The Kangaroos brand has been wasted & thrown away

[IM2]

Have to say that crowd tonight at Hudds shows how far the Kangaroos brand has fallen. Years gone by people would have turned out just to watch legends and giants of the game. Yes they are still probably the worlds best but their disregard for the international game & unwillingness to invest proper time and energy into has led to this. A state v state game is seen as their be all and end all. Yes its great and I love it but it means they turn up for the sake of it. In many ways the game should move on without them. It didnt in the past as they were a massive draw, the biggest! well tonight proves that wrong. shame really. 

[Wellsy4HullFC]

I'd say it's more to do with how much the ticket pricing during a cost of living crisis has failed. 

[IM2]

4 minutes ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

I'd say it's more to do with how much the ticket pricing during a cost of living crisis has failed. 

that only stands up if this game isnt the worst attended this weekend. lets see. fancy a bet?

[Anita Bath]

4 hours ago, IM2 said:

Have to say that crowd tonight at Hudds shows how far the Kangaroos brand has fallen. Years gone by people would have turned out just to watch legends and giants of the game. Yes they are still probably the worlds best but their disregard for the international game & unwillingness to invest proper time and energy into has led to this. A state v state game is seen as their be all and end all. Yes its great and I love it but it means they turn up for the sake of it. In many ways the game should move on without them. It didnt in the past as they were a massive draw, the biggest! well tonight proves that wrong. shame really. 

Disregard for the international game?  They have put more effort into the pacific nations than England/GB have ever put into development and guess what….those nations are the ones that have come on in leaps and bounds to the extent that Australia now ‘steal’ some of their players.

And who are the most outstanding players on the England team so far….Young? Radley?…… where do they play their rugby?

Just look at the state of the game in Wales, Scotland and Ireland, never mind the ‘developing’ NH countries. How many games did they win in this watered down 16 team tournament?

And what about probably the best of the rest….lebanon. Largely an australian based team.

I really hope that England can get to the final and give the kangaroos a really good game …as they did last time…..a fantastic effort ( under an australian legend coaching them). 

 

 

 

[Sports Prophet]

You will never open their eyes @Anita Bath.

There are two very pertinent facts to the discussion that will follow our posts.

The NRL and the RFL are both equally responsible for the ever widening competitive disparity between the NH and SH international sides.

The NRL and the RFL are also equally responsible for the ever widening disparity between the on field quality and professionalism of NRL v SL.

It’s just in both of these facts, one side has been positively influential and the other has been equally negatively influential. If anyone needs a clue, it’s the NRL that comes out of this far more favourably.

Yes @IM2, the Kangaroos brand has been significantly devalued since glory days in the 80s and earlier. I think we can thank the English governors for this, as much as their Australian counterparts.

Edited November 5, 2022 by Sports Prophet

[Pulga]

I think we are also seeing the difference in what "Working Class" means in England V Australia.

 

[gingerjon]

1 minute ago, Pulga said:

I think we are also seeing the difference in what "Working Class" means in England V Australia.

 

You're going to have to explain that one

[UTK]

1 hour ago, Anita Bath said:

Disregard for the international game?  They have put more effort into the pacific nations than England/GB have ever put into development and guess what….those nations are the ones that have come on in leaps and bounds to the extent that Australia now ‘steal’ some of their players.

And who are the most outstanding players on the England team so far….Young? Radley?…… where do they play their rugby?

Just look at the state of the game in Wales, Scotland and Ireland, never mind the ‘developing’ NH countries. How many games did they win in this watered down 16 team tournament?

And what about probably the best of the rest….lebanon. Largely an australian based team.

I really hope that England can get to the final and give the kangaroos a really good game …as they did last time…..a fantastic effort ( under an australian legend coaching them). 

 

 

 

This is all absolutely true re the development work in countries within our respective regions for Australia v England, there's just no comparison between Australia's links to the rest of the Pacific vs England's to the other home nations and Europe.

That being said, the ARLC is definitely responsible for the demise of the Kangaroos as a brand on account of their sheer lack of matches played each year and indeed the failure to play any games at all in 2018 and then again from 2020-this tournament. The fall of the international game and rise of Origin is as much a function of their respective competitive landscapes as it is the ARLC's lack of drive to play games though, this was a case of suffering from success in a sense combined with the inability of other nations to challenge the Kangaroos.

[Sports Prophet]

9 minutes ago, UTK said:

That being said, the ARLC is definitely responsible for the demise of the Kangaroos as a brand on account of their sheer lack of matches played each year and indeed the failure to play any games at all … from 2020-this tournament. 

Yeah, had nothing to do with a global pandemic did it

[Tommygilf]

I thought this way back in 2016 4 nations when we got 10k less than just a year before in the same venue vs the kiwis.

The Kangaroos aren't the draw they once were. They don't play. People don't know who they are. If they do, many just assume they will win easy anyway.

The apathy, particularly in the past decade towards the Kangaroos has been nothing short of a travesty for the sport.

[gingerjon]

1 minute ago, Sports Prophet said:

Yeah, had nothing to do with a global pandemic did it

Must have been gutted to see no State of Origin the past few years.

