Don’t Expect NRL To Take Internationals Seriously...

[Oxford]

47 minutes ago, The Great Dane said:

It's true though.

You are literally either ignorant about RL's (and for that matter the AFL's) actual position in the Australian cultural and sporting landscape, or have an idealistic view of the NRL that doesn't conform to the reality of what it actually is.

Now I don't blame you for that, expecting an average joe to have intimate knowledge of the ins and outs of a big complex system from the other side of the world would be a bit silly. But again, it is true.

I know the history of both.

What I don't understand is how in one paragraph you can say 'your fates in your hands' bs while totally discounting the impact of other sports and cultural pressures in Australia's case, and then in the same paragraph go on to say 'it's different in England and France, unlike Australia the impact of culture and other sports actually matter in those places'. Actually I can understand how you can do that, I explained it before. . .

BTW, let's be honest, France hasn't really been one of RL's major centres since about the 60s or 70s.

Obviously I was being glib, but let's be honest there's a certain amount of truth to it as well.

I'm sorry you find this so hard and can't avoid being disagreeable.

[The Great Dane]

9 hours ago, aj1908 said:

The guys that put in New Zealand and Perth.along with Newcastle.. Canberra.illawarra Brisbane etc. Lol.

They had the vision to expand.out of Sydney. 

Firstly, he didn't have the vision to expand, Kevin Humphrey's did. Arko just had the means to fulfill Kevin's vision.

And what did Arko do to those clubs once he got them into the competition, he totally disenfranchised them to the point that most of them went off and started/joined SL, and most of the ones that didn't join SL wanted to.

BTW, Canberra and Illawarra came in under Humphreys.

9 hours ago, aj1908 said:

Vlandys will.do some.good things. He will.get a good tv deal and will.be good for the commercial.side.of.things 

He also.realises league isn't as strong as it should.be in Sydney

Who knows, maybe he will be good for the TV deal, but he's already proven that he is just another Sydney centric  that will further kill the growth of the sport outside of Sydney in favour of bolstering it in Sydney, the place in the country where RL is the strongest and has the largest presence bar none.

While he is busy appeasing the old boys club in Sydney and the media moguls RL in the country will continue to slowly die on the vine, and you can forget about the "affiliated states", you know the places where RL actually needs the help the most.

10 hours ago, aj1908 said:

The grassroots isn't that bad.  Clubs fund juniors.too like.your club and Penrith.very successfully. The states are also well.funded.now.too.

Step outside of Sydney and Queensland and the grassroots are that bad!

RL's participation numbers (not including touch footy) are a disaster, most country leagues and clubs are the weakest they've ever been. Go outside of NSW, QLD, the ACT, and to a lesser extent Perth, and more or less all that is left of RL's grassroots is one big graveyard.

The NRL has devalued local juniors to the point that many of the clubs (including the Raiders) are pulling back on junior development. It's literally borderline impossible to win a competition with a team based on a core of local juniors when developing local juniors has become so expensive and there're no incentives in the cap to do it, especially when once a club has done all the work and invested all that time and money into a generation of juniors, other clubs that do basically no junior development at all (Storm and Roosters) take that money that they should be using to develop local juniors and use it to poach all the best talent from the clubs that do. 

None of the top five clubs most known for junior development have won a competition since 06, as things stand it's unlikely that any of them (except the Broncos) will regularly be competitive ever again.

[The Great Dane]

14 minutes ago, Oxford said:

I'm sorry you find this so hard and can't avoid being disagreeable.

I'm not being disagreeable, I'm being bluntly honest.

[Sports Prophet]

@The Great Dane, you make a lot of good points but Cronulla Sharks and Souths each would be in a list of the largest junior districts in Australia, wouldn’t you say?

[Oxford]

17 hours ago, The Great Dane said:

I'm not being disagreeable, I'm being bluntly honest.

Of course you're not and being honest is a good policy.

 

[Taniwha Warriors]

I would love to see a South Island team playing out of Dunedin, Christchurch and games in Nelson and Invercargill.

[aj1908]

Clubs should get salary cap exemptions for juniors. Together with long service allowances they should basically be free from the salary cap by 28.

[aj1908]

On 17/12/2019 at 12:29, The Great Dane said:

Firstly, he didn't have the vision to expand, Kevin Humphrey's did. Arko just had the means to fulfill Kevin's vision.

