DC77
-
Posts
700 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by DC77
-
-
9 hours ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:
It’s a cycle of lots of coverage and popularity breeds more popularity and coverage. If you look at the top soccer league in Australia A-League the attendances are lower than the NRL, probably similar to Super League. If a sport is hidden away out of sight people will not come flocking to it. It’s why we need to get as much coverage as possible on free to air tv.
But Liverpool FC could fill a stadium in Australia that no NRL team could.
A lot of it is down to the quality.
-
11 hours ago, HawkMan said:
I wouldn't be too hopeful, a nephew of mine is on a potential 5 year waiting list for a S.T. I think he said Chelsea, not sure.
As has been stated a few posts above football attendances are still growing. For every disaffected fan who leaves another takes his place.
RL really has to hope figures improve in 2022.
Two reasons I don’t get anyone hoping another sport has less followers/viewers. 1.its sad. 2.it ain’t going to impact your own chosen sport.
I don’t know if it’s just a RL thing (I’ve mainly been around football (and there’s none of it there) so can’t speak about other sports), but it serves no purpose. You might get comments like egg chasers or toffs game, but never come across anyone who’d actively want to see less follow them. If RL struggles to grab attention the focus/envy shouldn’t be on a sport that gets most (or even the other rugby code RU which doesn’t get much either), the focus should be on what can be done to make RL more appealing.
Wigan vs Leeds, 7k for a playoff game. That’s where the focus should be. What changes can be done to entice more to watch the game.
-
3 hours ago, Futtocks said:
I think that cheque also gives her the highest earnings of any British female sports star. Nice to see Virginia Wade in the crowd, and Emma's got some sort of inspirational rapport with Tim Henman going on too. Linking with generations of former players.
Never seen him look so nervous as in that last game she had.
3 hours ago, moorside roughyed said:That must go down as the best result for a British sports competitor. 18 years old,came through qualifiers,won the title. Absolutely amazing.
One of the best results for anyone. Her second event, plays ten rounds and doesn’t lose a set to win the whole thing. It’s unprecedented. Can’t ever recall a career go from zero to 100 in a matter of weeks. She has won a slam and has yet to feature in the main draw. It was also the manner in which she won it. It was unflappable dominance throughout. Way before my time but Pele winning the World Cup as a 17 year old and scoring twice in the final is another quick-fire humongous success that springs to mind. Olga Korbut as a 17 year old winning the floor event at the Olympics and redefining gymnastics is possibly another (tho gymnastics is a very young people’s event, so not really that out of the ordinary for her age).
1 hour ago, clogdance said:What an incredible achievement, well done Emma !
Her display is the result of being in a sport that has given women a fair chance...
-
On 24/08/2021 at 17:51, Mumby Magic said:
This month is turning by not 2016 all over again. Wtf.
Never seen a year like it. Bowie and Rickman inside 4 days.
On 25/08/2021 at 11:45, Robin Evans said:I was chuckling at the news last night.
Just how much gear was Charlie shifting in the 70s that meant Keith Richards of all people had to have a word with him!
The walking, talking miracle that is Keef. Docs have long since given up trying to work him out. His obituary has been sitting on the shelves for a good half century. Didn’t he fall from a coconut tree a few years back?
-
51 minutes ago, Griff said:
And yet life carries on here as normally as it did eighteen months ago.
Astonishing how resiliant we are on the big island.
“Virus riddled” is what Aussies are thinking, and for a largely unvaccinated Aussie populous that’s dangerous. Our situation is much better than theirs due to the vaccine roll out, but without vaccinations it would be a different story.
The Aussies are now where we were March/April/May of last year.
I get this insular thinking (the RLWC must happen this year, the Aussies are jeopardising it). I was exactly like this in regards to the Premier League shutting down with Liverpool 25 points clear and only a 10 games left (maximum 30 available). My thought process was dominated by Liverpool missing out on a league title. But many people were dying. It was hard to park any thoughts of the league, and I don’t think I did. Had I been impacted directly (family member for example) that would have very quickly made me see sense.
-
15 hours ago, Cumbrian Fanatic said:
Its a tad cheeky telling them they can't go rather than asking their opinion on whether they want to, or are prepared to go
The Kiwis cannot return home to NZ. It makes no sense to then say okay but you can travel 10k miles across the world.
The Aussies have been very consistent with this. To ignore what is happening in Australia and only focus on what you think should happen is insular thinking.
