Keith989
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Posts posted by Keith989
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4 hours ago, JonM said:
Bradford v Halifax 3853
NRL Today
Gold Coast v Dolphins 13 898
St. George v Manly 16 215 in Wollongong
13k for Gold Coast seems very generous.
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21 hours ago, corkonian77 said:
I am completely at a loss.
I was at the Ireland Under 20 Rugby Union hammer Scotland at home in front of 8,400 people. I state that because Ireland have dominated Rugby Union at that age grade in Europe for several years.
With only 4 Provinical teams the system can not cope with the amount of talent coming through. Up 75% of the these squads simply give up as they see no future if they don't get into the provincial union system.
My point being is that they are focusing on average lads in England when talented Irish lads arent even contacted.
It would require quality and regular coaching to get a union/GAA convert upto to any sort of decent standard, which again brings us back to the budget restraints.
A high performance center is needed but I can't see them ever getting the funding for that unfortunately. Even League of Ireland clubs are struggling to get substantial backing.
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37 minutes ago, EggFace said:
Well playing in summer Irish Club Soccer is competing against both codes of the GAA.
So does that mean Rugby Union has the whole winter/spring to themselves ?
You could argue that playing in the summer is when the Premier league clubs are on pre season. Which is more of the same demographic.
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1 hour ago, HawkMan said:
Absolutely, far from being dumb it's actually quite clever. Irish teams in their stride taking on European rivals still in pre season. Didn't an Irish side qualify for a European group phase? Can't remember who, possibly Shamrock.
I'm recent times, Shamrock Rovers have qualified for both the Europa and the conference league and Dundalk have qualified for the Europa league.
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20 hours ago, EggFace said:
So the Irish Soccer Season is played over Summer...how dumb.
Why is that dumb? I'm not saying your wrong, genuine question.
As far as I know a big reason was to help teams compete in European qualifiers, where the big money is.
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9 hours ago, Irish Saint said:
The FAI Cup Final attracted a crowd of over 43,000 at the Aviva Stadium to see St. Pat's defeat Bohemians a couple of weeks ago.
Yeah attendances here are going through a bit of a boom at the moment. It started at such a low base though, so still a long way to go.
Investment in infrastructure will be key to keep the attendances growing.
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1 hour ago, HawkMan said:
The attendance figures seem very similar to Super League ,Wellington isn't great tbf.
Club Total Average Total: 197,999 8,250 14,586 14,586 39,475 13,158 33,044 11,015 28,537 9,512 7,688 7,688 21,104 7,035 13,630 6,815 13,390 6,695 13,104 6,552 5,166 5,166 5,865 2,933 2,410 2,410 Don't a lot of Aussies support Premiership clubs? Is it a similar situation to Ireland where domestic attendances aren't great but the general interest in soccer is very high?
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I think it's a great idea and fair play to the NRL who are doing a lot of things right at the minute.
The NRL signing an Irish rugby union international would certainly put the sport in the spotlight here, I can only imagine the articles and the amount of discussion on forums it would create.
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2 hours ago, unapologetic pedant said:
The NRL are undoubtedly culpable for the low value placed on international RL. But the NZRL have often been their partners in crime.
Bottom line is that the Kiwis currently have a fantastic team. And for a test with the Aussies in Hamilton, they managed to pull half the crowd the Wahs got at the same venue against the Tigers.
A needless headline though, should be focusing on the game and performance of the kiwis to build the competition up and then maybe reflecting on attendances at a later stage. If you could get some sort of consistancy with fixtures you should see attendances rise.
Besides can the Aussies really talk about attendances? The Kangaroos have their own struggles in that regard.
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1 hour ago, Eddie said:
Sounds like a lot of people are complaining about the venue and subsequent poor crowd, which is obviously disappointing but if Mount Smart wasn’t available what can they do
I really think NZs love for rugby is over stated. They struggle with attendances for the national sides in both codes, always have.
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3 minutes ago, Damien said:
It should never have been taken away and was a huge backwards step for the international game. All so SOO wasn't undermined. Again this Pacific Cup should be over SOO weekends without Australia. It would be perfect. Then end of season for other competitions.
