NRL's growth mindset points to 18th team. And it ain't Perth.

[MugaB]

Back to the Actual title Subject.... not sure why weve headed off into a juniors or reserve grade comps tangent for the past 15 pages...

Interesting article, it makes sense from an International game point of view. PVL always talks of giving greater relevance to international game so maybe its not just lip service. Theoretically lead to stronger NZ international team along with stronger growth in the south Pacific.

I like it in theory, but can't work out which area etc would work best. Do they go for a game in Auckland each week ? Just spitballing but maybe a team based in Christchurch with the odd game in Dunedin. Being a south island team they would have their work cut out against union but from travelling a lot to South island they are not as anti league as one would imagine. With Union being a shorter comp would Christchurch have the market to support a league team.

South Island Kea's, South Island Orcas etc...

Reading that article subtle hints about which QLD bid they may favour.

"The research shows us that we already have footprints in the greater Brisbane area where there is strong following from a participation base and a strong following from a fan base,” Abdo said.
We have to test that to make sure we are not cannibalising the Broncos or the Titans but our initial data shows us that there are large catchment areas and existing franchises that have a strong participation base, access to great facilities and fans"

Think thats the Dolphins he is referring to "Greater Brisbane" could be either Dolphins or Jets. "Great facilities" going on current bids would have to mean Dolphins. Just my take.

I think if the bears are this 18th team, its happening in NZ, it might be that roaming team they wanted to be... just in NZ, not in NSW

 

[Iamback]

And creating a 2nd or 3rd tier amateur comp, doesn't help with this at all.

Expansion into non-RL states is going to require significant investment and time, and just like every other professional league in Australia, rely on the existing talent pools to sustain it until such time as the local market can start to provide.

It is the chicken and the egg scenario, How does a local in a market like that get to the level to even be in a Professional setup?

PNG Hunters is a 10 year sample size, Still are to see their 1st NRL debutant, Melbourne has had a handful but nothing of note in 20 years

 

[Wb1234]

And creating a 2nd or 3rd tier amateur comp, doesn't help with this at all.

Expansion into non-RL states is going to require significant investment and time, and just like every other professional league in Australia, rely on the existing talent pools to sustain it until such time as the local market can start to provide.

Unlike afl or other sports rugby league doesn’t need wa sa or Victoria producing any juniors since they have nz png and the pacific who can provide more players than we can ever use

other than vanity it would be a massive waste of money trying to get people in non afl states playing league on a large basis

 

[Iamback]

Unlike afl or other sports rugby league doesn’t need wa sa or Victoria producing any juniors since they have nz png and the pacific who can provide more players than we can ever use

other than vanity it would be a massive waste of money trying to get people in non afl states playing league on a large basis

You want 24 teams eventually, That will take players from new areas. Who at this point in time can't get in the shop window

 

[Colk]

Older guys are being signed on train and trial type deals now.

It isn't 26 teams of all full timers though, Take the Rockhampton team or PNG team they are essentially semi pro teams.
Hell particularly around time the Storm and Bronco feeder sides have no full timers.

So if everyone is on the same level shouldn't they develop better then now?

As for the purpose, Development and to get noticed by the NRL clubs. Guys sitting in Perth aren't getting noticed atm.

Fiji has had to combine with Roosters to have a partial NSW Cup team. How are they not better in a competition as a full team?

1. Because of the current system. Do you think that opportunity will be available to these type of players in a third grade competition in the near future?
2. Sure they actually have a link to the NRL at this time. Just because they may not have made it thus far doesn’t mean that the opportunity is not there. If you take this link away from them, then the standard, investment and capital will regress. It is not that hard to understand surely?
3. How is playing in a lesser standard competition good for their development in the medium to long term?
4. Right so just because it is not happening now you introduce a competition which removes any opportunity of solving this problem. That is not very good logic - this whole thing is V’Landys six again logic.

The reserve grade is not actually addressing anything it’s just creating more problems. The problems with lower tier football is improving the regional side of things, the need for more investment, particularly with areas that don’t have an NRL side adjacent to them and providing a pathway to first grade. The reserve grade address none of these problems, unless you are of the belief for some reason that NRL clubs are going to fund everything in lower tier football.

 

[Canard]

It is the chicken and the egg scenario, How does a local in a market like that get to the level to even be in a Professional setup?

PNG Hunters is a 10 year sample size, Still are to see their 1st NRL debutant, Melbourne has had a handful but nothing of note in 20 years

That's not the nature of expansion, you don't build from the bottom up.

Unlike afl or other sports rugby league doesn’t need wa sa or Victoria producing any juniors since they have nz png and the pacific who can provide more players than we can ever use

other than vanity it would be a massive waste of money trying to get people in non afl states playing league on a large basis

Rubbish, you want as many people as possible playing, particularly in the only country in the world where Rugby League is played professionally and has any sort of profile.

