The Rocket

Australians play a lot of sport, team sports are popular and soccer is the safe option. I`d hazard a guess that reduced family sizes has put a premium on child safety, christ if you`ve only got two you can`t afford to risk losing one despite how remote the odds of that happening. With regard to EPL, I have absolutely no interest but I do know it features almost nightly in our local commercial broadcasters news and on our national Gov`t owned (the ABC) nightly news as well. Out of interest when I was at school League was pretty much played equally across all socio-economic demographics, maybe skewed slightly towards the lower ( < for the want of a better word) socio-economic groups. I think you could safely say there has been a retraction of the game towards the aforementioned groups over the last forty years, the real challenge is to reverse this trend. Involvement in the non-contact versions of the game are a good starting point.

@Worzel this has been a favourite topic of mine since in the early nineties when I stood on a sporting field in the eastern suburbs of Sydney on a weekday afternoon and witnessed literally hundreds of people playing social touch Rugby League and thought to myself the NRL should be all over this. It has taken twenty years but it seems now the penny has finally dropped with our games hierarchy regularly referring to the three versions of the game.

Famously Nathan Cleary was once counted in their participation figures after attending such a clinic.

That 600 - 700k figure probably does count some double-counting, but never-the-less even 500k is an incredible number. There was an article on my local news last week about a new NRL accredited League-Tag competition in schools, the bloke running it was trotting out the mantra finally and persistently being pushed by the NRL about how it was an ideal entry point for those not yet, or never likely to be engaged in the tackle version. Including interview with bespectacled child to emphasis the point. LOL. We`ve all been warned, one look, even sideways, at a sherrin, and you`re included in their participation figures.

I`ve never heard of Australian rules touch football, ever, and I`m sure I would have heard of it at some stage. Even when you google Australian rules Touch football you get a Rugby League type version of the game. This is supported by when you look at the Victorian chart the Touch Football figure, the one you were assuming to be Aussie rules touch football is very low, and I`m almost positive this number would be far, far higher if it were the touch version of that sport. I`d suggest that the confusion lies in the different bodies that control the Touch versions of the game, either the NRL affiliated body or the less formal ones like the ones that some of the blokes I work with play. The contact version of the game would be approaching 200 000 alone and Touch Football is huge with around 500 000 participants nationwide and that`s before we include the ever growing popular sport of League Tag.

As my med student son said to me, and if they find a cure for CTE and even spinal cord injuries, and let`s face it, these are the two main reasons parents are apprehensive about letting their children play heavy contact sports.

It happens often.

And there was some talk that the western stand could be redone as well to add a few more thousand, but this would involve taking the roof off, so it ain`t cheap but given that it is Brisbane`s most attended venue by about double anything else, twenty plus years old and being maxed out regularly, probably due.

They`ve made an art form of it in union and no one bats an eyelid. Admittedly union rules are somewhat more labyrinthian than League and easier for the refs to pluck them from anywhere but it`s not that difficult in League either if done subtly and one might say strategically.

It`s not true, posters on the Aussie forum who know far more about these things than me, you might even call them experts, say that Suncorp could be expanded to 65000 - 70 000 . One by filling in the corners and I think they said there is scope for some other modifications to get up to that number.

Bill Harrigan liked a contest and refereed as such. As Warren Ryan once said Bill always refereed with one eye on the scoreboard.

According to West Australian posters on the Oz League forums the locals really don`t have a problem with it, just stoked to be getting a team. But yeah, I`d love to see the Reds back and for the team to have a distinctive WA identity. It`ll certainly drive a lot of headlines in the Sydney media. The Bears were one of the teams that did attract blue-chip sponsors back in the day, if they can start to get them back on board combined with what they will get out of Western Oz, it could be a very wealthy club. I`m sure there`s plenty enough sports fans and people who aren`t fumbleball fans to make up a decent crowd at the Knights/Dolphins game. The hype around SOO if anything will only remind the locals what they are going be a part of now since they are getting a team.

Another headline on the same topic: The WA premier and $500m came to Sydney. The Perth Bears dream is alive and well

From the Australian forum: "It's definitely a solid result, especially when you throw in that ticket prices have increased & the NRL has so far spent a lot less on promotion. "Assuming that the event sold similar to last year over the December - March window, we'd be looking at around 50K for game day. "NRL has a few new strategies they are trying this time around, such as sponsoring the F1s, so will be interesting to see if they move the needle. "For me the most encouraging sign is the fact we're selling into sections of the stadium that just weren't opened up last year. This time last year the NRL was taking bays off sale & selling every second row in many bays just to try and fill the TV arc." Thank you @Yakstorm

Getting beaten before the first Test would be a disaster. PNG sounds like a better idea, get the combinations working, run up a score and get your confidence up.