-
38 minutes ago, Damien said:
Who cares? They did not sign any statement and haven't been mentioned throughout this whole saga. They are not top flight leagues. Again that does not change what I replied to or what you replied to, which was regarding NRL players. Aren't the Hunters owned by the PNG RL anyway?
Look you tried to be smart, failed then moaned about splitting hairs when what you said was incorrect. The only person splitting hairs is the one trying to say its 10 and not 9. Now that is splitting hairs.
They are under the NRL umbrella though.
I had a look on Wikipedia and counted nine Aus based PNG players (most in the lower league), half the squad. On a side note looking at their squad I was surprised that a team made up of quite a few lower league players were able to beat GB quite recently.
Basically anyone who plays in Aus, their participation in the RlWC was compromised due to the measures Australia as a nation are taking towards this pandemic. Had they been where we are then yeah, the virus would have been a non issue with regard to playing. They aren’t though, the Kiwis not being able to get back to NZ before Christmas just an example of that. If they cannot get back home to NZ it’s a tad cheeky to expect them to travel halfway around the world. A town gets 100 cases in Aus they go berserk, here we have towns with 5k cases and everything is open. With the vaccine roll out here it’s a very different situation to Aus.
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:
That would all be fantastically true if the sabotage plan was limited to Australians and Kiwis.
Because that failed to collapse the World Cup as they had hoped, the NRL and its clubs turned to pressuring the players of other nations and the Indigenous squads into not going. Much in the same way they did over the England vs Kiwis game in Denver.
Again, for people so concerned with "player welfare", it is truly shocking that the RLPA stated they weren't even asked prior to the Kiwi and Kangaroo withdrawal. Its almost like it has nothing to do with player welfare!
If you believe this is anything but self interested NRL sabotage, you're kidding yourself.
Aussies and Kiwis who play for Aus and NZ is the same thing as the other Aussie and Kiwi born NRL based players who play for other nations. The NRL.com fella outlined this as being the major reason for their reluctance to go. With RU (wallabies) it’s just one group of players, likewise the Aussie Olympians all under the roof of one building, whereas with RL it’s a group of players who represent most (if not all?) the 16 teams in the competition who would be spread out and sharing facilities with the general public. Such a spread out group cannot be contained. In Australia they are taking such drastic measures that NZ players are stuck in Aus until Christmas.
Take the little Englander approach if you want, the Aussies ain’t bowing down to anyone.
-
The more I hear from the Aussie side on this (the last being the BBC podcast from 5 August which I heard yesterday) the more the English response reeks of the insular “little Englander”.
The NZ players from the NRL have been stuck in Aus and cannot get back to NZ before Christmas. And yet we have folk here, including esteemed folk on Forty20, claiming the virus is just an excuse for the Aussies/Kiwis not travelling 10,000 miles to a virus riddled island and that there is an ulterior motive. The BBC presenter, after hammering the Aussies in multiple BBC podcasts, finally gave the Aussies a brief consideration after hearing about the extreme situation in Aus from the NRL.com fella. How gracious of him.
I get now why Vlandys responded in the way he did (not a colonial outpost, we are a sovereign nation).
-
1
-
3
-
-
3 hours ago, The Rocket said:
We do still hear the names of English clubs mentioned by our commentators but certainly not in the reverential tones that they were spoken of in 30 years ago. Clubs like Wigan had a mythical status to a young Rugby League fan (was that the club whose jersey was described as `blood and bandages`) and games like the CC final were on FTA over here live early in the morning.
I remember a time in the eighties when there was a host of great English backs playing in the NRL, Lydon, Currier, Schofield, Hanley, Connolly, all class acts who used to be every bit as good as the Aussies and often better. We love having the great English forwards over here, Ward, Morley, etc. etc. etc. but it was the backs they really got you excited about English League. I believe Oliver Gildart is coming to play for the Tigers next year, I know absolutely nothing about him but I`m really looking forward to it.
Another thing that never helps is the Club Challenge with Australian teams travelling to England every year, not even having played a game and often with a host of players sitting it out and more often than not giving the English side 6 weeks into your season a drubbing or certainly winning pretty comfortably. None of this helps the general perception that English Rugby League has fallen off the pace. I think we`ve won 16 out of the last 20.