Expecting the likes of Samoa and Tonga to compete cold against Australia in a couple of matches at the end of the season is setting them up, and the international game, to fail. Australia have 3 SOO camps and games to get ready for international Rugby League and yes the best players are split over to teams but it still gets combinations etc working. That is a huge advantage when the players of other countries are expected to take up the slack in the NRL and still turn out for their clubs.
Once it's taken away, it's very hard to get back too. Should've never been allowed happen... the mid season pacific tests were fantastic. Much more interesting than this comp.
Is there a chance that Australia are setting this comp up to fail in order to justify having less international matches? I.e. They know the Pacific nations will be woefully under prepared and the resulting blowouts will be uninteresting. Thus justifying have less internationals a year.
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6 hours ago, UTK said:
1. Yes, as long as their home games are in PNG then it's a PNG team. In an ideal world and much much further down the track they would be based there, at this stage that just isn't possible.
2. By bringing NRL matches to PNG for 9 months a year every year as opposed to the 1 month a year they currently receive, as well as providing greater opportunities for PNG nationals to earn a living playing RL.
The $20 Million a season put in by the Australian Government and whatever funds the PNG Government tips in will make up the shortfall commercially, that's without even considering the favour-obtained element of making this deal with the Australian government.
The bottom clubs of the NRL don't set a high bar for attendances, the Sharks barely averaged 11k in their matches at home, the Dragons had 11.7k at Wollongong and 12k at Kogarah, Tigers present a similar average across their Campbelltown/Leichardt games. All of the above regularly fail to attract 10k to home matches. We've had 15k sellouts in Port Moresby for NRL trial games, PMXIII games, Hunters games, and Kumuls games, over a season obviously this won't be sustained but even a 7-8k average would be fine with the other sources of funding. There's also Millions of AUD in sponsorship already invested in the Kumuls, Orchids, Hunters and Digicel Cup. Despite the economic troubles of PNG as a whole there are select wealthy industries and corporations that will jump at the chance to invest in a PNG NRL side.
With all that said, would I have chosen PNG as the next expansion side even with all this government funding - absolutely not. Perth and NZ2 are both exciting opportunities that would add a lot to the game. What I am resigned to is that this will happen, as when V'landys/Abdo go rogue there's rarely any chance of reeling them in. While I think we are several years early for even a Cairns-based proposition, I also feel many of the issues are vastly blown out of proportion and there's a strange standard being applied as to which a PNG club must immediately be entirely self-sufficient/wholly profitable as if several clubs would not have collapsed over the last decade without the NRL stepping in to cover them.
IF we hold on and manage to make this work over the next 5-10 years the talent pool for clubs 19 and 20 will undoubtedly be created, and RL will gain an additional tier 1 International Nation that competes against Australia/NZ/England in perpetuity. This is IMO the only chance we have at elevating another nation to tier 1 status in the next 20 years, a very unique opportunity in RL terms.
On the attendances, the 11k at the Sharks will probably be worth more than a sell out in Port Morseby due to ticket pricing.
I can't believe that people think they're aren't going to be quirks (such as basing in Cairns and playing some home games elsewhere) when having a PI side in a pro competition. I really don't think people are quite grasping the economic realities in PNG.
I remember seeing an article before the Drua's first game where it was mentioned that the price of some tickets were equivalent to a month's wage for most of the country. The situation is supposedly even worse in PNG.
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48 minutes ago, Damien said:
Surely playing for a PNG team would be more attractive for a player than coming to SL with more money too? Im sure they could recruit these kinds of players easily enough. You'd obviously want a core of the best PNG players. You can provide plenty of depth between those two for little cost.
That would probably leave you looking to recruit about 6 higher profile/calibre players for the key spine positions and which they will need to break the bank for, which I'm certain they could do.
Sure they won't be building a premiership wining side from the off but it takes every new club time to settle.
You'd also be surprised what people will do to achieve/keep alive their dreams. I remember watching a documentary about USA basketball players going to Iraq to play pro basketball. I really don't think it's crazy to think that this team will be attractive to foreign players.
