NRL Goes Back to the Bush

[Pedge1971]

We need to have a strong county link to the game so this is a start. More games to the bush the better. With the QLD side of it i think it would be good if the Broncos or Titans took a game to Toowoomba or somewhere like that. It would be a great success if they did.

This. Toowoomba, Cairns, Rocky.

 

[toomuchsoup]

Each team should have to take one game away. I don't think they should all be on a 'country round' weekend. Spread them out so they can all be put at appropriate times

 

[AJB1102]

Go out bush to a 8k capacity stadium, announce a 12k crowd and rally the local government to upgrade the joint.

Sounds crazy but f**k it works for the AFL.

 

[King hit]

This. Toowoomba, Cairns, Rocky.

The Cowboys play in Cairns at least once a year

 

[The Great Dane]

I think that in the long term this is the wrong approach.

There're hundreds of country towns across the country that need attention from the NRL (or more realistically the ARLC in unison with the NSWRL, CRL, QRL, etc) and only so many NRL clubs, even if every NRL club played all their games in a different town each week it still wouldn't be enough to maintain the amount of interest that we should be looking for.

What we should be doing in my opinion is promoting local clubs and local competition, but for that to be effective on a national scale it'd mean a complete restructure of the lower tiers, selling the broadcasting rights for this new 2nd and 3rd tier competition, and probably looking into an open ended promotion and relegation system between the two lower tiers, or some other system to make it possible for any team from anywhere that meets some base requirements to join the league and progress through it if they are willing to put in the work.
But none of that will ever happen because the NRL (and RL in general in this country) is deathly afraid of risk, and self interest always reigns supreme in RL.

 

[Hello, I'm The Doctor]

The NRL should demand that the 9 Sydney clubs take at least 1 game out of Syndey every year (2 would be better, but even more unlikely)....

Every other team is a one-team team town, while Sydney has 100+ games every year. Im sure syndey can afford to lose 12.

Shouldnt just be country NSW though. Other major cities or country QLD need just as much love...

 

[Hello, I'm The Doctor]

I think that in the long term this is the wrong approach.

There're hundreds of country towns across the country that need attention from the NRL (or more realistically the ARLC in unison with the NSWRL, CRL, QRL, etc) and only so many NRL clubs, even if every NRL club played all their games in a different town each week it still wouldn't be enough to maintain the amount of interest that we should be looking for.

What we should be doing in my opinion is promoting local clubs and local competition, but for that to be effective on a national scale it'd mean a complete restructure of the lower tiers, selling the broadcasting rights for this new 2nd and 3rd tier competition, and probably looking into an open ended promotion and relegation system between the two lower tiers, or some other system to make it possible for any team from anywhere that meets some base requirements to join the league and progress through it if they are willing to put in the work.
But none of that will ever happen because the NRL (and RL in general in this country) is deathly afraid of risk, and self interest always reigns supreme in RL.

Love it...

Expand the State Championship to hold as many locations as can afford teams, the whole thing being broken up into relatively local conferences to keep travel costs down.

End of the year, bring the group champions from across the country together for a big finals series with the GF as the curtain raiser to the NRL GF.

Basically giving local amateurs the hope of playing on the big stage....

 

[Vee]

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/rug...berra-raiders-to-go-bush-20170807-gxqp0z.html

ACT government needs to come to country party for Canberra Raiders to go bush
David Polkinghorne

The ball is in the ACT government's court when it comes to the Canberra Raiders taking games to the bush.

As revealed by Fairfax Media in June, the Raiders have spoken to the NRL about the possibility of taking a home game to the Riverina, but it would depend on the government waiving a fee they'd incur for not playing at Canberra Stadium.

The NRL is set to take up to five premiership matches to the bush next season in the wake of the City-Country fixture being axed.

Raiders chief executive Don Furner said they were still open to the idea.

"We're one of the ones looking at it ... certainly we consider the Riverina region our region and we'd look to take one there," he said.

"But we'd have to talk to the NRL, we'd have to talk to the ACT government because there's a fee for us to have to take games away from here.

"So we'd have to go through all that and we haven't taken that step yet. We haven't sat down with the footy staff and spoken to them about it, or the board, but certainly we would be considering it."

Raiders great Alan Tongue backed the idea at the NSW government's announcement of $100 million for regional sporting facilities on Monday.

Tongue was recruited to the capital from Tamworth and said the investment will ensure sporting clubs continue to play integral roles in regional communities.

