2nd NZ NRL franchise

[Eddie]

4 hours ago, frank said:

An NRL team would do quite well in Christchurch . Been to games there (internationals) that were well attended.

Forget about Wellington.

There looks to be a thriving set up in Christchurch (from the internet rather than any experience of it). 

[Pie tries]

Second team in NZ would be amazing for the sport in the country. Huge derby game ! They have more than enough players to support. Hope this happens 

[Cumbrian Mackem]

9 hours ago, Henson Park Old Firm said:

north Sydney + Christchurch = South Island Bears

If memory serves me right the bears played in black&red and the colours of Canterbury is black&red.

The bears should really team up with the sea Eagles and create a super club covering the whole of north Sydney and the northern beaches.

[eal]

The big issue is player recruitment. It is hard enough to get players to move over to Auckland, let alone Wellington or Christchurch. Jahrome Hughes, who is a Kiwi, just rejected big money from the Warriors to remain at the Storm. And it is pretty clear that a team of only New Zealand players can't compete, the Warriors have always done best with some Australian grit thrown in.

[eal]

1 minute ago, Cumbrian Mackem said:

If memory serves me right the bears played in black&red and the colours of Canterbury is black&red.

The bears should really team up with the sea Eagles and create a super club covering the whole of north Sydney and the northern beaches.

They tried that, it was called the Northern Eagles and nobody liked it. You may as well merge Wigan and St Helens if you are going to merge the Bears and Sea Eagles.

[Cumbrian Mackem]

3 minutes ago, eal said:

The big issue is player recruitment. It is hard enough to get players to move over to Auckland, let alone Wellington or Christchurch. Jahrome Hughes, who is a Kiwi, just rejected big money from the Warriors to remain at the Storm. And it is pretty clear that a team of only New Zealand players can't compete, the Warriors have always done best with some Australian grit thrown in.

The warriors are sh@t though while the storm are probably the #1 club in the NRL.

[Tommygilf]

5 minutes ago, Cumbrian Mackem said:

If memory serves me right the bears played in black&red and the colours of Canterbury is black&red.

The bears should really team up with the sea Eagles and create a super club covering the whole of north Sydney and the northern beaches.

They tried that, was a flop and indeed the only real failed merger in the NRL. Best hope the Bears have is to become a Gosford based Central Coast club, though in respect to this thread they seem behind Brisbane 2, NZ 2 and even Perth in that regard

[Cumbrian Mackem]

1 minute ago, eal said:

They tried that, it was called the Northern Eagles and nobody liked it. You may as well merge Wigan and St Helens if you are going to merge the Bears and Sea Eagles.

They played on the central coast though miles away from both north Sydney and manly.

Also things have changed and the bears haven’t been in the NRL for nearly 20 years.

[Eddie]

Hobart, Alice Springs, Broome and Darwen lack pro sports teams, the NRL should move into them and take over. 
 

On a more serious note I’ve often thought Victoria 2 might boost the game there, get a rivalry going? 

[eal]

45 minutes ago, Cumbrian Mackem said:

They played on the central coast though miles away from both north Sydney and manly.

Also things have changed and the bears haven’t been in the NRL for nearly 20 years.

The Northern Eagles still played games at Manly though. Also one or two at North Sydney.

[The Rocket]

4 hours ago, Eddie said:

Hobart, Alice Springs, Broome and Darwen lack pro sports teams, the NRL should move into them and take over. 
 

On a more serious note I’ve often thought Victoria 2 might boost the game there, get a rivalry going? 

I asked the bloke who runs the Serbian RL thread, he`s a Storm supporter who lives in Melbourne, that question the other day, he reckons about 20 years off. 

There`s 5 million plus people living in Melbourne and the Storm do seem to be gaining a bit of momentum on the ground down there, on the Oz RL thread I posted about a born and bred Victorian who`s got a top 30 contract with Storm, earlier this week.

Interesting to note that Channel 9 have got them down for the first three weeks in the Thursday night spot, so they they obviously feel they rate and they are on telly on week 4.

Nine would know for League to really lift its national ratings it has to get more eyeballs down south, you can`t just rely on NSW and Qld, since we`ve got a successful and popular team down there we might see more of a push behind it and having the season opener is a statement.

Hopefully that 20 years might come around a bit faster than we think, like you say nothing like cross-town rivalries to generate interest and Melbourne is a big town.

[Cumbrian Mackem]

20 minutes ago, The Rocket said:

I asked the bloke who runs the Serbian RL thread, he`s a Storm supporter who lives in Melbourne, that question the other day, he reckons about 20 years off. 

There`s 5 million plus people living in Melbourne and the Storm do seem to be gaining a bit of momentum on the ground down there, on the Oz RL thread I posted about a born and bred Victorian who`s got a top 30 contract with Storm, earlier this week.

Interesting to note that Channel 9 have got them down for the first three weeks in the Thursday night spot, so they they obviously feel they rate and they are on telly on week 4.

Nine would know for League to really lift its national ratings it has to get more eyeballs down south, you can`t just rely on NSW and Qld, since we`ve got a successful and popular team down there we might see more of a push behind it and having the season opener is a statement.

Hopefully that 20 years might come around a bit faster than we think, like you say nothing like cross-town rivalries to generate interest and Melbourne is a big town.

Another team based within Melbourne or maybe another city in Victoria like Geelong perhaps?

Remember reading that Geelong was one of the fastest if not the fastest growing cities in the whole of Australia with a current population of 300k.

