan.

O'Neill was not available for comment but National Rugby League chief David Gallop said the NRL would keep an "open mind".

Australian rugby league is celebrating 100 years since splitting with rugby union and Gallop says talk of the two codes reunifying is "a fair way off".

But Lewis says the hybrid game might bring the two codes together.

"I've always said the smartest thing rugby could do is merge with rugby league," Lewis told the newspaper.

"League is big in Australia but it's going nowhere in the rest of the world whereas the biggest advantage rugby has is that it's an international game."

Bennett agreed the new sport would avoid the duplication of effort that goes into primary schools by development officers from both codes, the newspaper said.

Evans said the two codes should "throw jealousy out the window"

[BLR]

How about league fold and join the one true rugby

[GIGS20]

That'll never happen, the Western Suburbs of Sydney will slip (further) into anarchy without league to satisfy their bloodlust!

Imagine half the mungos you see playing a game where you have to make a tackle rather than just run into him and fall on top of him!

I can't imagine most of them having enough brain cells to move their arms and their shoulders at the same time. Also I don't think Eastwood allows mockies and flannies in the bar!

[BLR]

Is anyone opposed to mungo genocide so that the situation GIGS went on about doesn't happen?

[The InnFORCEr]

The kids play "Rippa Rugby" in NZ. They have small velcro strips on each side of the shorts and they have to rip that off for it to be a tackle, then they have to pass the ball. No kicking allowed. It was a great start to the match in Queenstown.

[jargan83]

I dare say this is the stupidest idea ive heard.

Next someone will want to make a hybrid game out of hunting and synchronised swimming

TiF isnt there something similar to that over here called "oztag" (i think )

[laura]

TiF isnt there something similar to that over here called "oztag" (i think )

Yep its the same thing oztag/flag rugby. Kids play it in primary schools so they can get the idea of rugby without getting hurt, then in high school we have touch rugby. I think that is as close to a 'hybrid' as we should ever get.

[jargan83]

I think theres a senior Oztag comp at South Perth RL club in the summer months. I saw a flyer for it at ECU Mt Lawley a couple of years ago. I dont know if its still going though, one would assume so

[GIGS20]

Next someone will want to make a hybrid game out of hunting and synchronised swimming

Now THERE'S a spectator sport

I can hear the commentary now "And Esther Merriwether Floats laguidly across the pool It's a thing of beauty the unspoke communication between her and her teammates BOOM HEADSHOT!!!!! Well I guess you need more than a pretty swimming stroke to win in this league Tom...that's ten points to the defense!"

[no.8]

Silly, silly, silly...
Rugby League in New Zealand is third world sport.
South Africa have never heard of it.
Ireland despises it at as sport.
Scotland have banned it.
Wales want to shoot all of the Rugby League administrator.
France have already bought the French Rugby League (practically only exists in Pepignan).
Fiji, Tonga and Samoa spit on it.

Only England and Australia are interested in it as potential recruitment ground and as thorn in their side.

IRB won't even look at it as they are far superior.

This idea is a still birth...

[tragic]

Maybe we should have a hybrid rugby and AFL (hear me out). We get them to convert to a rectangular field, get our stadia built, then trample them in the manner of Lomu over Catt, all agree that it's just all too hard for the AFLers to HTFU, then go our separate ways, keeping our stadia.