A few years ago (2011-12??), the Cowbs got scheduled to play the Storm on Easter Sunday night at 7pm in the 'ville.
We got 20k.
Billy Slater obviously drags a lot in because he's from Innisfail and Cronk and Smith because of the origin thing, but that slot really seemed to work because it allowed people from out of town to head to the 'ville and spend the weekend with their fam in the 'big smoke' for easter (most people up there have family/friends in Townsville) and then go to the game sunday night and head home monday on the public holiday.
20k is a great crowd figure especially for a storm away game and the fact I can't imagine many Sydney teams wanting that perticular slot and I thought 'f**k, they're onto something here, surely this has got to be a regular occurrance now'. You know, build a tradition and all that.
Guess how many times we've been scheduled to play those storm fruits on an easter sunday in Townsville since that night?
f**king 0 times.
I know we are only one club but I could seriously come up with a schedule for my team that would pretty much ensure an average of 18-19k roughly if not more every year. That include giving us minimal home games in the early part of the season when the weather can be utterly horrendous and outright dangerous. A sequence of 2 away, one home, 2 away, one home would be ideal. That means in the first 6 weeks we would only 2 homes games, guess how many we have this year in the first 6 weeks (wet/cyclone season)?
f**king 4.
Absolute geniuss.
We don't want special favours in NQ, but some common sense with scheduling games for us, especially during the cyclone season when it's pretty hard to go to a game when it's howling wind and hosing with rain. If Debbie had of directly hit Townsville yesterday, who knows if they could have had the ground prepped in time for the game on friday?
Here's another scheduling idea for us, and its for an away game. Last saturday was the first time in 3 years we have played on the GC. You would think with the issues the Titans have had over the last few years with crowds and cash, it would be a no brainer that the qld teams have got to play each other twice a year. It blew me away when the draw came out in 2015 and 2016 that for both years, we weren't up against the titans on the GC.
Utter madness.
