I have an issue with that. You can count on one hand the amount of day games Souths have this year. Then you expect them to turn up in the hottest part of the year and play their best? We need teams playing their best sadly we have slowly turned into a night sport so finals need to be the same timeslots as 90% of the comp games
Hottest part of the year my arse!:lol: Harden up mate! The weather is nothing compared to the stifling heat and humidity in March, hence why there will only be one Sunday arvo game (Sunday 3pm) for the first 6 rounds of next year
Also, Sunday arvo wk 2/3 finals had been played for years right up until 2007. It couldn't have been an issue if this had been allowed to occur for years. I know you're going to rebut me with the example of the Cowboys/Warriors 2007 SF being played in stifling conditions, but that's the fault of the NRL. In the old McIntyre 8 system, only week 1 had to be played in order (i.e. 4vs5, 3vs6, 2vs7 and 1vs8). The NRL had the flexibility to switch and play that Cowboys/Warriors match on Saturday night and the Eels/Bulldogs game on Sunday (which would've got more ppl to both games) just like they did for the 2009 PFs when the Storm/Broncos was shifted from Friday night to Saturday night due to the VFL GF, yet they chose not to. It was a complete braindead decision by whoever it was at the NRL not to play Cowboys/Warriors on Sat night and Eels/Bulldogs on Sunday. It was even smarter for the Cowboys to choose to wear their white kit, hence forcing the Warriors to wear black.
However, that is not the reason why wk2/3 finals were changed to Friday night/Saturday night in 2008; the reason was the result of a compromise in favour of Ch9 as a result of changing the GF from the previous 7pm night kickoff to 5pm twilight kickoff, which no-one wanted (most fans wanted the traditional 3pm kickoff instead, Ch9 wanted the 7 kickoff). So, Ch9 were the big winners at the end of the day because they got an additional two games in primetime (wk2/3 Friday night finals) + a GF that, whilst not at night, still occurred during prime-time (if you define prime-time as starting at 6pm which is when Ch7/9 have their news bulletin) while the fans got screwed getting a GF timeslot they never agreed upon, whilst having Sunday arvo wk2/3 finals taken away from them in the process. Also, all of those so-called 5pm twilight kickoffs didn't kick-off until around 5:25pm. Last year's GF was not a twilight GF, as the whole 2nd half was played at night because daylight savings hadn't commenced yet.
Now that Ch9 have got their 7pm GF back again and have retained the Fri night/Sat night wk2/3 finals format (which they acquired as a result of losing the night GF), they well and truly have got what they wanted and screwed over the fans in the process.
People thinking you'd get the best quality footy in 35 degree heat are kidding themselves.
No one said the best quality footy is played in 35 degree heat, you imbecile!