Another thing I hear a lot of is if it only wasn`t for Dugan`s ankle tap on Grace, and someone`s no-try in Melbourne then the English team may have beaten us, but the fact was they didn`t and didn`t again. When they start winning those close games time and time again then Australian League supporters will sit up.
Best thing that can happen to NH League now is to get Toulouse into your competition. NH League needs more cashed up glamour teams that can put together world class teams and pay top dollar for the very best, this might bring the top young athletes back into you sport and we might start to see a few of those world class backs we used to see that we all so enjoyed and got people excited about watching international Rugby League.
An Aussie, saying better quality in the NH, will get Aussies excited about watching international RL.
....and yet there’s some on here (in fantasy land) who think the opposite. That a stronger England, and a challenge to Aussie dominance, will see Aussies have even less interest.
The Aussie has spoken folks.
Also agree with the stars point. From what I’ve seen Schofield was a maverick of a player. I enjoy listening to him partly for this reason. He also detested the stifling style of Wayne Bennett with England and demanded a return to their open running style of old. That ankle tap on Grace game you mention, that was an 80 minute arm wrestle.
This point about the lack of eye catching players I’ve touched on previously, and put it down to the more defensive nature of the game today. RU certainly has killed almost all creativity with the field now overcrowded with mammoth players. RL hasn’t gone as far down this attritional path, but it’s not as open or swashbuckling as previous.
Stars are vital for the growth of any sport. With Messi leaving Barcelona one commentator today called him a “tourist attraction” in that wherever he plays next (possibly Paris) people will travel from everywhere to that location just to see him in the flesh. Not that I’m comparing a RL player (or a player in any sport) to Messi as his status is on another level but RL (certainly in England) doesn’t have one player that is a draw, that would make a non RL devotee, or an Aussie, or dare I say it even a RL devotee, tune in to watch him and his team. I remember being glued to the screen when Ronaldo (Brazilian) played for Barcelona, likewise Lomu with NZ...every time they got the ball they lit up the place. With this RLWC being postponed, there wasn’t any star/household name for the media to grab hold of for a response, so there wasn’t much noise about it.
-
On 08/08/2021 at 08:28, fighting irish said:
Do you think, I would bother to write these comments, if I didn't believe them?
The fact that they don't look outside ''their shores'' is confirmation that they are insular. If they don't respect other nations players then they are willfully blind and the reason for that is they have very strong (commercial) reasons for maintaining the mystical aura around the SoO series.
So they have a huge vested interest in SoO (which is already declining in popularity).
You know, although I notice you've never acknowledged it, that Tonga, and New Zealand have defeated Australia recently and England have pushed them to very narrow victory. It's reasonable to claim then, that both those teams, and perhaps England, would beat Queensland and New South Wales.
When you add in, that PNG beat a tired GB side, you must admit standards are rising in the Pacific. This is cause for concern amongst the NRL/SoO barons and is the justification for my comment that they (the NRL) would see (the developing, ''beefed up'') International competition as a challenger to SoO supremacy in the hearts and minds of the viewing public.
A stronger, International (World Cup) would obviously (eventually) overtake SoO in class and that means megabuck losses in revenue to the ''insular'' NRL.
Be honest, aren't you also more than a tad, ''willfully blind''?
You could only class them as insular if it was across the board, but it isn’t. It’s solely restricted to RL that they don’t look outside their shores. If for example Super League was a billion pound league, with Anfield, Old Trafford, Emirates etc. as RL grounds, and a couple of million in England were playing the sport as opposed to the 44k figure Sport England put out, I think we can be pretty sure the Aussies would be looking up here, a lot. Most of the best Aussie players would be playing over here too as opposed to coming over for a few weeks at the end of their career. The Aussies would be salivating at the prospect of all this, as it would raise the game even more in Australia knowing there was another big player in town. The tv companies would be building games up much like they do with the Ashes, much like they once did with the Bledisloe Cup.
English rugby league (the only other pro league outside Aus) just isn’t a big enough player to turn heads in Aus, and until that changes (which Toronto may have provided a decent first step) they will continue to look towards their own league. NZ RL really is an extension of Aussie RL (especially having a club in it) so them winning the odd game will not cause much of a ripple in Aus. NZ RL in some ways is akin to Welsh football in that both have a pro team(s) in their next door neighbours league (NZ Warriors in Aus, Swansea/Cardiff City in Eng). If NZ RL was the size/standard of the all blacks, with their own top league, income, sizeable playing pool etc. that would be a different story. They be seen as genuine challengers to Aussie supremacy. They would also have won more than one RLWC in half a century that’s for sure.