And what did Arko do to those clubs once he got them into the competition, he totally disenfranchised them to the point that most of them went off and started/joined SL, and most of the ones that didn't join SL wanted to.

BTW, Canberra and Illawarra came in under Humphreys.

Who knows, maybe he will be good for the TV deal, but he's already proven that he is just another Sydney centric  that will further kill the growth of the sport outside of Sydney in favour of bolstering it in Sydney, the place in the country where RL is the strongest and has the largest presence bar none.

While he is busy appeasing the old boys club in Sydney and the media moguls RL in the country will continue to slowly die on the vine, and you can forget about the "affiliated states", you know the places where RL actually needs the help the most.

Step outside of Sydney and Queensland and the grassroots are that bad!

RL's participation numbers (not including touch footy) are a disaster, most country leagues and clubs are the weakest they've ever been. Go outside of NSW, QLD, the ACT, and to a lesser extent Perth, and more or less all that is left of RL's grassroots is one big graveyard.

The NRL has devalued local juniors to the point that many of the clubs (including the Raiders) are pulling back on junior development. It's literally borderline impossible to win a competition with a team based on a core of local juniors when developing local juniors has become so expensive and there're no incentives in the cap to do it, especially when once a club has done all the work and invested all that time and money into a generation of juniors, other clubs that do basically no junior development at all (Storm and Roosters) take that money that they should be using to develop local juniors and use it to poach all the best talent from the clubs that do. 

None of the top five clubs most known for junior development have won a competition since 06, as things stand it's unlikely that any of them (except the Broncos) will regularly be competitive ever again.

Yeh poor widdle Brisbane Broncos had a cry when they weren't allowed to pick a beer sponsor in conflict with the qrl or play the grand final in briabane 

So they ran to Murdoch with the idea of a new league. It set league back 20 years.  Killed off all the good work the arl had done over ten plus years 

Even wayne.bennett admitted it was a mistake and apologised 

[aj1908]

14 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

@The Great Dane, you make a lot of good points but Cronulla Sharks and Souths each would be in a list of the largest junior districts in Australia, wouldn’t you say?

penrith are massive

canberra have loads

all the queensland clubs have loads and loads of juniors

newcaste wollongong and central coast have good juniors

in terms of sydney parramatta massive juniors, then souths.

meloburne are basically another queensland club, their feeder team is in the queensland cup

[Sports Prophet]

4 hours ago, aj1908 said:

penrith are massive

canberra have loads

all the queensland clubs have loads and loads of juniors

newcaste wollongong and central coast have good juniors

in terms of sydney parramatta massive juniors, then souths.

meloburne are basically another queensland club, their feeder team is in the queensland cup

I was referencing two recent premiers when mooted it’s virtually impossible to win a premiership when investing in youth.

TBF to @The Great Dane though, I now also see he said it’s virtually impossible to win a comp based on a core of local juniors, not virtually impossible to win a prem when a club invests in junior pathways.

[Sports Prophet]

4 hours ago, aj1908 said:

penrith are massive

canberra have loads

all the queensland clubs have loads and loads of juniors

newcaste wollongong and central coast have good juniors

in terms of sydney parramatta massive juniors, then souths.

meloburne are basically another queensland club, their feeder team is in the queensland cup

Wollongong are haemorrhaging juniors btw and merging comps with Sutherland from 14s I think.

[aj1908]

8 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

Wollongong are haemorrhaging juniors btw and merging comps with Sutherland from 14s I think.

Really? I'm a dragons fan we never seem short.of juniors 

[The Great Dane]

5 hours ago, aj1908 said:

Yeh poor widdle Brisbane Broncos had a cry when they weren't allowed to pick a beer sponsor in conflict with the qrl or play the grand final in briabane 

Not allowing any team to produce their own independent merchandise and if they did do it anyway taking all the profit and splitting it amongst all the clubs, trying to strong arm the Broncos into playing at Lang park when they got a better deal to play at ANZ because they were friends with the Lang Park Trust, forcing "out of town" teams to pay the travel costs of visiting teams but not making Sydney clubs pay for their travel expenses when they traveled to Sydney, refusing to allow finals to be played outside of Sydney (which TBF is understandable in some cases because there were no suitable stadiums in the city at the time, e.g. Canberra/Queanbeyan, but was inexcusable in most cases, e.g. Brisbane), hitting them harder than (most of) the Sydney clubs when they or their players broke rules/policies.