[Tommygilf]

1 minute ago, Sports Prophet said:

Yeah, had nothing to do with a global pandemic did it

It didn't stop basically every other nation in every other sport playing international matches. Indeed Australia played several cricket, Rugby Union and soccer matches...

[Pulga]

31 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

You're going to have to explain that one

"Working class" in England, from the outside looking in, seems to be people really struggling.

 

"Working class" here is a lot of tradespeople or mining workers making quite a lot of money.

I'm not sure if the sport has slowly drifted towards people making the least momey in England but it's eye-opening.

 

[UTK]

18 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

Yeah, had nothing to do with a global pandemic did it

As the others have correctly pointed out it didn't stop other sports and didn't even stop our sport with Origin, there's no defence for 2018 or not at the very least running a reduced calendar during the pandemic - the Kangaroos didn't play for over 1000 days, absolutely disgraceful.

I will note that I don't think it is a coincidence we've seen a different trajectory since V'landys was installed as head of the ARLC, not only was there zero effort to hold a match during/post-pandemic but we're also now gutting some of the good work that was done in establishing the mid-season tests as a consistent fixture in the calendar.

[Sports Prophet]

See @Anita Bath I told you. You can’t tell them anything. It’s always someone else’s fault.

[gingerjon]

8 minutes ago, Pulga said:

"Working class" in England, from the outside looking in, seems to be people really struggling.

 

"Working class" here is a lot of tradespeople or mining workers making quite a lot of money.

I'm not sure if the sport has slowly drifted towards people making the least momey in England but it's eye-opening.

 

*leaving all politics outside of it*

The spending power of most people in the UK has massively dropped over the past decade and is getting significantly worse now in the midst of eye-watering inflation and rate rises. Aspects of this are present elsewhere around the world, possibly in Australia, but the UK appears to be more negatively impacted than pretty much anywhere else.

*on 'working class'*

It's a very broad term. For various historical reasons of geography, rugby league tends to be in the working class areas with less money to begin with.

[gingerjon]

4 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

See @Anita Bath I told you. You can’t tell them anything. It’s always someone else’s fault.

Well, you can't make things up.

A global pandemic didn't stop other rugby league nations playing internationals nor other Australian sports playing internationals.

Or the NRL playing State of Origin.

[Sports Prophet]

NRL - 100% within Australia’s control and successful.

SOO - 100% within Australia’s control and successful.

International game - reliant on multiple stakeholders and relatively unsuccessful.

What’s the common theme of the two successful ones?

 

[Tommygilf]

7 minutes ago, Pulga said:

"Working class" in England, from the outside looking in, seems to be people really struggling.

 

"Working class" here is a lot of tradespeople or mining workers making quite a lot of money.

I'm not sure if the sport has slowly drifted towards people making the least momey in England but it's eye-opening.

 

I actually don't think there's much difference. The general RL fanbase in England is reflected in our sponsors - lots of trade related stuff. We don't have mass industry such as mining, dockers or factories anymore which was the bedrock of many RL club fanbases. To some extent this has been replaced with services jobs, which obviously have a broad range from super market workers to legal assistants, catering and leisure work to education and healthcare.

The difficulty in this world cup has been relying on a limited number of those people to go to a large number of games in a small area.

There are wealthy RL fans, indeed arguably most of the UK is now effectively if not mentally lower middle class at this point. The world cup has just doubled down on the existing fanbase and asked a lot of them.

[gingerjon]

Just now, Tommygilf said:

The world cup has just doubled down on the existing fanbase and asked a lot of them.

Need to keep repeating this ... and this is after years of RFL marketing essentially doing the same.

[Tommygilf]

2 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

NRL - 100% within Australia’s control and successful.

SOO - 100% within Australia’s control and successful.

International game - reliant on multiple stakeholders and relatively unsuccessful.

What’s the common theme of the two successful ones?

 

Kangaroos - 100% within Australia's control and not successful (off field).

Its interesting that you highlight the international game. Most stakeholders are pretty flexible and willing to work with eachother. Yet, increasingly over the last decade, we have seen examples where if the NRL doesn't have control, the toys are thrown out of the pram.

[Spidey]

4 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

NRL - 100% within Australia’s control and successful.

SOO - 100% within Australia’s control and successful.

International game - reliant on multiple stakeholders and relatively unsuccessful.

What’s the common theme of the two successful ones?

 

All the other stakeholders want it to work. The Aussies don’t 

[Sports Prophet]

1 minute ago, Tommygilf said:

Kangaroos - 100% within Australia's control and not successful (off field).

That was a mistype wasn’t it? You did mean “Not 100% within Australia’s control” right?

[Tommygilf]

2 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Need to keep repeating this ... and this is after years of RFL marketing essentially doing the same.

Indeed, but it also makes no sense with other decisions at the rlwc, including but not limited to ticket prices, venue selection, scheduling, premium feel events (or lack of it)...

[Tommygilf]

Just now, Sports Prophet said:

That was a mistype wasn’t it? You did mean “Not 100% within Australia’s control” right?

How are the Kangaroos not 100% within Australia's control?