-
2
-
2
-
-
On 07/08/2021 at 22:40, Exiled Wiganer said:
I have tried to follow your train of thought, but i am really struggling to see what the point your trying to make is. If it’s NRL have loads of money and the Aussies never lose so they view the international game differently from us, then, err, yes that’s so. I think that would be worth a separate thread, but what this thread is about (without being presumptuous) is THIS World Cup and what they have done over to the rest of the game in the last 3 weeks.
If their view has always been exactly as you describe, then they should have raised this in one of the dozens of meetings they attended, seeing first hand the real live thousands of hours spent by hundreds of people to put this together. They could have saved everyone a great deal of trouble by withdrawing at any time earlier than when they chose to do so - on 4 minutes notice. Pretty much everyone on this thread knows the reality of where the power resides, what matters here is how that power has been exercised.
By all means, though, start a thread on reasons why the Aussies are justified in viewing the rest of the world with contempt. I think that would be an interesting discussion point.
I’m coming from a more neutral perspective as an outsider with no foot in either camp, so I’m not taking sides here.
The international game not offering loads (or any?) money is tied into the reason the Aussies have pulled out of the RLWC. I believe they are genuine with their concern over covid (their lockdown in Australia would back this up) and that there is no ulterior motive, but at the same time had the international game been lucrative, meaning the Aussies (and all the NRL players they send out to the other teams) could receive no expense spared top notch facilities, travel, hotels etc, they’d currently be planning to play in the tournament. The fella from NRL.com on the BBC podcast spoke about players having to share facilities with the public. This is in contrast to their other sports teams including the Olympians.
The 4 minutes notice I agree was shabby. Dutton has been a class act (even going as far as to apologise for the tournament not happening) so the Aussies could learn a thing or two about decorum. Not sure I agree with withdrawing earlier as the covid situation in Oz changed. Look at the Olympics, spectators were only prevented from attending a matter of weeks before the games, so nobody can really plan too far ahead. The Premier League kicks off this weekend, full stadiums, I’m wondering for how long for. We are at the mercy of this virus.
-
1
-
1
-
-
57 minutes ago, fighting irish said:
They see the growth of the International Game as direct competitor to State of Origin and something which can undermine their claim that SoO is the highest standard of RL in the World.
Their wholehearted support for the International game, could see it grow rapidly, and provide the lucre, you claim would change their attitude.
Their support is virtually non-existent, as you know and it is the threat to the credibility of their claims about SoO and the resulting downturn in the fortunes of SoO which a hugely successful World Cup would bring about, that prevents them from giving it the backing they should.
How naive we were to think that we all wanted the same thing.
“They see the growth of the International Game as direct competitor to State of Origin and something which can undermine their claim that SoO is the highest standard of RL in the World.”
Do you genuinely believe this? Didn’t State of Origin take off because of the absence of a top quality international scene? When the Aussies make those great player lists they don’t look outside their shores (which maybe gingerjon would see as insular). They don’t respect the standard outside Australia, and will only consider including a player in such a list who has played in the NRL. I’ve heard in NRL commmetary “such and such a player is good enough for an Queensland/NSW jumper”. Again, this could be construed as insular, or it could just be (like their greatest players list and the NRL) they see Origin as the highest level.
Don’t English lads talk about the prospect of playing in the NRL as being the ultimate for them? Think I heard a few in the Mick Gledhill podcasts. Players in the Scottish Premiership do this with the Premier League.
-
1
-
1
-
-
57 minutes ago, Dave T said:
I mean, it was obvious you were clueless, and pretty close to being a troll, you didn't need to be quite so obvious with this.
It was a genuine question. To win a three (now four) nations, does it carry much weight? The RLWC you know you face the best of what the opposition has to offer.
-
1 hour ago, Keith989 said:
Tell that to the Irish national sides... Don't you understand that it's only now we are seeing the effects of the premier league becoming a global league on us? Scotland with it's fully domestic league and Wales with their fully pro teams in the English leagues are the ones who qualified, whilst we are begging players with Irish grannies in league one to play for us. Is this a coincidence? maybe... Even if it is, there is not one argument that you can make where supporting foreign clubs is beneficially to Irish football on the whole.
