Form vs Class - The toughest match of the year

There is that old, well tried saying in sport, “form is temporary; class is permanent,” yet just how easily can this adage be applied today?

If the old saying were true than sides stocked with State of Origin superstars would have fought out the NRL Grand Final last Sunday night. “Class” like the star-studded Dragons, the salary-cap mastering Roosters, the reigning Premiers the Bulldogs or the ever reliable Broncos would have been there on the first Sunday in October. They weren’t; instead it was being fought out between a side proving that its efforts in 2004 were no fluke and a side everyone thought was the walking, running, passing and kicking definition of a fairytale.

Class and form are almost equals in the modern game. Look at the last few seasons as an example; this year we had two fairytale stories fighting out the Grand Final. Last year we had an expected Grand Final that was one play away from being disrupted by the carefree Cowboys. The year before that the Penrith Panthers completed another fairytale premiership against the fancied Roosters. 2002 saw the Warriors make the Grand Final despite having few big names. When was the last time that the penultimate week of the season did not have a friendless outsider playing for a Grand Final berth and challenging to the wire their more fancied rivals?

What this goes to show is that while there is merit in looking to class as a predictor of performance, all those people who backed the Roosters, Bulldogs and Panthers this year will tell you that performances in recent years are no indication to the way a side will perform in the upcoming round or season.

Similarly when form was pitted against “class” throughout the year it got beaten soundly, look at the massacre that the Tigers handed the Broncos in the semi-final at Telstra Stadium. No-one would have beaten the Tigers that day, just as no-one would have beaten the Cowboys in the Preliminary final.

When pitted against each other ono-on-one, form has an edge over class.

In saying that, class plays a big role in the outcome of a season. A team of big name performers who have been on the main stage before can exploit weaknesses that surface through nerves in big games. Look at the way the AFL reigning premiers dismantled a surprise packet Kangaroos in the elimination final this year (only for a “form” side to hand a similar result to them the following week.)

In choosing representative sides to tour at the end of the year there is a delicate balancing act between class and form and no matter which way one goes, the decision will draw criticism.

Do you, on one hand, choose players who have served the country well before and are known to perform at the highest level regardless of their current form? Or does it become like a “best of 2005” side?

It would be very easy to say that the side should be based on the AFL All-Australian system where there is no friend or favour and the selections are based purely on performance in your position throughout the year. In that case the Kangaroos side would be stocked with Tigers and Cowboys after very successful years by both clubs.

The AFL, though, does not have to pick a “side” per se. They do not have to take these player on tour, the players will not have to work together in a practical sense on the field, in essence they do not even have to compliment each other’s game, or get along as a team; it is merely a paper side.

On the other side of the coin, if one were to choose a side of incumbents and reward only those who have served before it is very difficult for new players to come into the side and as we have seen with the Australian Cricket Team, players stay too long into their twilight years, are not performing as well as another player might, and those who enter the side do so late in their careers and as a result have a abbreviated stint in the top level.

The answer is to weigh the two together. That is not to look first at those who have been there before and if they can do the job to automatically select them. It is to say of all of the selection criteria that need to be considered, previous experience is one of a range of facets in making up the side. While there needs to be a nucleus of players turning over from year to year so the group, as a whole, has a focus; too many old selections who are not performing and the side will lose the fire that is required to make oppositions cringe.

There has been much said about who should have been in the Kangaroo touring squad and who should not have made the plane. Paul Kent says of the selection of the side “Loyalty was called upon when needed and dropped when it had to be, as was form… The selectors got it right.” While he identifies the correct issue at hand I still think the squad is a little incumbent heavy.

For example, Kent says that the reason that forwards Willie Mason and Steve Price should not have their inclusion questioned is because their season was determined by injury. That is to say that because a player played last year and was injured this year, he should still get a spot. Or, in other words, that even though a class player may be in inferior form to another player we feel that despite the injury he will somehow play better during the test matches; that an 80% fit Willie Mason who hasn’t played in five weeks is better than a 100% injury free, in-form, match fit unknown back rower whose team made it to the last four.

If a player has been injured and is taking a while to get back to top form, on the day, they will not play as well as a fit player who is in form. Such is the slight difference between Top NRL players today. Squads should certainly not be chosen on the basis of what a player can do; that is the secondary question after: What are they doing?

Using similar logic to Kent’s would see a stock analyst choose stocks based on year highs, not current performance. That person would be broke in a very short period of time.

Kent goes on to say, “Petero Civoniceva? Jason Ryles? Mark O'Meley? Argue they should not be in the squad and all you will do is reveal your own shortcomings.”

This is a ridiculous assertion to make without looking at their form during the year. It may well be the case that these players will perform well and I am not saying they don’t have a right to be there, but to say their selection against the likes of Scandalis and Southern, and in the starting line up over O’Donnell is as certain as death and taxes is one of the more asinine remarks of this whole debate.

Kent goes on to allude that Scott Prince is perhaps the only person who does not deserve his spot in the squad; that he was a beneficiary of the “touch of romantic” possessed by Wayne Bennett.

So Paul, after destroying almost all of the other halves combinations in the game or a very least destroying the halves combinations that destroyed the rest, he doesn’t deserve a spot?

Australia will probably win, there is no question about that, but this selection laziness that has come as a byproduct of sporting arrogance cannot continue, not in any sport, if for no other reason that we have no right to be arrogant anymore.