VNRL Reborn
When dark clouds began to gather over Chris Cox’s VNRL in 2007, Rusty Shackleford decided to prepare for the closure of the website. He manually created his own tournament and named his new competition VNRL – a league which is celebrating its tenth season in 2017.
By JOSHUA WELLS
WHEN VNRL collapsed into the abyss known as “corporate greed” following the 2007 NRL season, Rusty Shackleford decided to put himself to work and keep his fantasy football career alive.
He called on nine other rugby league tragics in early 2008 on a forum and decided he would manually run the competition – and thus VNRL born (Shackleford’s league – not the site).
“I managed to gear up a group of 10 guys and we ran a VNRL comp the manual, old school way,” he told NRLCEO.
“We updated ladders manually every week.
Virtual NRL went old school and manually ran the competition in 2008.
“Posted our teams manually each round and calculated scores manually every week.
“It was hard, manual labour.”
Ever since then, the competition has gone from strength to strength with Rusty at helm.
He has kept his dream alive almost single handily for a decade.
The feat is made more remarkable by the fact most players don’t actually know each other in VNRL – long considered a staple to holding a good competition.
But Rusty and his rivals have blown the theory out of the water.
“Our comp has kept running continuously, it has become less manual of course since we discovered NRLCEO, and we still have four original players from 2008,” Rusty said.
Before NRLCEO and TheBench websites all player transactions were tracked in a spreadsheet
“The best thing is how easy NRLCEO is to manage – especially with the iPhone App. I think it has strengthened now and has all the tools we need to run a great fantasy competition.”
“The concepts have always been the same. I think with having Facebook groups and all that, it’s become a bit more intimate — heaps of banter during the draft times.
“The banter, which mostly gets done on social media [is relatively new and it is] something that was nowhere near as popular in 2007.
“Instead you’d relied on a forum or the like.”
Despite all the good times rolling for the largely anonymous league, the negatives have also threatened the very existence of one of the longest running fantasy tournaments in Australia.
Three years ago, a few personalities began to clash and in fighting had become the norm.
The issues were largely based around rule changes and point scoring with three players leaving the competition.
“And it looked like it could have been the end of the comp,” Rusty said.
“However, we pulled through and managed to gain three more hardcore players that were keen and VNRL lives on.”
When this scribe humbly asked for a photo to accompany this story, VNRL player Scott replied simply with “Knowing this group it, it would be us on the toilet at some time during the day”.
And such is a day in the life of VNRL.
A brief Q & A with VNRL Commissioner Rusty Shackleford
Joshua Wells: How did the VNRL come about?
Rusty Shackleford: Well it all goes back to 2001. I was still in school at the time, and a guy called Chris Cox created the first fantasy rugby league game called VNRL. I was hooked from then on. In 2003 and 2004, I helped count stats and do a few other things for the site; we had quite a few helpers and plenty of passionate VNRL tragics. Unfortunately, due to some corporate greed, VNRL shut down for the 2005 and 2006 season. It re-opened in 2007 when an agreement was made again (if I recall correctly) with the stat providers, but at the end of 2007, things went south again and greed won again. VNRL in its original form was officially defunct.
JW: What is VNRL’s crowning achievement?
RS: When talking about the greatest ever moment, the other guys will probably say when I lost multiple grand finals in a row through epic chokes. However, I have to say, the greatest moment was when one of our guys, Tim Elliott aka Zombie Horde, who finished fifth in 2013 and ended up winning the comp. No idea how, his team, was pretty average, but he managed to score multiple 60+ point games during the finals to win the comp and every other team he played had shockers. He was definitely the Steven Bradbury of the comp in the end.
JW: What is the funniest story you can think of when it comes to VNRL?
RS: The funniest moment I can recall was in 2007* when I had to dump Andrew Johns (first pick) from my squad when he retired in April that year — only for one of the other guys to dump his own first pick in Craig Fitzgibbon (he had to dump him to free up cap space) and pick up Andrew Johns. Little did he read the news. Due to the rules at the time, any player dumped could not be recruited again, so he was left without both Fitzgibbon AND Johns. He must have thought he won the lotto when he saw Andrew Johns available, but as the saying goes “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”.
* This story relates to the league when it was played on VNRL the website. VNRL as it stands was formed in 2008.
JW: What was the lowest point for the VNRL?
RS: The lowest low was probably a few years ago when we had three people leave. We had couple of personality clashes, and some of them hated how the comp was run in terms of rules/points etc. Three dropped out for the following year and it looked like it could have been the end of the comp. However, we pulled through and managed to gain three more hardcore players that were keen — VNRL lives on.
Here are the teams involved in Virtual NRL. From Bangers and Cash to Sin City Sedatives…
JW: Biggest change since VNRL launched in 2008
RS: Thoughts over 10 years? Just all the great memories. The funny banter, the funny personalities. And all the ridiculous chokes and crazy trades people have made. The way we decide the draft order (Horse/dog/cattle/sheep races) is a highlight each year. And sometimes when your favourite NRL team is getting smashed by 30, you quietly hope that the opposition puts on another 20 because you have some really good players in the opposition and you kind of really need the win in VNRL! That’s an interesting conundrum that we’ve all gone through in the last 10 years of playing this game.
Josh Wells
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