Ive just outlined that in spite of having a pro domestic league, the Scottish national team has deteriorated to an extent it now has a single quality player (two if being generous). And cherry picking them qualifying for a solitary tournament backs up your point does it? Can I join in? Oh here goes....Ireland qualified for the previous Euros, and in doing so we beat defending world champions Germany, and at the tournament we beat Italy which saw us get out of the group. “Don’t you understand”....Ireland are great!
The deterioration in the Irish national team echoes what has happened to Scotland....there ain’t the quality coming through. Mr J. Giles has spoken often about this, as has the Dunph.
-
11 hours ago, gingerjon said:
This is why it is important to make it clear that the NRL is insular even in comparison with other Australians and Australian sports. It is so insular that it gets a nosebleed at the prospect of playing in Adelaide or Perth.
But surely if Aussies aren’t insular, why would a league run by Aussies be?
It’s a successful multi billion dollar (Aus) league, they are not incompetent. If something is lucrative, they are not going to turn their nose up at that.
-
On 06/08/2021 at 15:30, Big Picture said:
Gary Carter writing for The Sun reports that Australia and New Zealand could go unpunished after World Cup postponement.
Ultimately the breadwinner cannot be punished. It just happened recently with the Premier League not punishing (to any great degree) the “big six” clubs who were attempting to break away to form a European Super League. Those six clubs generate the most interest and money, and the others rely on them for the vast sums they make. Australia provides how many players across the 16 RLWC teams? It’s a big number. You alienate them they then completely close the door and there is no RLWC again. It unfortunate, but it’s reality.
-
2
-
1
-
-
On 06/08/2021 at 12:39, Keith989 said:
That's a problem with most European nations, like I said Irish players are now competing against players from across the globe for spots in academies and squads in England, that's one of the main reasons why there has been such a massive decline in the amount of premier league players produced here. Not having a fully professional domestic league to fall back on, where players could compete in European competitions instead of wasting away in the lower leagues in England is criminal.
Scotland are producing far more top level players than we are (hence why they were playing at the euros while we were losing to Luxemburg) and have always had better strength in depth due to their strong domestic league. Once again the "granny" rule has masked where Irish football really is for decades, the only thing is now we are pulling "plastic paddies" out of league one instead of the premier league.
“Hence why they are playing at the Euros”... good lord. The Scots should sign you up as their PR man. Their first tournament in how long? And a tournament that’s become so enlarged that it’s almost harder not to qualify for it.
Comparatively speaking, Scotland have declined far more than Ireland in that the Scots could have picked an entire squad full of top class talent, now it’s restricted to Andy Robertson (Ryan Tierney too, If being generous). That’s it. From Ally McCoist banging them in for Rangers, to who? *crickets* From Alec McLeish and Willie Miler forming a imperious central defensive partnership for an Aberdeen team who beat Real Madrid to win the UEFA Cup Winners Cup....to who? *crickets* From Dalglish, Souness, Hansen, Law and the greatest Scottish (and Celtic) player ever, Jimmy Johnstone, to who? *crickets*
This decline in spite of having a professional domestic league. The reason for their decline is the same as here, not enough kids are being produced because of the decline in street football which is where most of the previous talent came from. None better than Georgie Best who developed his game on a playing field in his Cregagh estate (now since protected). Where once there were playing fields, now there are housing estates and supermarkets. What’s happened is because the sport is global, Premier League clubs can now fill any shortage of players from Scotland or Ireland with players from around the world that still have street football (front three at Liverpool, Salah from Egypt, Mane from Senegal, Firmino from Brazil, are all a product from playing on the street).
-
1
-
1
-
-
18 hours ago, theswanmcr said:
I know what you are saying and especially agree with last point that we and others need to get to that level.
Of course the irony is that this World Cup promised to be the most competitive challenge for Australia yet - with 4 teams capable of winning it. Still way off other sports and they are still favourites but a big step forward.
And ultimately it’s the sport’s World Cup. Even if you win it every time, even if you are a class or more above everyone else and even if you don’t respect it as a competition… the sport’s administration/should have the decency to respect others who do see it in a better light than you and not pull out with 4 minutes notice.
While I agree they should have handled it better (4 minutes notice), their general apathy towards international RL is completely understandable, unless you are blinkered.
