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Brisbane Tigers controlled by Easts and playing all games out of Lang Park would work better than "The Dolphins".
AwFuL have based their training paddock in Ipswich and social joint in Logan. They're spreading their brand far and wide. The Gabba is central to both locations, which helps them draw sponsors from southern Brisbane, Ipswich and Logan.
It's as if V'landys is working for AwFuL and News Ltd to weaken our game. He probably isn't working for them, but it's fair to question his allegiance when he says and does things that hurt our game. His comments about "rusted on AFL states" and Victoria are inflamm. The war he has waged against the NSW Gov isn't endearing us to the public at large and state.
Redcliffe. Gold Coast. Manly. Cronulla. Tiny clubs by the sea that will never grow a substantial fanbase like the Broncos, Storm, Cowboys, Warriors, Knights and Raiders. That's four licences wasted on enclaves when we should be pushing for representation that spans across entire metropolises.
Really?
Really?
Lot of Victorians moved up to SEQ from the 80s to begin with. So there’s 2 generations of kids that already like the game already.
You’ve already seen the AFL go after Karmichael hunt and Falou. Hunt was a decent mid, and without hammie injuries, would have been a solid inside mid for Suns for years.
If they were ready to burn money for Hunt and Folou - how much money you reckon they ready to burn at teenage athletes (basketball, Union and league etc) to get them to join their academies?
You can see it a mile off - “hey just come train with us for the summer - it’ll help ur fitness. Here’s new shoes and gear. Work with our strength and conditioning coaches for free. They’ll teach you to run better. We’ll cover costs of any injuries you get and we’ve got physios. Look you live 15 mins away, come down train and if you don’t like it you walk back to your sport fitter and stronger”.
Then once they there they build relationships with the people there, the best players mingle with them to stroke their egos - tell them “hey man you sure you ain’t played AFL before? You better than I was at 14.”
The kids will walk into the local NRL club for training and go “so I don’t have a physio? Or free boots? You don’t give me free training gear? I can’t work out on weights in an elite facility?” Compare the pair ffs haha
Basically, the AFL (with $500m more than NRL in 2025-27) are that smooth good looking older rich guy that girls in their 20s throw their panties at… You can see it a million miles off.
They’ve been doing it for years now (without the extra $170m annually).
How the kid who had no idea about AFL became a Swans star
Isaac Heeney couldn’t name most AFL clubs when he started with the Swans academy. Now he is the club’s foundation for the future.amp.theage.com.au
There is no doubt in my mind Isaac Heeney would be a starting full back in NRL had he not choose AFL. Gary Jacks kid would have made it in league as a utility too. That’s just two I can think of at the swans in the past 15 years.
Even if the kids don’t make it in AFL, guess what the AFL don’t care to much - because ultimately they’ve been successful in removing a kid from the talent pool of Union and league.
I know it’s beneath you, but if you bothered to watch AFL you’d see there are shit loads of players running around with the ball handling skills, size, agility and kicking skills to make it as decent halves and full backs in NRL.
Sure they’d need to work a hell of a lot on tackling and defence - but if Brodie Croft can still get a NRL contract, anyone can. The dudes not even a speed bump ffs. Rugba Leeg are so desperate for halves Brodie Croft has been nominate for the man of steel award in UK and is linked to signing with the knights.
How many young kids playing AFL have the NRL poached and turned into Full Backs or Halves? None.
And that’s the point. NRL have no desire or vision to grow the talent pool across the country. They don’t even really use the UK super league properly as a youth development league. Which is idiotic.
Sure there’s thousands of Pacific Islanders on the production ready to walk into fwd packs, but there are sweet FA halves. We need at least 17 decent halves combinations in the comp. We have maybe 8.
Look at the Ponga thurstons and Papenhausen types. They’d kill it in AFL and not have to deal with 120kg monsters smashing them. Yet earn just as much coin.
Which game you reckon a mother would want a 65kg 5’10 15 year old in SW Brisbane to play? NRL for a QRL feeder club? Or a junior academy of a national football club that’s in the top 4 every year, 15 mins away and basically just throws money and free training gear and boots at him non stop?
Then if he’s got a sister that’s an athlete - yep bring her down too she can train with the AFLW team as well.
You win over the mothers, you win over the family. AFL gonna throw money at those types in SW Brisbane when they are 12 years old ffs. The fact you can’t see it just reiterates my valid criticism of NRL administration over the years.
Your flippant and arrogant mentality, as well as many NRL supporters and administrators, is exactly why the game is so far behind AFL and why the AFL have no fear going after NRL heartland. The NRL and it’s supporters just have no vision for the future of the game.
Yeah I agree with his point for the most part. Someone the size of NAS would never play AFL though and this is why the NRL's lack of expansion into southern states is so dumb and short sited. There must be shitloads of blokes with the body shapes of NAS or JWH or even powerful nuggets like Timoko who are not suited to AFL... so what the f**k sport are they playing down there?
yeah a lot of potentially great athletes wasted in that sport... the fact that the women's comp expanded to 18 teams so quickly to me shows that there isn't much value put on skill and development in AFL. Basically if you can hold a ball for long enough without dropping it and have a decent level of fitness, you're in! The mens game is happy to poach college kids from USA who have never even watched the sport and they are AFL "stars" within a few years. Israel Folau who never kicked a Steeden once in an NRL game in paid top dollar lol
I used to take my god son to U10's afl and the number of really big kids on the pitch that really couldn't play the game because they weren't agile enough was huge. They would have done great in RL!
Daley and Hunt played a bit of fumbleball during their school years. I think Ponga was on the Lions' radar before signing with the Cowboys.
Can't see a single local sponsor https://www.lions.com.au/partners
flicked over to see how the dockers were going the other night. Apart from the amazing crowd the game was horrible. The refs whistle just blows constantly, had to switch it off after 25 blows in a few minutes! One thing I did think would be that their game would be much better if the ball was round so they weren't scrambling around trying to pick up a bouncing egg!