Allowing club officials from Sydney clubs to openly discuss conspiracies to dismantle their teams and sometimes even bankrupt their clubs at official meetings, and sometimes right to their faces, threatening them with expulsion from the competition anytime any of them challenged the NSWRL or ARL in anyway at all while allowing members from Sydney to openly challenge them publicly with no major repercussions whatsoever (e.g. famously the Bears campaign against cigarette sponsorship and advertisements), actively preventing them from having a major say in the operations of the NSWRL and it's future, often going so far as blocking them from participating in any of the many committees and boards unless it was a token position, etc, etc, etc, I could go on forever.

BTW, it wasn't just Brisbane who were disenfranchised, it was literally all of the clubs from outside of Sydney!

6 hours ago, aj1908 said:

So they ran to Murdoch with the idea of a new league. It set league back 20 years.  Killed off all the good work the arl had done over ten plus years 

Did you know that the Knights were early conspirators/supporters of SL?

The only reason they didn't join is because their players signed with the ARL before SL could get to them (because of a balls up in Brisbane), which basically forced the administration to follow suit.

By the way, I want to make it clear that I was not a supporter of SL, nor was I a supporter of the ARL either, I was pretty neutral but that is a story for another time. But again to make it clear I wasn't a SL supporter. 

[aj1908]

9 minutes ago, The Great Dane said:

Not allowing any team to produce their own independent merchandise and if they did do it anyway taking all the profit and splitting it amongst all the clubs, trying to strong arm the Broncos into playing at Lang park when they got a better deal to play at ANZ because they were friends with the Lang Park Trust, forcing "out of town" teams to pay the travel costs of visiting teams but not making Sydney clubs pay for their travel expenses when they traveled to Sydney, refusing to allow finals to be played outside of Sydney (which TBF is understandable in some cases because there were no suitable stadiums in the city at the time, e.g. Canberra/Queanbeyan, but was inexcusable in most cases, e.g. Brisbane), hitting them harder than (most of) the Sydney clubs when they or their players broke rules/policies.

Allowing club officials from Sydney clubs to openly discuss conspiracies to dismantle their teams and sometimes even bankrupt their clubs at official meetings, and sometimes right to their faces, threatening them with expulsion from the competition anytime any of them challenged the NSWRL or ARL in anyway at all while allowing members from Sydney to openly challenge them publicly with no major repercussions whatsoever (e.g. famously the Bears campaign against cigarette sponsorship and advertisements), actively preventing them from having a major say in the operations of the NSWRL and it's future, often going so far as blocking them from participating in any of the many committees and boards unless it was a token position, etc, etc, etc, I could go on forever.

BTW, it wasn't just Brisbane who were disenfranchised, it was literally all of the clubs from outside of Sydney!

Did you know that the Knights were early conspirators/supporters of SL?

The only reason they didn't join is because their players signed with the ARL before SL could get to them (because of a balls up in Brisbane), which basically forced the administration to follow suit.

By the way, I want to make it clear that I was not a supporter of SL, nor was I a supporter of the ARL either, I was pretty neutral but that is a story for another time. But again to make it clear I wasn't a SL supporter. 

Neutral lol. Sure bud. 

Nobody forced those clubs to join the nswrl or arl.

Only a super league fan would post this drivel.  It's ok I actually felt sorry for the raiders.  If they hadnt gone to super lesgue their team waa abkur to be ripped apart.by easts and other clubs

The Broncos had no.excuses other than greed.

The dragons almost went to super league too.

Super league was about Murdoch getting the pay tv rights to the game.  When he got them he killed off.half.the super league clubs including Perth. .and he ended up.with half ownership.in the game.  And got the pay if rights for massive unders.

Foxtel.has used the profits it makes from league to.overpay for afl.  It's one reason afl has so much money now 

All.because of your beloved super league.

If super league had never happened wed.still.have Perth and four teams in qld

The.best thing was seeing the super league competition failing so miserably despite Murdoch's millions.

[The Great Dane]

53 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

I was referencing two recent premiers when mooted it’s virtually impossible to win a premiership when investing in youth.

TBF to @The Great Dane though, I now also see he said it’s virtually impossible to win a comp based on a core of local juniors, not virtually impossible to win a prem when a club invests in junior pathways.

Yeah you misunderstood.

A team with a core of local juniors probably hasn't won a premiership since the Broncos in 06.