They have played in every previous RLWC, so they haven’t disrespected it, and in all that time the dial hadn’t budged in terms of “growing the game”. As it happens I think they are genuine in pulling out due to their concern with covid as they are taking extreme measures in Australia, similar to here at the start. The Aussie Olympic team is in a bubble, and competitors go home when they are done. Both the Aussie cricket and RU team are in a bubble when they tour. In contrast players from the NRL would be spread out over 16 international teams, and would have shared facilities with the general public. This is the reason they gave for the differing attitude with other sports. Of course if the RLWC was lucrative they’d almost certainly go the extra mile to make sure they (and the other NRL players) were there. With extra funds from the tournament they would also be able to afford the cost of top notch accommodation, transport, facilities etc.
-
5
-
1
-
-
6 hours ago, theswanmcr said:
Yes some good points in that previous post. However I think most people are critiquing the NRL and not Aussies and there is a difference.
NRL want to reduce the number of international opportunities to suit their players and needs eg the incredulous no games ever 4th year and no games ‘in season’ as they stupidly call it.
Of course the SL are the same with too many games and also RFL with the challenge cup.
Until somehow we go back to the national associations being able to implement fixture planning then we’ll never change things as the clubs are (as ever it was) all powerful.
The thing I’m referring to is Aussies routinely get labelled “insular” (even John Davidson, an Aussie, did so this week) which is complete nonsense as it is contradicted by every other sport they participate. When they got zero golds in the Montreal Olympics they started the Institute of Sport in response...there’s also a constant rivalry with how many medals GB has won. When it’s Ashes time the country comes to a standstill. When they played Italy in the 2006 FIFA World Cup the tv viewership was over 4 million for a game played in the middle of the morning. When RU was popular there they got huge ratings especially for epic games vs NZ when they were the two best teams. When it’s competitive, and lucrative, Aussies (like anyone) are interested. International RL has been neither of those two things for a long time. When tv stations show old footage of games which one in Australia is going to show a clip of the ‘71 RLWC final played before 3k in France? It’s small time. This is contrasted by their domestic game which is lauded (think of the epic gladiators image from around the same era that is replicated on the NRL trophy). They created/elevated the state of origin series because they had to. There was a void that needed to be filled as international RL did not provide what is required.
If and when international RL becomes competitive and also becomes financially rewarding then the Aussies (which includes the NRL) will give it more attention.
4 hours ago, Scubby said:Tournaments in the last 20 years
Won - 2004 Tri Nations, 2006 Tri Nations, 2010 Tri Nations, 2013 World Cup, 2016 Four Nations, 2017 World Cup - 2 WC, 4 Tri/4 Nations
Lost - 2005 Tri Nations, 2008 World Cup, 2011 Four Nations, 2014 Four Nations - 1 WC 3 Tri/4 Nations
Won 6 Lost 4
Plenty of other teams have dominated as much or more than this in the last 20 years.
The tri (four) nations, honestly how serious is that taken? And do Aussies send their full strength XIII for these?
In the event this thread is about, the RLWC, they have lost one tournament in half a century. The only world championship (of the top of my head) with dominance comparable to this is Phil Taylor in darts.
I watched Penrith games recently (the few before they got thumped by Melbourne) and it was like watching a different sport. Nathan Cleary was orchestrating things unlike anything I’d seen in Super League. Until such time that gulf in quality is bridged Aussies won’t go out of their way to arrange games here, much like England’s (justified) attitude towards France. There has to be something close to parity, or a continuous challenge, to fire up public/player interest in Australia. That must be the long term goal for England and others.
-
1
-
3
-
-
1 hour ago, Scubby said:
Have England lost to France of 2 on the last 4 occasions? Australia has won only 2 test matches in 5 years and lost the other two they have played (including to a tier 2 nation). Yet the international field is deemed not competitive by them? I don't buy it.
They have dominated the sport unlike any national team in any other sport. Half a century bar one RLWC of complete dominance. And losing one tournament doesn’t affect you when it’s rare. It’s greeted with a shrug. For Australia to pay any attention to the game outside Australia there has to be a challenge, a sustained challenge.
2 hours ago, Spidey said:Balls. If they claim to be the best in world, they have to play the rest of the world
Half a century of near complete dominance, yeah they are the best. By a long long way. With a lack of competition outside the club game they elevated State of Origin to fill the gap.
2 hours ago, Damien said:Apathy is also caused by not paying games whilst other events like SOO are promoted as the pinnacle instead.
