New Zealand 2 will deal a massive blow to NZ rugby

[MugaB]

Yes, it did.

But it needs to expand beyond that to grow and thrive.

We need clubs playing in Te Kaha stadium or a brand new stadia in Canberra or Perth, not talkin about playing 4 games a year at North Sydney Oval.

That's all fine, I want that too, expand , expand, expand, just keep whats there and add to it, the more meaningful expansion happens, the less sydney looks in the overall competition, right now it half, in a decade it will be a 3rd, in 20 years maybe a quarter

 

[The Great Dane]

Majority of Unions current woes stem from a fear of future legal issues regarding head injuries and duty of care around them. This is an issue that will also effect the NRL and they will need to avoid unions mistake of diluting the spectacle.

NRL whilst a great product has its own issues around how the comp is perceived, one of the major issues is whether perceived or real the is a perception of bias towards some teams and/or players on how rules are interpreted and enforced. Being heavily in bed with media and sports betting does little to dispel its image.

That might be true in NZ, but in Australia RU has been a broken and uncompetitive product for 20 years at this point, long before CTE was a widely recognised issue.

 

[Foreign Legion]

This reminds me of 1997 all over again.

 

[Canard]

The kiwis draw crap crowds because they hardly ever play on home soil . They are invisible to the NZ public sadly.

adding NZ2 to the NRL will only help increase the popularity of RL in NZ in terms of crowds, tv viewing figures and playing numbers.

as for the kiwi’s popularity they will remain largely anonymous if they don’t play a number of home tests every year for the foreseeable future.

Why do Internationals in Australia draw such poor crowds though?

 

[Matiunz]

That might be true in NZ, but in Australia RU has been a broken and uncompetitive product for 20 years at this point, long before CTE was a widely recognised issue.

The much maligned rules come from world rugby based in Ireland (and heavily influenced by uk). NZ (unsure about Aus) generally been opposed to the rolls of red tape

 

[Wb1234]

 

[Matiunz]

A player that has fallen out of favour and not played for the all blacks in 4 years May switch to Wallabies (his dad is Australian) to get an international reprieve?- what has this got to do with league?

 

[Colk]

A player that has fallen out of favour and not played for the all blacks in 4 years May switch to Wallabies (his dad is Australian) to get an international reprieve?- what has this got to do with league?

Pretty much

 

[Perth Red]

A player that has fallen out of favour and not played for the all blacks in 4 years May switch to Wallabies (his dad is Australian) to get an international reprieve?- what has this got to do with league?

It’s Wb, you have to expect random sht from Him.

 

[Wb1234]

It’s Wb, you have to expect random sht from Him.

It’s about how crap super rugby is

 

[Matiunz]

It’s about how crap super rugby is

It literally has nothing to do with super rugby

 

[Wb1234]

It literally has nothing to do with super rugby

Australia relying upon kiwi rejects to fill the gap

 

[Perth Red]

Australia relying upon kiwi rejects to fill the gap

Yeh it’s not like international rugby league teams would pick players born overseas lol.

 

[Wb1234]

Yeh it’s not like the kangaroos would pick players born overseas lol.

Ex all black

 

[The Great Dane]

Why do Internationals in Australia draw such poor crowds though?

Because they're uncompetitive and there're no draw cards to attract people through the gates.

The main attraction to internationals in other sports is that it's a rare opportunity for fans to see household name star players that they wouldn't normally get a chance to see play against each other. In RL effectively all of those household names already play in the NRL, and the Northern Hemisphere teams have been totally uncompetitive for 30 years now. In other words international RL is basically asking Australians and Kiwis to pay a premium for a product that's generally worse.

Add to that the total undermining of the whole concept of internationals in RL over the last 5 or so years and you've got yourself a Mickey Mouse clusterf**k that's only attractive expat minority ethnic groups.

RL won't develop a strong international game until there're at least 3/4 professional leagues regularly producing star players, and all of the IRL and NRL's attempted short cuts to a strong international scene through utterly ludicrous heritage rules are only added road blocks to that development.

 

[Colk]

Ex all black

And? Again if I went through international league teams there would be plenty of Kiwi and Australian born players

 

[Brian potter]

And? Again if I went through international league teams there would be plenty of Kiwi and Australian born players

And who’ve represented both Australia and New Zealand.

 

[Brian potter]

More wishful thinking than reality me thinks.

South Africa will be back if they can’t make Europe pay off

Move to Europe and the cash will flow, they said. Well, it hasn’t for South African teams just yet. If it doesn’t, they might be back in Super Rugby given the extraordinary cost of keeping up with the giants of European rugby.

www.smh.com.au

 

[Wb1234]

International rugby league has gotten massive crowds in the past

England or gb were a massive draw

40 years of kangaroo dominance killed it off

France toured Australia post ww2 twice before massive crowds and they beat Australia too

when mal meninges Roos toured England they were the biggest rugby side on the planet

the super league war killed that off

partly due to the end of traditional ashes tours

historically nz have never been a big draw for test matches going back until 1910

 

[Wb1234]

And? Again if I went through international league teams there would be plenty of Kiwi and Australian born players

Reflection of how bad super rugby (particularly in aus)

maybe the wallabies should sign Jonah lomu too