The Australian 15 oct
Expanding the NSW and Qld Cup competitions, with the possible inclusion of teams from Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and New Zealand, will take precedence over adding more teams to the NRL competition, according to ARL Commission head John Grant.
While first grade bidding teams such as the West Coast Pirates in Perth, Brisbane Bombers and Central Coast Bears continue to wait in the wings, the ARLC is looking to invite sides from the Pacific and a second team from New Zealand.
The Warriors already play in the NSW Cup, and Papua New Guinea have been playing in the Qld Cup since 2014.
Grant said the NRL could increase beyond the current 16 teams by the time a new broadcast deal is negotiated for 2023 and beyond, but it was unlikely. The $1.8 billion deal struck in November last year comes into operation in 2018 and will expire in 2022.
The NRL has previously stated no expansion beyond 2020. Grant conceded the idea of growing the elite level was not completely out of range for the 2023 negotiations.
“Perhaps, but it would depend entirely on what our participation rates are looking like,” the chairman said. “Participation is like a pyramid. If you don’t build up the base you can’t add more to the top.
“Remember our expansion strategy is around State cups. With the NYC (under-20s) ending at the end of 2017 that’s around 400 players coming out of there and going into the NSW and Qld Cups and a few into the NRL.”
To accommodate that influx and deepen the pool of talent, Grant said the commission wanted to build off the growing popularity of rugby league both within Australia and among its neighbours.
Samoa hosted its first Test match last Saturday against Fiji, when around 10,000 spectators crammed into Apia’s stadium to help celebrate Samoan rugby league’s 30th anniversary.
The two nations, along with PNG and Tonga, already play in two Pacific Tests on the representative weekend in May, when Australia meet New Zealand and the NSW City-Country matches are held.
The ARLC wants to piggy back on the resurgence of the Pacific nations. Around 36 per cent of current NRL players come from a Polynesian background and that figure grows to over 60 per cent in junior grades. So instead of widening the NRL, or trying to start up a Victoria State Cup, the idea is to strengthen the NSW and Qld competitions.
“We’d see teams playing from around the Pacific, into New Zealand and from around Australia in that competition,” Grant said. “We’ll be putting much, much more of it on television as part of the new rights deal (starting 2018).
“We see expansion in that tier two competition having a much broader footprint. But another element of that is to make sure those clubs are closely linked to an NRL club so players coming back — who are not playing NRL — come back into those teams and make them strong on a competitive basis.
“So when people talk about expansion with me, I tell them it’s expansion at the tier two level.”