He said sport was an important part of regional communities and could help stop young people from slipping through the cracks.

"I think it's wonderful and it's great to see places like Tamworth and Mudgee being able to host NRL games, whether it be pre-season or competition games," Tongue said.

"It's important we acknowledge the regional supporters and the players we get from those areas, it's a great way of giving back to those communities."

NSW deputy premier John Barilaro said proposals with a minimum project value of $1 million would be considered and suggested Queanbeyan could be awarded funds.

The Raiders' spiritual home Seiffert Oval could be in line for a facelift and Barilaro was hopeful upgrading regional facilities would help make the stars of tomorrow.

"Here in Queanbeyan the council have a concept for out at Jerrabomberra of a regional sports centre, comprising of a number of different sports, hockey and football," Barilaro said.

"Right across regional NSW everywhere I go people are talking sport, there's no question sport is the fabric of our regional communities and we need to support them.

"This isn't just about improving amenities and facilities at a grass roots level, but it's also upgrading facilities to a standard that can attract state and national sporting events in regional NSW.

"You look at our region and we've had some fantastic athletes come out of here in David Campese from Queanbeyan, Laurie Daley from out in the regions and Brad Haddin."

The $100 million comes from the Regional Sports Infrastructure Fund and falls under the $1.3 billion Regional Growth Fund announced in the 2017-18 NSW state budget.

 

[POPEYE]

Why couldn't the Dragons adopt the Mudgee Dragons, they play in the same colours. Play a game here once a year, have a player parade through the streets . . . copy the Bathurst Panthers. Be interesting to see the NRL Dragons play Penrith after the Mudgee/Bathurst Group 10 game and take the circus to Bathurst the next year

Novelty aside, what really needs to happen is NSW Country in the State Cup as has been mentioned

 

[Hello, I'm The Doctor]

Why couldn't the Dragons adopt the Mudgee Dragons, they play in the same colours. Play a game here once a year, have a player parade through the streets . . . copy the Bathurst Panthers. Be interesting to see the NRL Dragons play Penrith after the Mudgee/Bathurst Group 10 game and take the circus to Bathurst the next year

Novelty aside, what really needs to happen is NSW Country in the State Cup as has been mentioned

I assume this means repurposing the jersey...

Sounds good, if so. It would be sad to lose such a good brand.

I still think its a shame they didnt retire the CvC match back in the 80s and instead use the Country jumper for one of the expansion teams in Newcastle/Illawarra/Canberra. THAT would have been the way to save the jumper...

 

[magpie_man]

Novelty aside, what really needs to happen is NSW Country in the State Cup as has been mentioned

I'd much rather see the State Cup expanded to have some of the major regional centres represented, towns like: Wagga Wagga, Tamworth, Bathurst, Port Macquarie etc.

 

[Vee]

I'd much rather see the State Cup expanded to have some of the major regional centres represented, towns like: Wagga Wagga, Tamworth, Bathurst, Port Macquarie etc.

Good if it could work but I think as feeders to the NRL clubs, the SC semi-pro players might be too strong and fit for most country players.

 

[Vee]

Why couldn't the Dragons adopt the Mudgee Dragons, they play in the same colours. Play a game here once a year, have a player parade through the streets . . . copy the Bathurst Panthers. Be interesting to see the NRL Dragons play Penrith after the Mudgee/Bathurst Group 10 game and take the circus to Bathurst the next year

Novelty aside, what really needs to happen is NSW Country in the State Cup as has been mentioned

Like the first paragraph, can't see Country reps being able to afford the time to play home and away all season with blokes based 100s of km away, limiting training and teamwork.

 

[magpie_man]

Good if it could work but I think as feeders to the NRL clubs, the SC semi-pro players might be too strong and fit for most country players.

True, which is why I'd much rather some of the ARLC's riches going towards funding semi-pro teams in the bush instead of lining the pockets of the top 50 professional players in the NRL.
Even so, they'd still probably struggle to compete with some of the Sydney Metro feeder teams but the benefits are immeasurably superior to a lack of major on-field success.

 

[siv]

I think that in the long term this is the wrong approach.

There're hundreds of country towns across the country that need attention from the NRL (or more realistically the ARLC in unison with the NSWRL, CRL, QRL, etc) and only so many NRL clubs, even if every NRL club played all their games in a different town each week it still wouldn't be enough to maintain the amount of interest that we should be looking for.

