Perth Red
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It didn’t come as a surprise that every Uber and taxi driver knew State of Origin was in town.
That’s kind of their job to know what’s going on in their city of Perth as we arrived for Wednesday night’s big game.
But what did come as a bit of a surprise was the ensuing conversation in almost each of the half-a-dozen trips I took during my time on the west coast of Australia.
What do you think of the Bears? Is Mal Meninga going to be a good coach? Do many people like rugby league in Perth?
They might have not known exactly what they were talking about, but they were still talking about it.
And that’s the most important thing for the NRL and the Bears as they prepare to enter the competition in 2027, despite the less-than-enthusiastic coverage of a local media that is heavily controlled by Kerry Stokes, the kingpin of Seven West Media, which is the free-to-air broadcaster of the AFL.
What’s also important is to remember that rugby league doesn’t need to dominate the AFL in its own backyard. It doesn’t really even need to compete. It just needs to find a way to co-exist.
Walking to the impressive Optus Stadium on Wednesday night, it was hard not to be taken aback by the number of NSW and Queensland jerseys/beanies/scarves people were wearing.
At a guess, 75 per cent of people were in some sort of Origin merchandise. Surely, they were interstate travellers, right?
On top of the 44,000 locals in the crowd, another 190,000 watched from their Perth lounge rooms – more than recent round’s free-to-air audience for the Fremantle Dockers and West Coast Eagles games.
Of course, those figures don’t include the number of people watching AFL matches on Kayo, but they do at least make you wonder if West Australian editor Chris Dore was right when he said “if we had a league readership here, we would be covering it” when asked why his newspaper had buried its Origin coverage next to the escort-services page on the day of the game.
This is the same newspaper that six years earlier, before the first Origin game was played in Perth, was championing the cause that the city should have its own NRL team.
The Bears will have enough challenges without worrying about that.
But of the 57,000-strong crowd in attendance, only 13,000 travelled from other states to watch the game.
Let’s face it, the NRL has made things hard for them by insisting they operate from the start on a level playing field and not offering them any salary cap dispensation, as the AFL has done when setting up new franchises.
Even in the NRL, expansion team Papua New Guinea will come into the competition in 2028 with the added bonus of being able to offer players a tax-free income.
Not since the Melbourne Storm almost three decades ago has a team been asked to convince 30 players to move interstate, away from family and friends.
The Dolphins had the luxury of having their own junior nursery and signing a bunch of players who already lived in south-east Queensland.
That means the Bears will have to pay overs for more players, creating an unbalanced roster in a town where they can’t just go down to the local ground and find the next best kid.
If you are player 19-30 on the roster, or one of the club’s development players, you could be making a 10-hour return trip each week to represent the North Sydney Bears in NSW Cup, if the club decides to adopt that development-pathway model.
As one rival NRL club representative said during the week: “I’m glad our players have just done this trip, now they won’t sign with the Bears.”
Their coach Mal Meninga proved incredibly popular with the locals during his recent trip to the west for Origin II, which is a huge positive. But it must also be remembered that, despite an impeccable record of coaching at representative level for Queensland and Australia, he hasn’t coached a club team since 2001. With that will come uncertainty.
Similarly, the Bears’ chief executive Anthony de Ceglie is a well-connected figure in Perth, which again is a huge positive. But, by his own admission, he has very little rugby league IQ.
None of that means the Bears won’t – or can’t – be a success, but the challenges are real. Time is of the essence and much of this team’s success will hinge on its ability to arrive with a bang and not a succession of wooden spoons as it figures itself out.
www.smh.com.au
That’s kind of their job to know what’s going on in their city of Perth as we arrived for Wednesday night’s big game.
But what did come as a bit of a surprise was the ensuing conversation in almost each of the half-a-dozen trips I took during my time on the west coast of Australia.
What do you think of the Bears? Is Mal Meninga going to be a good coach? Do many people like rugby league in Perth?
They might have not known exactly what they were talking about, but they were still talking about it.
And that’s the most important thing for the NRL and the Bears as they prepare to enter the competition in 2027, despite the less-than-enthusiastic coverage of a local media that is heavily controlled by Kerry Stokes, the kingpin of Seven West Media, which is the free-to-air broadcaster of the AFL.
What’s also important is to remember that rugby league doesn’t need to dominate the AFL in its own backyard. It doesn’t really even need to compete. It just needs to find a way to co-exist.
