East Coast Tiger
Coach
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I was talking to Paul Broughton at the Cook Islands game yesterday. He is patron of the of the new Pacific federation as well as leading the PNG NRL bid.
I reckon their bid is not only sounding more and more plausible but the NRL would actually be mad not to go with them. Here are a few points he mentioned that should tick a lot of the boxes people expect of them.
Security - The new stadium will be like a copy of Skilled Park except it will have a Leagues Club style facility adjoining it and accomodation. Players will fly in, be bussed from the airport to this hotel style development next to the stadium and will be able to stay, train and play within the confines of the precinct before going home the same way they arrived.
Players - He said there are between 200,000 and 300,000 regular players in PNG. He reckons they could put together an under 16s team that would be competitive against Australia but due to having no NRL-style development of these players they can't keep up with other countries when they get to under 18s or 20s and by seniors they are well behind. But they are working on coach and trainer accreditation, training development officers and player identification and development to bring the current juniors up to the standard of the junior reps in Sydney and keep them there as they progress. Basically he said that in a few years PNG should be able to produce a home grown squad that is up to NRL standard and only invisages recruiting a few imports. The new schools programs up there are not only developing players better than ever before but they are keeping kids in school.
Money - the PNG government is backing the bid to the hilt. They have huge companies on board as sponsors already. The biggest piece of the puzzle is media rights. He said the plan is for the PNG government to buy the media rights from the NRL for $10m a year and to on-sell them to companies up there. That will match what New Zealand contributes to NRL rights. The government will make the money back essentially by doing deals with the mining companies, among others. This he said is the major selling point of the whole bid, the fact that PNG will hand the NRL an extra $10m a year on top of anything it gets from Nine, Fox etc. PNG was barely hit by the GFC, similar to Australia, and its economic prospects are very good for the future.
And now the rest - Unlike other Australian bids the PNG bid won't significantly dilute the talent in Australia (and NZ). It will bring with it a whole new player base. And it will be the biggest sporting club in its market from day one, unlike other cities like Perth where there is significant competition from other clubs.
So I reckon it sounds pretty good. He said the NRL has 10 boxes for them to tick and they have ticked nine of them. The media rights deal would be the last one. Gallop is going up there early next year to check it all out.
I reckon their bid is not only sounding more and more plausible but the NRL would actually be mad not to go with them. Here are a few points he mentioned that should tick a lot of the boxes people expect of them.
Security - The new stadium will be like a copy of Skilled Park except it will have a Leagues Club style facility adjoining it and accomodation. Players will fly in, be bussed from the airport to this hotel style development next to the stadium and will be able to stay, train and play within the confines of the precinct before going home the same way they arrived.
Players - He said there are between 200,000 and 300,000 regular players in PNG. He reckons they could put together an under 16s team that would be competitive against Australia but due to having no NRL-style development of these players they can't keep up with other countries when they get to under 18s or 20s and by seniors they are well behind. But they are working on coach and trainer accreditation, training development officers and player identification and development to bring the current juniors up to the standard of the junior reps in Sydney and keep them there as they progress. Basically he said that in a few years PNG should be able to produce a home grown squad that is up to NRL standard and only invisages recruiting a few imports. The new schools programs up there are not only developing players better than ever before but they are keeping kids in school.
Money - the PNG government is backing the bid to the hilt. They have huge companies on board as sponsors already. The biggest piece of the puzzle is media rights. He said the plan is for the PNG government to buy the media rights from the NRL for $10m a year and to on-sell them to companies up there. That will match what New Zealand contributes to NRL rights. The government will make the money back essentially by doing deals with the mining companies, among others. This he said is the major selling point of the whole bid, the fact that PNG will hand the NRL an extra $10m a year on top of anything it gets from Nine, Fox etc. PNG was barely hit by the GFC, similar to Australia, and its economic prospects are very good for the future.
And now the rest - Unlike other Australian bids the PNG bid won't significantly dilute the talent in Australia (and NZ). It will bring with it a whole new player base. And it will be the biggest sporting club in its market from day one, unlike other cities like Perth where there is significant competition from other clubs.
So I reckon it sounds pretty good. He said the NRL has 10 boxes for them to tick and they have ticked nine of them. The media rights deal would be the last one. Gallop is going up there early next year to check it all out.