[The Rocket]

9 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

They tried that, was a flop and indeed the only real failed merger in the NRL. Best hope the Bears have is to become a Gosford based Central Coast club, though in respect to this thread they seem behind Brisbane 2, NZ 2 and even Perth in that regard

The business district of Sydney is kind of divided by the central CBD south of the Sydney Harbour bridge and directly on the northern side of the bridge is the north Sydney business district, when it comes down to actual number of high rise office blocks there is not actually  great deal of difference. The reason I mention this is because the Roosters market themselves as the southern CBD team, I suspect with their tie-up with the Bears they are angling for that Northern CBD as well. One other interesting thing when I used to drive down through North Sydney the number of buildings that used to bear sponsors name that were associated with the waratahs(NSW union) was obvious, union being largely a north shore sport. I like the tie-up with the Bears and Roosters I think it is a smart move.

Having said all that, I think the Bears have got a nice synergy potentially going with the Roosters and looks like the Fijian Silktails, they might start to see regular success in the NSW Cup and then they also potentially get to play the QLD Cup champion on GF day. That might satisfy a lot of the old Bears supporters if they can see their team in their old Bears jumper in these `big` games. I don`t think a central coast Bears team has got any legs, it`s been too long now and neither bring enough to the table, the NRL must look further afield.

 

[Jean de Bordeaux]

A second Kiwi team is the same approach as a second french team in SL (Toulouse)

[John Drake]

Lots of cross-code and personal drivel deleted.

If you want to discuss a second NRL franchise in NZ, do it here.

If you want to argue the toss over cross-code issues, do it in the cross-code forum, do not pollute this thread with it.

If you want to slag off othere forum members, find another forum altogether, as we will not tolerate that on here.

If you want to become a troll hunter, apply to be a moderator, otherwise, leave your amateur sleuthing off here and just report any posts you think are being made by trolls to the moderators to investigate.

Now, back ON TOPIC!

Thank you.

[Eddie]

36 minutes ago, John Drake said:

Lots of cross-code and personal drivel deleted.

If you want to discuss a second NRL franchise in NZ, do it here.

If you want to argue the toss over cross-code issues, do it in the cross-code forum, do not pollute this thread with it.

If you want to slag off othere forum members, find another forum altogether, as we will not tolerate that on here.

If you want to become a troll hunter, apply to be a moderator, otherwise, leave your amateur sleuthing off here and just report any posts you think are being made by trolls to the moderators to investigate.

Now, back ON TOPIC!

Thank you.

Can you somehow filter people’s IP addresses by location, and assume anyone who’s posting from more than 5 miles from an M62 junction is a troll? 

[The Rocket]

26 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Can you somehow filter people’s IP addresses by location, and assume anyone who’s posting from more than 5 miles from an M62 junction is a troll? 

But not ~10 000 miles.

[John Drake]

28 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Can you somehow filter people’s IP addresses by location, and assume anyone who’s posting from more than 5 miles from an M62 junction is a troll? 

We have ways and means of dealing with trolls. 

The general lack of them on TRL indicates that what we do works pretty well.

The best way of dealing with trolls, should they sneak through our defences, is never to engage with them and always to report them.

[Eddie]

43 minutes ago, The Rocket said:

But not ~10 000 miles.

Sorry mate -  M62, Queensland or NSW. 

[Copa]

On 04/03/2021 at 08:33, Cumbrian Mackem said:

Another team based within Melbourne or maybe another city in Victoria like Geelong perhaps?

Remember reading that Geelong was one of the fastest if not the fastest growing cities in the whole of Australia with a current population of 300k.

Not sure Geelong would work. It’d be like placing an AFL team in Newcastle and would bleed $ for decades. 

[The Frying Scotsman]

On 03/03/2021 at 16:57, Eddie said:

 

On a more serious note I’ve often thought Victoria 2 might boost the game there, get a rivalry going? 

Absolutely no chance.

[The Future is League]

On 02/03/2021 at 16:22, Copa said:

I get the impression Abdo and V’landys are going to do some revolutionary things for the NRL.

After Brisbane 2 is up and running i wouldn't be surprised if Cairns was next in line in Australia to have a NRL club and create a rivalry with the Cowboys

[THE RED ROOSTER]

The view of those who are actually involved in NZ Rugby League

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/league/warriors/124407321/warriors-nzrl-hesitant-on-setting-up-second-nrl-team-in-new-zealand-too-quickly

On 05/03/2021 at 11:59, Eddie said:

Sorry mate -  M62, Queensland or NSW. 

OI  Not eveybody is a prisoner of Geography...

[Damien]

9 hours ago, THE RED ROOSTER said:

The view of those who are actually involved in NZ Rugby League

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/league/warriors/124407321/warriors-nzrl-hesitant-on-setting-up-second-nrl-team-in-new-zealand-too-quickly

OI  Not eveybody is a prisoner of Geography...

Much of that just doesn't stack up. There are no question marks about enough players when there are a huge number of Kiwis playing for Australian NRL clubs. Another club would attract more players from schoolboy RU too and the PI players. It would undoubtedly expand the game in NZ. Its also a bit rich for the Warriors to now talk about developing the whole game when they've had 25 odd years to do it. Talking about the situation now with Covid is also extremely odd when any 2nd team would be some years off.

[Tommygilf]

10 hours ago, THE RED ROOSTER said:

The view of those who are actually involved in NZ Rugby League

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/league/warriors/124407321/warriors-nzrl-hesitant-on-setting-up-second-nrl-team-in-new-zealand-too-quickly

OI  Not eveybody is a prisoner of Geography...

This sounds more like the warriors trying tp protect their market share. Equivalent of Catalans saying we don't want Toulouse in because "we're the French Team". Its been a worrying aspect of the warriors since they became "NZ" rather than "Auckland" and started playing in kits more reminiscent of the national team, though they are latterly "Vodafone". 

If Brisbane can host 2 NRL teams plus Gold Coast just down the road, then the country of New Zealand can certainly host 2. 

NZ 2 should obviously as a stategic vision include the warriors, but it shouldn't be predicated by them.