Apathy caused State of Origin to take off.
If the situation was the same in cricket with little competition outside Australia there’d be a state of Origin in Aussie cricket to match RL.
-
1
-
1
-
-
19 hours ago, Big Picture said:
Unfortunately, what you described there won't change if and when the NRL gets control over the International game. They don't have any answers to that situation any more than British RL administrators do.
I agree that the NRL running the game won’t change a thing. They are pushing a wide open door in Australia. The onus is on the people running the game here to have a better plan. Toronto I feel was a way forward as I can only see growth happening if it comes from outside these shores where there isn’t any perception of what RL is (a regional game detached from those outside it), but they were treated pretty shabbily imo.
Vlandys, Gould and co. don’t come across well at all, but the general criticism of Australia I have never got. Their apathy towards the game outside Aus is fully warranted. As 17 stone giant rightly points out, Aussies are not insular when it comes to sport, in fact they are arguably the least insular as it’s their major chance to shine on the world stage. The problem is RL doesn’t give them the competitive or financial incentive that is required. Won every RLWC bar one for half a century, won every series against GB for half a century. Winning is humdrum when it’s that frequent. Of course it’s the opposite for GB (or Eng) as having not won in so long winning would then become monumental, but you can’t judge them by your own standards. You have to take a step back and see it from both sides. Then there’s the financial disparity. If your domestic league is worth billions (Aus), and a what is deemed a successful RLWC makes £4 million, this affects the Aussie brand. The Aussie media builds up RL as a big time sport, a RLWC counters that effort.
Ultimately the game outside Aus has to make it worthwhile for Aus.
-
1
-
-
22 hours ago, 17 stone giant said:
The Australians don't strike me as people who are ambivalent about international sport. I would say that they're equally as passionate about it as we are in the UK. They love the Ashes cricket, they watch the Wallabies, they are watching in increasing numbers their football team, they love the Olympics, and I'm sure they love international RL too, when it's of a certain standard.
That last bit is the key, and it's absolutely NO different to us. We (England) don't bother playing Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and loads of other teams, because the administrators know that very few people are interested. The crowd would be poor, and the game would probably even lose money. We're not a load of sheep who would sell out Old Trafford for RL matches against Scotland, just because we're all so blindly in love with international RL.
The sad reality is that a lot of international RL is considered ######, by most people. And that includes most RL fans in England. That's why so few fixtures are ever arranged, and why when they are, the crowds are poor. It's also the reason why England play All Star teams.
Fantastic post. Everyone critiquing Aussies need to grasp this.
Their apathy is understandable, much like the apathy of England towards the like of France.
-
There’s a good comparison between England’s treatment towards neighbours (ie. France) with Australia’s towards England. There just isn’t the financial or competitive incentive for Australia in international RL and it’s been that way for a long time (State of Origin has had to fill the void). 50 years since GB won a series. Likewise England doesn’t really have much to gain playing France right now. England would win at a canter. RL is akin to that class sketch with John Cleese being Australia (“I look down on them”), Ronnie Barker as England (“i look up to him, but down on him”) and Ronnie Corbett as France (“I know my place”).
While the criticism of the Aussies for pulling out is understandable, their general apathy to the game outside Australia is too. The general criticism they get I feel is wholly unwarranted. They have a successful product in Australia, if that success isn’t matched outside Australia that’s not their fault. The 2013 RLWC made less than £4 million, the NRL meanwhile is a multi billion dollar (Aus) league. The Aussies would have made minimal amounts (if not a loss) from that tournament, and playing games against the like of us (Ireland) in front of 5k and Wales infront of 5k would only harm the perception of the sport in Australia. You want Australia to play these tournaments to help “grow the game”, but they’ve played every single tournament since the 1950s and the dial hasn’t budged. They have a lot to lose playing these tournaments as it damages the brand in Australia that their media has built up. The 1971 RLWC final between GB and Aus was played before 3k in France. Is it any wonder State of Origin was created to fill the void of no big time, competitive games outside the club season?
-
1
-
George Hotel Museum not going ahead (Merged Threads)
in The General Rugby League Forum
Posted
Listening to Tony Collins (who I believe is involved in this project) they have learned from other museums.
redjohns’ mobile idea sounds like a good one. You would get more visitors I’d imagine. Get the feeling that nowadays people can’t be @rsed traipsing miles to somewhere for the like of this.