Sports Prophet

Anthony Mundine has put his hand up to take the job on for this series

They will want to be. Two new teams need talent to fill them up. Perth would be ripe to recruit and nurture talented British 18 year olds aspiring to make the most of their talents.

I was fortunate enough to see some RL played there. I saw Latvia play Ukraine in Riga in 2009 I think. Also Estonia v Ukraine in Tallin in 2008 I think. Both cities were wonderful for that Soviet Bloc style architecture you are searching for @The Hallucinating Goose . I visited Tallinn in the bitter cold and Riga in a lovely summer. I also find that commie style era of architecture fascinating. Especially on a sunny day where the buildings shine through as if to tell stories or years upon years of suppression and escaping communism. I haven’t been to Lithuania unfortunately. I find similar styles in Poland and Czech Republic, outside of Prague. Who needs a Mrs Goose when you have so many wonderful Eastern and Central European geese to gander at.

I watched highlights of Gold Coast beating the table topping Collingwood (who only played their first game outside Melbourne for 9 weeks and second in 12) at home in front of 22,831. The place looked pretty full and prompted me to check some attendance figures for the year. The Suns have played 5 home games there for an average of 16,378. That is pretty impressive for the GC and definitely proof the game is growing roots there. So I looked at previous 10 seasons. Of non-COVID affected: 2024 - 16,919 (season avg) 2023 - 14,552 2022 - 12,360 2019 - 11,834 2018 - 13,593 2017 - 14,017 2016 - 11,561 So last year they emphatically broke the 15k season avg marker at Carrara for the first time and are well placed to break 17, or even 18k mark this year with bigger crowds in their last four matches as the business end of the season draws near and they compete with seven other clubs all within one win of each other, fighting for a top 3 and 4 spot.

Yeah, as good as the data you shared is, there will certainly be more to the story than simply the figures you’ve shown. I’m not standing in the corner of those who think Catalans add nothing to SL by the way. Nor am I unappreciative of the research you’ve done and shared.

Great table Tommy. I do have one potential explanation for lower crowds to add to your investigation. I would like you to demonstrate of all those fixtures for each club which were lower than Dragons matches: 1. how many of those lower crowds were Thursday night fixtures? and… 2. which clubs hosted Catalans on a Thursday night?

So the come back was your fault. Please don’t say stupid things like that in a Sharks game again Irish

Good half from the Fins. Hopefully that takes a lot of juice outta the Phins for the second half. Annoying the Fins couldn’t get their act together to organise a scrum to stop the clock at the end there, considering how good field position was.

Make or break for those who think of themselves as contenders. State of Origin is over, this is where teams must not leave anything on the pitch. Every game against the other contenders is a four point swing ballgame. Teams can swiftly disappear from contention after SOO. It’s always an exciting part of the NRL season immediately after Origin. Let’s go Sharkies

Yes, soggy. The best of all adjectives for The Shay. That would have been the truest of description for any of my visits there I can remember.

Looks like Steve Mortimore

I didn’t. Yes let’s.

I know what you are saying here. I don’t know if it is true or not, @Damien suggests it isn’t. I don’t know either way. If you are right, I can’t imagine it being by much. Would Warrington fans turn out in drastically bigger numbers for a Friday night home match v KR or FC than they would for Dragons? Then to the away fan argument, would either of those clubs bring thousands of extra fans than the Dragons for a Friday night match? I can’t imagine the numbers being too drastically different. For me one of the most obvious opportunities which the SL is not taking advantage of is playing all matches in a single time slot. It would immediately maximise live RL coverage for four days of the week. Give more people, more opportunities to watch more matches live, either at the ground or televised. More people watching more matches equals more ratings, equals more, equals more profile and coverage, corporate interest and partnerships, equals more funding, equals more development programmes, equals more players, equals more teams, equals more matches, equals more matches for people to watch, equals more people watching more matches. It’s the flywheel which SL ignores because clubs are too short sighted.

That is supposedly the whole purpose of grading the clubs right. Those rankings are from last year though. Surely updated rankings this year would see London slide way down. Shows how poor an idea points grading is though. How do you promote points grading and then promote teams with less points? This system boxes administrators in a corner. The licensing model was tremendously better. A, B and C licences. All A’s in SL. If that doesn’t fill the 14 spots, then choose any one of the best placed B licence clubs to meet the strategy of SL.

Yeah I haven’t been following that thread either and this subject seems off topic to that title. I can’t be bothered to go through it all either to discuss this topic. I suppose there is a hint on the other thread that Bradford potentially taking a spot and Nigel’s connection to that club is being discussed? Anyway, this suggestion also goes hand in hand with the increased international quota as well. Should two more teams be added, is there enough British talent immediately available to satisfy those two more teams? Adding two new teams with spared central funding is so ridiculous that it wouldn’t surprise me if it happened. 14 team SL makes for a simple 26 H&A season and a top 6 finals looks a little more respectable. Also makes 32 top flight clubs globally which is a great number for a simple WCC knock out series I’ve always thought 14 is a number the SL needs to get to and get to quickly. SL crowds have increased, as has the profile, so choosing a club/S which are best placed to swiftly build with that momentum would be important.