Midas touch: merger tees up golden future for the game

[flamin]

Awesome news! Absolutely stoked with this outcome.

Yes touch footy and rugby league are two different games but I see no problem in the NRL now saying we have over 1 million participants when it comes to negotiating with government and sponsors.

 

[Pugzley]

Relegate St George Illawarra to the touch footy comp and bring in Central Coast!!

 

[Joshuatheeel]

And a shit load of league players played touch in the off season

And all us retired / to old to play tackle can say we still play league !! Love it

 

[Hello, I'm The Doctor]

Hang on, so are we now counting touch players as rugby league players?

Stinks of AusKick number f**kery to me.

Difference is that Auskick is a school skills program, Touch is a weekly competition you sign up for. The numbers will be brought out when they are petitioning for fields, esspecially if other sports are competing for the land too.

Touch is obviously not taken as seriously by the players as tackle football, but thats half the appeal. I just always loved how you could travel anywhere with a touch team and youd become best mates with your opponents, its just the culture it has.

But comparing Touch to Auskick is just insulting. Auskick is like League counting school kids that play touch footy at lunchtimes.

 

[betcats]

Good work.

 

[Sans Souci Sainter]

Relegate St George Illawarra to the touch footy comp and bring in Central Coast!!

 

[Lockyer4President!]

Hang on, so are we now counting touch players as rugby league players?

Stinks of AusKick number f**kery to me.

Soccer counts all forms of their game in participation figures (small sided, indoor, etc) and I'm pretty sure cricket includes indoor cricket. Everyone knows how dodgy the AFL are with one-off school clinics.

At least RL and Touch footy share the same fields, skills and players. It will be a massive thing to help get government funding in the expansion states where Touch footy is already pretty huge but RL isn't.

 

[Fire]

Meh what ever gets government funding.

Pretty much this.

That it took so long for a common-sense move to be made shows how much we had a bunch of RSL-sunburnt dumb merkins running the game.

 

[carlosthedwarf]

Great news, but as suggested having OzTag as well would be incredible

 

[Bronco Rob]

Great news but very surprised about OZtag and their exhorbitant price tag but I don't think it'll be long before they submit and bring their asking price down as something in the hand is better than nothing. It will benefit both camps with sharing of resources, marketing etc and I'm sure the OZtag camp will soon realise this.

To have everyone under the NRL brand will be a massive boost to the game and I'd love to see OZtag/touchcomps run concurrently with junior footy for kids so Mums who have issues with contact can have their kids play a form of Rugby League without worry about getting hurt.

 

[BDR]

Soccer counts all forms of their game in participation figures (small sided, indoor, etc) and I'm pretty sure cricket includes indoor cricket. Everyone knows how dodgy the AFL are with one-off school clinics.

At least RL and Touch footy share the same fields, skills and players. It will be a massive thing to help get government funding in the expansion states where Touch footy is already pretty huge but RL isn't.

The most common source of participation figures I've seen lately (The ABS papers called "Children's Participation in Cultural and Leisure Activities" and "Participation in Sport and Physical Recreation") lists outdoor and indoor soccer as separate sports. Likewise outdoor and indoor cricket.

You can't pull the wool over taxpayer's eyes by using touch as a trojan horse. It's unethical.

 

[RWB]

No it's not. Read it again, combined we have over 1m participants.

How many participants of that 1 million are being counted twice though?

Touch footy & Rugby League aren't exclusive, one's generally played mid-week and the other on the weekend. Lots of people play both...

 

[ParraEelsNRL]

I see heaps of families down here in the gong playing touch footy in the local parks all the time during the warmer months, I've noticed a lot more females playing to, and I'm starting to think a lot of them are using it to keep in shape, lose weight whatever while the whole family is involved.

Big thumbs up.

 

[Lockyer4President!]

The most common source of participation figures I've seen lately (The ABS papers called "Children's Participation in Cultural and Leisure Activities" and "Participation in Sport and Physical Recreation") lists outdoor and indoor soccer as separate sports. Likewise outdoor and indoor cricket.

You can't pull the wool over taxpayer's eyes by using touch as a trojan horse. It's unethical.

That's the ABS.

I'm just pointing out now the NRL can go ask for grassroots sportfields funding in Perth with figures showing there are for example, 100,000 people regularly participating in a form of rugby league football as opposed to beforehand where it might be only 20,000 in RL and 80,000 in touch footy.

It's the exact same thing every sport does, and the AFL has simply taken it to an unethical level with the use of AusKick figures, which has left a bad taste in the mouth of most other sports fans. There is no reason why we shouldn't use the massive TF participation figures to our advantage IMO.

 

[Perth Red]

Excellent news and long overdue. RL has just grown by 10,000 players in WA!

http://www.sportingpulse.com/assoc_page.cgi?c=1-704-0-0-0

 

[Fire]

PR are you involved in the WA bid in an official capacity or are you just a keen fan who would like a team over there?

 

[Perth Red]

Just a keen fan but have communication with the bid through the development of a supporters group.

 

[Fire]

Ah I see. Good stuff keep up the good work over there mate.

 

[joshreading]

The National Rugby League own NRLTouch.com so maybe that will be the branding.

NRL Touch was also trademarked yesterday

Has anyone also noticed the NRL now has "play NRL" instead of "Play Rugby League" - taking the tack of the AFL

 

[Hello, I'm The Doctor]

I think its to disassociate with Union, particularly in the AFL states where NRL and ARU are just "Rugby".

Its like how AFL went away from "football" for NSW and QLD, because there are 4 other football codes they would get confused with. Its not a bad idea.