What we should be doing in my opinion is promoting local clubs and local competition, but for that to be effective on a national scale it'd mean a complete restructure of the lower tiers, selling the broadcasting rights for this new 2nd and 3rd tier competition, and probably looking into an open ended promotion and relegation system between the two lower tiers, or some other system to make it possible for any team from anywhere that meets some base requirements to join the league and progress through it if they are willing to put in the work.
But none of that will ever happen because the NRL (and RL in general in this country) is deathly afraid of risk, and self interest always reigns supreme in RL.

I beleive RM Cup is open to all NSW Country clubs

They have had many play there already

 

[siv]

I assume this means repurposing the jersey...

Sounds good, if so. It would be sad to lose such a good brand.

I still think its a shame they didnt retire the CvC match back in the 80s and instead use the Country jumper for one of the expansion teams in Newcastle/Illawarra/Canberra. THAT would have been the way to save the jumper...

Let Riverina return

 

[The Great Dane]

Novelty aside, what really needs to happen is NSW Country in the State Cup as has been mentioned

I'd much rather see the State Cup expanded to have some of the major regional centres represented, towns like: Wagga Wagga, Tamworth, Bathurst, Port Macquarie etc.

Neither of these ideas will work in the current structure because these new clubs will be unable to build competitive teams because they'll be in direct competition with clubs that have partnerships with NRL clubs or are reserve grade teams for the NRL clubs.

For it to work the NRL would need to move to a one club one team policy, so any one club can only field one team in all the tiers (so no Bulldogs NRL and Bulldogs NSWRL, it has to be one or the other), and introduce a dual registration system similar to the one they have in England.
That way these clubs in the bush would be able to compete for talent and it'd make it a lot harder for NRL clubs like the Broncos to hoard talent within their system.

I beleive RM Cup is open to all NSW Country clubs

They have had many play there already

The problem with that is that the RM cup has no exposure to the wider community, so it's very hard for clubs to make a return for their investment as they can't attract sponsors, fans, players, etc, from outside of their immediate area, so to join a comp like that they have to be willing to piss away money that the clubs in the bush don't have, now if there was national exposure to the competition they may be able to attract better sponsorship, benefactors, etc and be able to afford to join the comp without bankrupting themselves overnight, unfortunately the RM cup (and the NSW cup and QLD cup) don't have that exposure and never will have so long as the competition is structured the way it is.

What needs to happen is the NSW cup and QLD cup need to be merged and nationalised, each being a conference in the new competition with joint finals, all the NRL clubs teams in the NSW cup and QLD cup conferences need to be removed and their places in the competition put to tender, and all the NSW cup and QLD cup clubs with player development agreements with NRL clubs need to be made independent from the NRL clubs, a duel registration system needs to be introduced, then this competition needs to sell it's broadcasting rights and be televised (with at least a few games a week from each conference on free to air).

Then a second competition needs to be made with the same conference structure underneath the new national second tier comp, a base set of start up requirements need to be decided on by the NRL (e.g. The amount of start up funds, base stadium requirements, base sponsorship value, etc) for entry into this new comp, then they need to invite any clubs from anywhere (literally anywhere, if a team from japan wants to join and meet the base feasibility requirements then let them join) and fill this comp with these teams, have an open ended policy (that means that anybody that meets the minimum requirements can join at the start of any new season), then promotion and regulation needs to be setup between the two tiers (2 up 2 down, 1 up 1 down for each conference), then go about getting a tv deal for this third tier and encourage the clubs to invest in live streaming their home games or even just uploading them to YouTube after the fact.

After that's been done let it grow whichever way it's going to grow, let the clubs that can support themselves and better themselves rise through the ranks and the ones that can't go broke, then every now and again when it's necessary take one of the better teams (startigically and business wise) from this new national 2nd and 3rd tier comp and put them into the NRL when it expands, that way the team joining the NRL has a ready made fan base and pre-existing infrastructure for when they join the big league, and when the inevitable happens and we need to rationalise Sydney or drop clubs from the NRL for whatever reason we have somewhere for the clubs to go once they're dropped and somewhere to pull already established clubs from as replacements for the clubs that are dropped as necessary.

Well that's the best way I can think of to promote growth of the game in the bush, and nationally really, as to get to the NRL you'd have to have spent some time in these lower tier comps so clubs from Perth, Wellington, Adelaide, etc, would have to spend at least a little amount of time playing in them along with your Wagga Waggas' and Toowoomba's.