In saying that, a fairly reasonable argument could be made that just because a player comes from Brisbane doesn't necessarily mean that he was a Broncos junior if he was developed by another club and then poached back by Brisbane. I don't necessarily subscribe to that argument, but if you do then 03 would probably be the last time that a team built on a core of local juniors won a premiership.

Either way it's over a decade ago that it last happened, and that is extremely unlikely to change anytime soon.

[John Rhino]

On 01/12/2019 at 16:23, Clogiron said:

Where's the international bit of the thread title come in?

Anything outside Sydney . . . 

[Sports Prophet]

8 minutes ago, The Great Dane said:

Yeah you misunderstood.

A team with a core of local juniors probably hasn't won a premiership since the Broncos in 06.

In saying that, a fairly reasonable argument could be made that just because a player comes from Brisbane doesn't necessarily mean that he was a Broncos junior if he was developed by another club and then poached back by Brisbane. I don't necessarily subscribe to that argument, but if you do then 03 would probably be the last time that a team built on a core of local juniors won a premiership.

Either way it's over a decade ago that it last happened, and that is extremely unlikely to change anytime soon.

Correct, but the same could be said of all professional sports clubs in any sport I can bare to think of without actually researching.

[Sports Prophet]

8 minutes ago, John Rhino said:

6 hours ago, aj1908 said:

Clubs should get salary cap exemptions for juniors. Together with long service allowances they should basically be free from the salary cap by 28.

Yes they damn well should, although I can’t fathom to consider how this would have only resulted in more premierships for Melbourne

[The Great Dane]

37 minutes ago, aj1908 said:

Neutral lol. Sure bud.

You don't know me or my story, so who are you to aussme that you know better what I think then I am?

 You are however right about one thing, neutral was the wrong term to use to describe my position on ARL vs SL. In my opinion it didn't really matter who won because both were terrible, terrible for different reasons, but terrible nonetheless.

BTW, that "drivel" is all stuff that undeniably happened.

37 minutes ago, aj1908 said:

If super league had never happened wed.still.have Perth and four teams in qld

If SL had never happened most of the expansion teams and roughly half the Sydney clubs would have gone broke before 2005, and would have either folded or had to be bailed out by the league. 

Perth couldn't afford the extra expenses they were expected to come up with and saw the writing on the wall, the Crushers were getting ready to ask the ARL for a loan to keep their heads above water before they'd even played a game, the Raiders had been more or less bankrupted and were knocking on heavens door while praying for a miracle, the Knights were flat broke and had asked the NSWRL for loans before, the Steelers were slowly tanking, the Warriors struggled even with SL money and went through 3-4 different owners in 5 years and did actually go broke before being resurrected at the last second in 2000, and surely I don't need to good through the laundry list of problems faced on the GC and their different clubs (TBF it did seem like the Chargers were maybe starting to turn things around).

I'm sure i don't have to talk about all the Sydney clubs that were effectively dead men walking either.

It was only a matter of time before a few of them folded in quick succession, and when that happened the ARL was going to be in a very bad place.

[aj1908]

17 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

Yes they damn well should, although I can’t fathom to consider how this would have only resulted in more premierships for Melbourne

melbourne and salary cap ahem. lol

greg inglis probably still has that boat

[aj1908]

1 minute ago, The Great Dane said:

You don't know me or my story, so who are you to aussme that you know better what I think then I am?

 You are however right about one thing, neutral was the wrong term to use to describe my position on ARL vs SL. In my opinion it didn't really matter who won because both were terrible, terrible for different reasons, but terrible nonetheless.

BTW, that "drivel" is all stuff that undeniably happened.

If SL had never happened most of the expansion teams and roughly half the Sydney clubs would have gone broke before 2005, and would have either folded or had to be bailed out by the league. 

Perth couldn't afford the extra expenses they were expected to come up with and saw the writing on the wall, the Crushers were getting ready to ask the ARL for a loan to keep their heads above water before they'd even played a game, the Raiders had been more or less bankrupted and were knocking on heavens door while praying for a miracle, the Knights were flat broke and had asked the NSWRL for loans before, the Steelers were slowly tanking, the Warriors struggled even with SL money and went through 3-4 different owners in 5 years and did actually go broke before being resurrected at the last second in 2000, and surely I don't need to good through the laundry list of problems faced on the GC and their different clubs (TBF it did seem like the Chargers were maybe starting to turn things around).

