Tosh

The logical choice would have been the manly sea Eagles but they are spending tens of millions of dollars on a new centre of excellence and a new stand.

That ship has already sailed when the northern Eagles disbanded.

I can’t see a central coast team entering the NRL due to its small population, lack of corporate dollars potential and the already bloated NSW representation.

I think Perth are nailed on for the 18th place but can’t see a PNG team entering the NRL within in the next 10-20 years if ever within our lifetime. If the NRL was ever to increase to a 20 team competition then I think another Queensland side or maybe even 2 would be added over NZ2.

The collective “we.”

You don’t have to talk about it but I will talk about it on a RL discussion forum.

Are you Australian? If yes the Australian government have talked about investing more into PNG to counter the rise of Chinese influence in the South Pacific.

Whatever the true number is we need to source out more money from both the PNG&Australian government’s, the NRL and big business in PNG for investment and creating more pathways for its RL players from schoolboy level to local leagues and then onto digicel cup level before finishing off for the hunters at the highest level. Id also add another PNG team to the Queensland cup from Lae complete with junior sides at all 3 levels for both teams within the next 5 years.

Just a shame that they haven’t got 2 pennies to rub together.

I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it until I’m blue in the face that there is an unlimited amount of unearthed NRL/super league standard players in PNG due to its population and RL being almost like a religion in that country and the only thing keeping this from happening is investment and structures on the ground at grassroots level from schools to local leagues. Just imagine if every NRL club partnered up with a digicel cup team and how far for example $250k would go every year. The key is developing young kumuls early from around the ages of 14-16 years of age and exposing them to a professional environment in terms of a healthy diet, training&conditioning and coaching and by the time they’re around 18-20 years old they had around 4-5 years of top level training and coaching like their counterparts in NSW and Queensland.

Although it’s sounds almost unbelievable to people living in the “west” that a country doesn’t know it’s exact population but PNG is a unique case in that only a small percentage of its known population live in what we would call urbanized communities.

Attendances.

NRL&SOO are #1 code on TV but AFL is Australia’s #1 code overall.

Haven’t they already got that with the beetle nut and kava?

Who needs a hosepipe after the last 2 months of practically non-stop rain we’ve had!!!

I personally feel that the sport is no way near strong enough to hold a 16 team format tournament and should instead be a 10 team tournament with one group of 4 teams and two groups of 3 teams. The winners and runners up of the 4 team pool progress to the semi-finals along with the winners of both the 3 team pools. Id also bring back the emerging nations cup and run it concurrently alongside the 10 team World Cup.

This is the problem in that I wouldn’t class nations like Jamaica and Greece as tier2 nations but more developing ones. Nations like France and wales are more similar to PNG and Fiji in that both countries are part of the UK league pyramid/structure with pathways setup for their local produced players to progress into a professional environment.

So how do you increase the player pool of tier2 nations like PNG and Fiji then?

You mean like hunters and silktails models

Are the FFR13 looking for and talking to private investors? A TV deal? And sponsorship etc?

The current stadium capacity of 11.5k isn’t big enough now but I’m sure that could easily be extended to around the 18-20k mark in the short-term.

This. Simply comparing the 2 sports of football and rugby(league&union) you can have a 6’6 and 17st physical freak running with the ball at full speed at a 5’6 11st fit athlete and 99 times out of 100 the 6’6&17st Goliath will run over the 5’6&11st player but in football that overwhelming physical advantage is neutered because of the no handling the ball law and the smaller built players can beat the bigger players with trickery or speed or agility or all of the 3 combined(think of maradona, Messi, best and giggs etc).

Because of the population of PNG 9 million+ and rising fast year on year and the fact that RL is not only the National sport but seen as a religion in that country then there’s no reason why with the right investment, structures and pathways that PNG can’t become the biggest net exporters of RL talent to the NRL eclipsing both Fiji and NZ in the next 10-15 years.

Quite easily I’d say. Take the best referees from the digicel cup in PNG the elite1 competition in France and the National competition in NZ and put them through an intensive training program.

I totally understand that sentiment but how much actual growth potential is there in villages and towns that already play RL in France?