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2 minutes ago, Damien said:
And? It's the Cook Islands ffs in a 2nd tier competition with 1 NRL player. What about the sellout crowd against the PM XIII?
Keep trying to compare something in RL negatively to something in RU though.
Wtf?? How am I being negative when I'm trying to point out why they might be talking about moving SOME home games abroad? I could be completely wrong (hopefully) and they could sell out every game with ease, but I think they know the economic challenges of that. The comparison isn't between RL and RU ffs, it's a comparison between Fiji and PNG.
Getting a PNG team into NRL would be an astonishing achievement. Having a PNG team play 75-80% of its games in Port Moresby will be one of the greatest things to ever happen to rugby league.
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4 minutes ago, Damien said:
Well they do for plenty of RL games. As a RL fan surely you know that.
Like the 7800 (that looks generous) that turned up against the cook islands?
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6 minutes ago, Damien said:
Well they have been once you get away from the first sell out, that's why they don't even announce attendances for many games.
I mean PNG having a population about 15 times bigger and a capital city 4 times bigger does help with these things. As does the NRL being a much superior competition than the show that is Super RU.
C'mon you can't seriously be saying this. You know right well the economic and social problems the majority of PNG's face. As if there's going to be thousands travelling from outside the capital to games.
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10 minutes ago, NRLandSL said:
Can’t take this game seriously knowing one of the National teams playing doesn’t have a single player from the country there representing. So Stupidly illegitimate, this is not an international test match, not even close. It’s England Vs a team of Aussies and Kiwis with Tongan Ancestry, Nothing Else.
It’s embarrassing these teams are allowed to take the field in an “International” Match, it’s not very international when the players aren’t at all from the country they play for.
Can you type Tonga into Google maps, then come back and explain how you expect them to field a homegrown side?
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2 minutes ago, Damien said:
I suppose lets just ignore all the small crowds and the fact that the small stadiums simply make them look good relative to the rest of super RU. All cross code though.
If you think the Druas crowds in Fiji are poor, then I'm not sure what chance PNG have? Unless you think PNG fans are going to shell out for every home game?
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Who let the fans into the commentary box?
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Please let this game be close. Another blowout would be heartbreaking.
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25 minutes ago, Damien said:
Drua have done better than Pasifika because they have got a clearer identity. That is precisely why I wouldnt want a PNG team playing in Tonga, Samoa et al. Saying that both Drua and Pasifika get rubbish crowds and the NRL can and should be able to do so much better. They are hardly models to follow.
Drua's crowds have been good in Fiji. There's no chance that the PNG team will play in Tonga and Samoa would only be able to host at most one game a season. I think it's more likely that a couple of games will be in in Aus and the rest in PNG.
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1 minute ago, Bamboozle said:
Can’t see many players been keen on constantly flying for both “home” and away games.
I think you'd be surprised what players are willing to do. Beggars can't be choosers so to speak.
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Just now, Bamboozle said:
I think the main issue is where the team will be based rather than taking a few “home” games on the road.
Again, that isn't a issue IMO and makes it more attractive for players to sign for the side.
We need to remember how everyone (including myself) thought it would be near impossible to have PI sides in top level professional competitions. You're going to have quirks in order to make them work.
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I don't think taking a few games away from Port Morseby is a bad thing at all, nor would it dilute their identity. The Drua does something similar and the team doesn't feel any less Fijian.
It's unrealistic to expect PNG to be able to get big crowds Week in week out, year on year too. This eases the pressure on that front a bit.
Joey Manu
in The General Rugby League Forum
Posted
Yeah RU is getting very serious in Japan, just a couple of weeks ago Osaka got almost 10k in attendance (in the 2nd division!). They are actually hoovering up the best SH talent, so much so, it's now incredible rare an All Black joins Europe instead of Japan.
I wonder if Joey is doing his "apprenticeship" in Japan first, then joining a super rugby franchise in order to try become an AB? Otherwise it's just purely money driven.