I'm sure i don't have to talk about all the Sydney clubs were effectively dead men walking either.

It was only a matter of time before a few of them folded in quick succession, and when that happened the ARL was going to be in a very bad place.

the ARLs plan was to allow sydney clubs to die off on their own through natural attrition.  not these stupid mergers we got.

league in 1995 was at its peak, something it hasnt got close to since.  

before super league led to a blowout in wages, clubs finances were a lot more stable than youve made out.  this was in the day before players were getting 1 million a season.

even news ltd people have admitted what a good leader john quayle was, and he should be on the commission today.  we dont have leaders today like we had then.

you were bagging vladys for not wanting a perth team.  

they not only added perth, but new zealand, thats a visioary step.  the current leaders wouldnt even think of going to new zealand.

and brisbane could easily support two nrl sides then, let alone now.

the NRL turns over close to 500 million a year now and they dont want to go to perth.  back then the revenue wouldve probably been one tenth of that and they did.

if the nrl ever gets leaders like them it might finally reclaim its rightful number one spot.  

 

[The Great Dane]

25 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

Correct, but the same could be said of all professional sports clubs in any sport I can bare to think of without actually researching.

True, but in most of those other professional sports the professional clubs aren't producing the juniors, it's all done either by the league or through lower tier competitions (e.g. the scholastic systems in the US) so it doesn't matter if there aren't local juniors in their teams because they have no skin in the development game.

However in the NRL if pro clubs are opting to pull back on junior development because it's so much harder (more or less impossible at this point) to succeed that way, then that means that less and less juniors are going to be developed overtime, and unless something changes drastically, eventually that is going to cause big problems for the code because their simply won't be enough quality juniors developed to maintain the standards of competition .

[The Great Dane]

11 hours ago, aj1908 said:

the ARLs plan was to allow sydney clubs to die off on their own through natural attrition.

Firstly, the NSWRL had been saying that since at least the early 70s, despite that only once did they actually follow through, and in that case they didn't just allow the Jets to die of natural attrition, so they only kind of followed through. So going by their prior form we have no reason to believe that they'd actually follow through on that "plan" (is a plan to have no plan really a plan?!), in fact we have pretty strong evidence to suggest that they wouldn't have followed through.

Secondly, "natural attrition" is literally the worst way that Sydney could be rationalised because you have no control over which teams fold and which don't. It's a crapshoot, maybe you get lucky and you end up with the surviving clubs representing an even geographical spread of the population of the city, but it's much more likely that you are unlucky and end up with all the clubs in certain geographical regions going broke while other areas end up over represented, which is a surefire way to completely screw the competitions commercial appeal in Sydney.

12 hours ago, aj1908 said:

not these stupid mergers we got.

I agree that the mergers were stupid.

What should have happened is all the clubs that were merging should have just been cut, except Manly because they didn't really need to merge to survive and the competition needed an even number, and the money that would have been spent on supporting the merged clubs through grants and the such should have been pooled together each year and used to prop up the Rams for as long as they needed to become cemented into Adelaide.

11 hours ago, aj1908 said:

league in 1995 was at its peak, something it hasnt got close to since.

Except of course that the competition is bigger and more successful in almost every way now then it ever was back then. . .

11 hours ago, aj1908 said:

before super league led to a blowout in wages, clubs finances were a lot more stable than youve made out.  this was in the day before players were getting 1 million a season.

Apart from the clubs that didn't really exist prior to SL, all the clubs I mentioned were facing their financial struggles prior to SL. Back in those days a season didn't go by without at least a couple of clubs being in serious danger of folding.   

In fact a lot of clubs were much better off as a result of SL! 

Canberra, Penrith, Cronulla, NQ, arguably Newcastle and the GC, probably a few others as well, all benefited greatly from SL.

11 hours ago, aj1908 said:

you were bagging vladys for not wanting a perth team.

and brisbane could easily support two nrl sides then, let alone now.

Saying that the Western Reds were set up for failure is not the same thing as saying that there shouldn't be a team in Perth in the competition, and I agree that in theory that Brisbane should be able to support two sides, however that doesn't mean that the Crushers were or would have been successful, and it also doesn't change the fact that they were so strapped for cash at times that they were literally looking to ask for a loan from the NSWRL before their team had even taken the field.

