It's Footy Desperates V Desperates Housewives
Sun Herald
Sunday March 18, 2007
IF your loved one is rugby league mad and your relationship has been tested in recent years, brace yourself for season 2007.
From this weekend - for the first time - NRL matches will be played and televised on not two days, not three days, but four days every week. From tomorrow, a Monday night match will be added to the Friday, Saturday and Sunday fixtures. An NRL spokesman pitched it as a "battle for the remote control", advising women to tape Desperate Housewives and settle down to watch the match. An alcohol brand is exhorting men to "reclaim Mondays".But while television networks and advertisers are cashing in, footy "widows" are cursing, knowing they will have to put up with distracted, inattentive and - when their team loses - inconsolable partners for more than half the week. And that doesn't take replays through the week into account.Relationships Australia NSW CEO Anne Hollonds warned couples to start planning now if they want their relationship to survive the season.If one partner was committed to going to matches or watching them on television, the couple needed to negotiate activities they could enjoy together at other times, she advised."Presumably, he will want to spend some time with her, too," Ms Hollonds said. "You cannot wait until the end of the NRL season, either. Do not wait until September to reconnect. Work out a strategy to deal with it now."Christina Ursini fears she will have to plan activities she can do alone or with friends on not four, but five days a week, when her Parramatta Eels-obsessed fiance - an Irishman who fell in love with rugby league four years ago - will be watching league."When The Footy Show started this week I was like, 'Oh, there goes my Thursday night at 9.30pm, too'," said the 28-year-old from Clovelly."He is pretty passionate about it. I can't pull him away. And after rugby season finishes, the European soccer league starts. It is just a part of my life."NRL great turned Fox Sports commentator Laurie Daley conceded that the new-look season posed even greater dangers for couples in which one - almost always the male - was a greater fan than the other. He said he expected his marriage to suffer its fair share of knocks over the next six months."I know that for my wife it will be 'Not another game'," Daley said. "But she is pretty lucky because I will be away, so she can watch whatever she likes."Ms Hollonds agreed that, in some cases, women could benefit from the more intensive schedule."She may look forward to it because she gets to spend more time with the girls and he is not hassling her," she said.Another consequence of the schedule change is that 75 per cent of games will be played at night, making attendance at matches problematic for families with young children.NRL legend Tom Raudonikis recalled happy weekends growing up in Cowra, where he would play on Saturdays and go to a game with his father on Sunday.That was becoming a thing of the past, Raudonikis said, adding that Monday night games were more suited to television stations than families."I don't know whether it is going to work," he said. "They probably won't get big crowds because parents would not bring their kids along because they have to go to school [the next day]."LEAGUE 2007*75 per cent of games will be at night.* Schedule on a standard weekend: Friday night two games; Saturday night three; Sunday afternoon two; Monday night one.* The 2007 NRL season runs 25 weeks, with 24 games and one bye for each team.* Finals begin in the first week of September with the grand final on Sunday, September 30.
© 2007 Sun Herald