Sounds promising: Pacific Championships: Future tournament dates locked in as international rugby league proves to be ratings bonanza for the NRL | The Australian NRL boss Andrew Abdo believes the Pacific Championships will grow into the “biggest sporting tournament in our region”, as international rugby league proves to be a ratings bonanza. This masthead can reveal that all three Kangaroos matches out-rated the Wallabies in the Bledisloe Cup against the All Blacks this year. While Australia’s two clashes against Tonga, including Sunday’s final, attracted a total of 2 million viewers across free-to-air and Fox Sports, overall ratings were also up 13.5 per cent on last year’s tournament. “We’re seeing a great response from the fans through attendance and viewership. With a meaningful calendar and some consistency, this is something I think can grow into the biggest sporting tournament in our region,” NRL chief executive Abdo said. “To get over a million people watching consistently shows it can be a big part of our calendar. “We also had hundreds of thousands of people streaming it in Papua New Guinea.” Abdo said the governing body was committed to playing the three-week championships after the NRL grand final after scrapping mid-season Test matches in 2022. “It is in the right place, playing rugby league in late October early November is the sweet spot,” Abdo said. “The beauty is, there is not too much other sport. It’s a chance for us to really own this period and win over new fans across the region. Australia will tour England in 2025 with Samoa to replace the Kangaroos in the Championships. It is anticipated that a clash between Tonga and Samoa, who also have a large community in western Sydney, would draw a crowd of 50,000 people - the biggest Test crowd in Australia in almost 50 years. It’s understood New Zealand will host both of their Test matches against island nations next year. So, there you have it, two Test in NZ, Samoa vs. Tonga in Western Sydney, Accor or CommBank.

A full strength Samoa, with Chrichton, To`o, Leniu in, Haas talking about switching. They could beat anyone over here and even more so with a big fanbase in the crowd. I`d call that a 50/50 game.

Two weeks after the GF, heavily promoted and priced appropriately it could be huge. One big prob, V`Landys has stated before he wants two weeks clear air after the GF before they run the Everest. He has stated before he sees the two as an event double on the calendar every year. His plan is once the media hype around the GF dies down then the media can be totally focused on his pet project over at Racing NSW. Which in classic V`Landys style is the richest turf race in the world. I had stated elsewhere earlier that maybe this is his ultimate plan: Grand Final Everest Rugby League Pacific Championships Finals extravaganza Six weeks media attention on NSW Racing and Rugby League sounds like something to aim for.

Thanks mate, I`ll prob keep doing what I`m doing because I don`t mind supporting the broadcasters and Kayo do a very good coverage and it`s very reasonably priced.. Far better than the drivel on our FTA broadcaster 9, that`s for sure.

NZ v. Samoa and NZ v. Tonga in NZ, Samoa v. Tonga at Accor. I think given what we saw on the weekend those two teams could pull enough neutrals along with their own large fanbase in Sydney`s west to threaten 50k. That may be the case but this is how this tournament will grow, if I know Tonga are going to play Samoa in Sydney next year there will more than just myself and my two sons going, this is an event you want everyone to experience. Funny thing was my eldest not an avid League fan like his brother or myself and doesn`t attend many games was absolutely agog at the scenes on Sunday, just sitting there staring around the stadium in wonder. and there was a lot more like him. As an aside where we were seated was on the exact same height and directly opposite the NRL corporate box, Abdo and V`Landys spent the whole of the two games we were there for on the `balcony` of that box, often just the two of them either watching the games and looking out over the crowd or in deep discussion. Would loved to have been a fly-on-the-wall there.

And that`s only the FTA provider. There will be a lot of League fans who didn`t cancel their Fox and Kayo subscriptions after the GF so they could continue to watch the League, I was one of them. That`s an extra four weeks of paid subscribers. Whether they`re watching one game or eight a weekend, Foxtel won`t care. Btw, I`m keeping mine for another week so I can watch a few of the games over and some of the mini`s/ highlights of ones I have already seen. I maybe an exception there though.

Look fair point, if we are comparing back-ups, but my point was if Munster goes down, which at his age is a possibility, I`d say the Kiwi`s having Brown with Hughes gives them an edge over the Aussies` Moses and Dearden.

I don`t think there`s much doubt that with Munster out and aging, having Tom Dearden as his back-up is probably our most ordinary five-eighth we`ve had in living memory. Sure he`s gutsy, got a turn of speed, but his dummy and run is just about his only other threat and he doesn`t seem to have that ability to make the right decisions when under pressure like the great halves do. Having players like him in the team makes us vulnerable if games are tight at the end and basically brings us right back to the pack.

Stadium members who don`t show is always a big one. Also we spoke to a woman with a child on the way to the ground, she said she got her tickets yesterday, when I asked how this was possible considering it was sold out three days ago, she said she had a friend who was a late no-show and had got them that way. So it shows for whatever reason people do buy tickets and don`t always make it.

Yeah you`re probably right there, if only Tonga could have jagged another try around that 10 minute to go mark and anything might have happened.