Great essay, but what are the ARLC actually doing to change this class perception and divide? I mean all well and good knowing what is going on, doesn't take a Rhodes Scholar if you have been following League for a few years or decades, to know and feel this cringe that has developed in particular since the SL War, but how are they going to fix it?
For one I would start and I have said this before, get League into as many elite private schools as possible. Yeah I know all the naysayers as always will bring up a thousand excuses as to why and how it will never happen, but as always that is a losers and defeatists mentality. V'Landys thank heavens is a winner so he may have an actual strategy and plan for it. We certainly are in dire need for one and a significant part of leagues future is at stake on this outcome alone.
We need to get the future leaders of our country invested and openly loving our game and the media have to openly and to really love our game too. That will change everything going forward. I for one would engage Phil Gould in going to these leading private schools and engaging with the Principles and whoever else is necessary to bring about the change that has to happen to allow RL to be played in these schools. V'Landys himself may also need to get involved to get it over the line. The NRL needs to find out what needs to be done to make this happen and not rest unlit it does. The AFL have already started to do this in both NSW and QLD. They don't rest on their laurels or leave anything to chance. They know what has worked for them so far to eclipse the NRL in everything including TV ratings this year.
How much longer has the NRL got before it stops being considered as even a true rival to the AFL? I say 15 years max if V'Landys doesn't make significant positive progress on many fronts for the game of RL. The class divide and perception is just one. I used to say 20-30 years and AFL will take over and most of you fellow forumites would roast me and attack me and say it would never happen. Well look who's right now? I wish that I wasn't of course, but slowly and surely, the AFL have started to dominate the country including our RL States. The only place they haven't a clear advantage is participation in NSW and QLD. But that too will come. Of course not in the short to medium term, but in the long term future it is a distinct possibility. Around the 50 years from now mark, if we don't start to reverse all their gains and actually start to take some of their territories, they will have the dominant junior nurseries too.
Sounds like pie in the sky stuff and ridiculous, right? Watch this space if you are still around 2060 and onwards. But by then, like I have also said before, not many will care. League will not die a sudden death by any means. It is to well liked even now for that to happen. But like Stalin said of Communism's take over Capitalism, it will be like eating a salami, you do it one slice at a time.