11 hours ago, aj1908 said:

the NRL turns over close to 500 million a year now and they dont want to go to perth.  back then the revenue wouldve probably been one tenth of that and they did.

And back then the Reds were hurtling towards a financial crash because they couldn't afford to pay the traveling costs of visiting teams on top of their own travel costs, and they overestimated how much support they would get and massively underestimated how much it would cost to start up a club.

[aj1908]

16 minutes ago, The Great Dane said:

Firstly, the NSWRL had been saying that since at least the early 70s, despite that only once did they actually follow through, and in that case they didn't just allow the Jets to die of natural attrition, so they only kind of followed through. So going by their prior form we have no reason to believe that they'd actually follow through on that "plan" (is a plan to have no plan really a plan?!), in fact we have pretty strong evidence to suggest that they wouldn't have followed through.

Secondly, "natural attrition" is literally the worst way that Sydney could be rationalised because you have no control over which teams fold and which don't. It's a crapshoot, maybe you get lucky and you end up with the surviving clubs representing an even geographical spread of the population of the city, but it's much more likely that you are unlucky and end up with all the clubs in certain geographical regions going broke while other areas end up over represented, which is a surefire way to completely screw the competitions commercial appeal in Sydney.

I agree that the mergers were stupid.

What should have happened is all the clubs that were merging should have just been cut, except Manly because they didn't really need to merge to survive and the competition needed an even number, and the money that would have been spent on supporting the merged clubs through grants and the such should have been pooled together each year and used to prop up the Rams for as long as they needed to become cemented into Adelaide.

Except of course that the competition is bigger and more successful in almost every way now then it ever was back then. . .

Apart from the clubs that didn't really exist prior to SL, all the clubs I mentioned were facing their financial struggles prior to SL. Back in those days a season didn't go by without at least a couple of clubs being in serious danger of folding.   

In fact a lot of clubs were much better off as a result of SL! 

Canberra, Penrith, Cronulla, NQ, arguably Newcastle and the GC, probably a few others as well, all benefited greatly from SL.

Saying that the Western Reds were set up for failure is not the same thing as saying that there shouldn't be a team in Perth in the competition, and I agree that in theory that Brisbane should be able to support two sides, however that doesn't mean that the Crushers were or would have been successful, and it also doesn't change the fact that they were so strapped for cash at times that they were literally looking to ask for a loan from the NSWRL before their team had even taken the field.

And back then the Reds were hurtling towards a financial crash because they couldn't afford to pay the traveling costs of visiting teams on top of their own travel costs, and they overestimated how much support they would get and massively underestimated how much it would cost to start up a club.

Nswrl tried to kick out wests too lol 

In terms of sporting ranks league was number one by a long way in 1995.  Now it's not.

Afl has two teams in Queensland and Sydney.  Afl since super league has been a massive threat to league.  

Cronulla survived due to loyalty to super lesgue.  They add nothing thry shouldve been cut or dragons take them over and illawarra stands alone.

The two most successful Sydney sides - dragons and south's, they merged one and killed off.the other.   Would ask so that to Collingwood or Carlton.

So dumb

[Sports Prophet]

40 minutes ago, aj1908 said:

Nswrl tried to kick out wests too lol 

In terms of sporting ranks league was number one by a long way in 1995.  Now it's not.

————-

Cronulla survived due to loyalty to super lesgue.  They add nothing thry shouldve been cut or dragons take them over and illawarra stands alone.

The two most successful Sydney sides - dragons and south's, they merged one and killed

Australian Rules has always been a bigger sport. Pre swans, the Sydney Football League in the 70s would get 15k to finals at Trumper Park in Paddington. News reports in Sydney always included the VFL weekend results. Neither of those would come close to happening for league outside of NSW or Queensland. So no, RL was in no way number one in 95, let alone by a long way.

By time of SL war, AFL took its advantage in mid 90s and we’re supported with Sydney GF appearances in 96, 05 & 06, whilst the Bears were drawing bigger crowds than Broncos in their 2001-03 triple premiership success.

As for Cronulla adding nothing... I would suggest a professional rugby league club representing one of Australia’s five largest rl participation areas (also Australia’s largest soccer participation zone)  is far from adding nothing. Premiership success does not allow a rite of passage. Nor does Souths and Saints combined have anywhere near the following of Carlton or Collingwood... or Essendon, or Richmond, or Hawthorn.