Walking to the impressive Optus Stadium on Wednesday night, it was hard not to be taken aback by the number of NSW and Queensland jerseys/beanies/scarves people were wearing.
At a guess, 75 per cent of people were in some sort of Origin merchandise. Surely, they were interstate travellers, right?
On top of the 44,000 locals in the crowd, another 190,000 watched from their Perth lounge rooms – more than recent round’s free-to-air audience for the Fremantle Dockers and West Coast Eagles games.
Of course, those figures don’t include the number of people watching AFL matches on Kayo, but they do at least make you wonder if West Australian editor Chris Dore was right when he said “if we had a league readership here, we would be covering it” when asked why his newspaper had buried its Origin coverage next to the escort-services page on the day of the game.
This is the same newspaper that six years earlier, before the first Origin game was played in Perth, was championing the cause that the city should have its own NRL team.
The Bears will have enough challenges without worrying about that.
But of the 57,000-strong crowd in attendance, only 13,000 travelled from other states to watch the game.
Let’s face it, the NRL has made things hard for them by insisting they operate from the start on a level playing field and not offering them any salary cap dispensation, as the AFL has done when setting up new franchises.
Even in the NRL, expansion team Papua New Guinea will come into the competition in 2028 with the added bonus of being able to offer players a tax-free income.
Not since the Melbourne Storm almost three decades ago has a team been asked to convince 30 players to move interstate, away from family and friends.
The Dolphins had the luxury of having their own junior nursery and signing a bunch of players who already lived in south-east Queensland.
That means the Bears will have to pay overs for more players, creating an unbalanced roster in a town where they can’t just go down to the local ground and find the next best kid.
If you are player 19-30 on the roster, or one of the club’s development players, you could be making a 10-hour return trip each week to represent the North Sydney Bears in NSW Cup, if the club decides to adopt that development-pathway model.
As one rival NRL club representative said during the week: “I’m glad our players have just done this trip, now they won’t sign with the Bears.”
Their coach Mal Meninga proved incredibly popular with the locals during his recent trip to the west for Origin II, which is a huge positive. But it must also be remembered that, despite an impeccable record of coaching at representative level for Queensland and Australia, he hasn’t coached a club team since 2001. With that will come uncertainty.
Similarly, the Bears’ chief executive Anthony de Ceglie is a well-connected figure in Perth, which again is a huge positive. But, by his own admission, he has very little rugby league IQ.
None of that means the Bears won’t – or can’t – be a success, but the challenges are real. Time is of the essence and much of this team’s success will hinge on its ability to arrive with a bang and not a succession of wooden spoons as it figures itself out.
Rugby league by the numbers in Perth
- In 2018, the NRL kicked off the NRL season with a double header at Optus Stadium. The fixture attracted a crowd of 38,824 attendees, with 20 per cent out-of-state visitors
- In 2019 and 2022, the NRL’s marquee State of Origin delivered more than $25m direct economic expenditure impact into WA, with over 116,000 visitor nights and nearly 20,000 out-of-state visitors.
- In 2023, the Dolphins first visit to Perth drew a crowd of over 45,000.
- In 2024, the Dolphins-Roosters NRL game at HBF Park sold out quickly with the match setting a new attendance record at the venue.
- In 2025 the recent Sharks-Manly and Rabbitohs-Cowboys double header attracted a crowd of 31,347.
- The 2025 Perth Origin sold out with more than 57,000 fans, of which 13,000 came from other states.
- Record ratings for Perth (190k) for game two of this year’s Origin series, up from 169,000 in game one.
- It was the second-biggest consumption of food and beverage at Optus Stadium, surpassed only by the AFL grand final in 2021.
The state of rugby league in Perth
- There are currently around 5000 registered participants in Western Australia.
- When the Western Reds were in the competition, participation numbers were in between 15,000-20,000.
- The NRL aims to double participation in WA in 5 years and reach 30,000 participants in 10 years.
- In 2025, registrations are currently trending for WA’s best year since the days of the Western Reds.
- 240 schools are currently engaged in rugby league programs in WA with elite rugby league programs in six schools.
- With the Perth Bears and government support, it is hoped to drive this number to more than 500 schools and establish and elite schoolboy/girl competitions in WA.
Do the people of Perth care about rugby league? Here’s what we learnt in Origin week
Rugby league doesn’t need to dominate the AFL in its own backyard. It just needs to find a way to co-exist.