 

[The Great Dane]

I assume this means repurposing the jersey...

Sounds good, if so. It would be sad to lose such a good brand.

I still think its a shame they didnt retire the CvC match back in the 80s and instead use the Country jumper for one of the expansion teams in Newcastle/Illawarra/Canberra. THAT would have been the way to save the jumper...

Can't speak for the others but Canberra wanted and needed it's own identity, forcing the CRL's identity on us would have been a sure fire way to kill support for the club overnight.

 

[dogz08]

Bush Padre won the 2003 Doomben Cup

not as good as this plodder https://www.racing.com/horses/wine-bush

 

[siv]

Neither of these ideas will work in the current structure because these new clubs will be unable to build competitive teams because they'll be in direct competition with clubs that have partnerships with NRL clubs or are reserve grade teams for the NRL clubs.

For it to work the NRL would need to move to a one club one team policy, so any one club can only field one team in all the tiers (so no Bulldogs NRL and Bulldogs NSWRL, it has to be one or the other), and introduce a dual registration system similar to the one they have in England.
That way these clubs in the bush would be able to compete for talent and it'd make it a lot harder for NRL clubs like the Broncos to hoard talent within their system.



The problem with that is that the RM cup has no exposure to the wider community, so it's very hard for clubs to make a return for their investment as they can't attract sponsors, fans, players, etc, from outside of their immediate area, so to join a comp like that they have to be willing to piss away money that the clubs in the bush don't have, now if there was national exposure to the competition they may be able to attract better sponsorship, benefactors, etc and be able to afford to join the comp without bankrupting themselves overnight, unfortunately the RM cup (and the NSW cup and QLD cup) don't have that exposure and never will have so long as the competition is structured the way it is.

What needs to happen is the NSW cup and QLD cup need to be merged and nationalised, each being a conference in the new competition with joint finals, all the NRL clubs teams in the NSW cup and QLD cup conferences need to be removed and their places in the competition put to tender, and all the NSW cup and QLD cup clubs with player development agreements with NRL clubs need to be made independent from the NRL clubs, a duel registration system needs to be introduced, then this competition needs to sell it's broadcasting rights and be televised (with at least a few games a week from each conference on free to air).

Then a second competition needs to be made with the same conference structure underneath the new national second tier comp, a base set of start up requirements need to be decided on by the NRL (e.g. The amount of start up funds, base stadium requirements, base sponsorship value, etc) for entry into this new comp, then they need to invite any clubs from anywhere (literally anywhere, if a team from japan wants to join and meet the base feasibility requirements then let them join) and fill this comp with these teams, have an open ended policy (that means that anybody that meets the minimum requirements can join at the start of any new season), then promotion and regulation needs to be setup between the two tiers (2 up 2 down, 1 up 1 down for each conference), then go about getting a tv deal for this third tier and encourage the clubs to invest in live streaming their home games or even just uploading them to YouTube after the fact.

After that's been done let it grow whichever way it's going to grow, let the clubs that can support themselves and better themselves rise through the ranks and the ones that can't go broke, then every now and again when it's necessary take one of the better teams (startigically and business wise) from this new national 2nd and 3rd tier comp and put them into the NRL when it expands, that way the team joining the NRL has a ready made fan base and pre-existing infrastructure for when they join the big league, and when the inevitable happens and we need to rationalise Sydney or drop clubs from the NRL for whatever reason we have somewhere for the clubs to go once they're dropped and somewhere to pull already established clubs from as replacements for the clubs that are dropped as necessary.

Well that's the best way I can think of to promote growth of the game in the bush, and nationally really, as to get to the NRL you'd have to have spent some time in these lower tier comps so clubs from Perth, Wellington, Adelaide, etc, would have to spend at least a little amount of time playing in them along with your Wagga Waggas' and Toowoomba's.

Still prefer National U20s and National RG - this allows NSW Cip and QLD Cup teams to compete on a level footing

That removes the Feeder issue with NSW Cup

Eg my teams players 18-36 could turn out for a NSW Cup team like Newtown. Get Newtown promoted at expense of my club

I like the promotion relegation concept but not with 17 NRL squad members

Plus we have fulltime professionals v parttime footballers

Plus we have the player contract issues and how does a Salary Cap apply to 2nd Tier