 

[Colk]

You want 24 teams eventually, That will take players from new areas. Who at this point in time can't get in the shop window

I’m wrong about a lot of things but I’m pretty certain that I’m never going to be alive to see a 24 team competition (nor anybody else on this forum) Australia and NZ is just way too small to have a competition that size.

It also illustrates my point. If you provide proper access for first grade to talent across Australia and NZ you don’t need to have a NRL side in every pocket of Australia and NZ for the purposes of development.

 

[Iamback]

I’m wrong about a lot of things but I’m pretty certain that I’m never going to be alive to see a 24 team competition (not anybody else on this forum) Australia and NZ is just way too small to have a competition that size.

It also illustrates my point. If you provide proper access for first grade to talent across Australia and NZ you don’t need to have a NRL side in every pocket of Australia and NZ for the purposes of development.

I think a 24 team won't happen,

This is the issue, Say there is a promising 16 year old in somewhere like Perth. To get into the NRL he has to move to the East Coast, While finishing school or hope that they snag a trial somewhere at 18 which is difficult.

Clubs do a good job at developing talent, Probably too good but the pathways are broken as far as developing more talent then is needed, That is where aligning all of the Professionals will help. It is allows the 18/19 year old who missed Junior reps a chance to get noticed

 

[Wb1234]

That's not the nature of expansion, you don't build from the bottom up.

Rubbish, you want as many people as possible playing, particularly in the only country in the world where Rugby League is played professionally and has any sort of profile.

It’s not rubbish

100 million invested into afl states would generate how many nrl players ? 50

the same number in png nz and the pacific islands would produce 5000 players of similar standard

it’s literally just vanity it makes zero sense when there is so much low hanging fruit out there

and the poms argue bottom up is the only way to expand

 

[Wb1234]

You want 24 teams eventually, That will take players from new areas. Who at this point in time can't get in the shop window

Yeh eventually I can see this happening

we can get to 20 and that still leaves out Adelaide which this forum has a fetish for

 

[Iamback]

Yeh eventually I can see this happening

we can get to 20 and that still leaves out Adelaide which this forum has a fetish for

Halves in particular are in short supply though, There is no path for those guys atm

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

We'll get an 18th team and possibly expand to 20 by 2040, but there's no way in hell we'll get 24 clubs. The only way we could get to 24 is if Japanese and SE Asian businesses and govs decided they could make money from fielding teams of their own in our competition, which isn't impossible but improbable while our game is run by a Sydney-centric organisation that only cares about protecing the nine NSWRL clubs based in Sydney.

Ideally we would only have 12 clubs in our competition.

Sydney 3
Brisbane 2
Melbourne 1
Perth 1
Adelaide 1
Auckland 1
Townsville 1
Newcastle 1
Canberra 1

 

[The Great Dane]

In 2023, Roosters will run a NSW Cup team with the Fijians and some younger guys. Fiji needed an NRL team to be able to run a side.

Are you starting to see the pattern yet?

It isn't an even playing field, That is why it isn't viable.

Take Penrith who won every thing last season, Have a $25m CoE to train in. Get $5m funding from the NRL which in turn they are able to put $3m of funding into lower grades. Should they need it have $250m worth of assets to tap into.

How is a Park side playing out of Casey Fields in Suburban Melbourne going to compete with that?

As a result Melbourne pick their top side, Hope that the QLD Cup teams they are using have some decent depth. Rather then be able to build up their own locals to fill gaps in the coming years

As the comp expands, Especially if a Perth side is to come in. Then there needs to be a way to get talent from expanding markets into the top grade.

There is currently no way for that to happen

Again you've auto-filled a strawman argument instead of addressing any position that I actually hold. . . Just how disingenuous and uncharitable you and your "mates" are is honestly tiresome. It was always hard to find genuine discussion on here, but you lot have made it basically impossible.

All of the problems you've created there are fixed instantly by doing what should have been done from the start; ban NRL sides from running de facto reserve grade teams in lower tier competitions and introduce a dual registration and/or player loaning system and a transfer system.
That stops the NRL clubs from being able to monopolise the talent and forces it to spread more evenly across the lower tiers. In theory it also makes it viable for independent clubs to pop up basically anywhere and compete within the players market without having to compete with the NRL clubs, and it makes it possible for lower tier clubs to make a profit from receiving a transfer fee for developing players and selling them to other clubs (namely the NRL sides).

Before you say it; I fully understand that creating such systems would require whole restructures of the lower tiers and junior development, and that that may hurt some NRL clubs in the short term (it'd undoubtably benefit others as well), but that's precisely what has needed to happen in this sport for decades. RL has been too top heavy, and the NRL clubs have held too much sway over the sport, since at least the 90s (arguably earlier), and changing that status quo would only be a good thing in the long run.

 

[The Great Dane]

Ah don’t you just rugby league “fans” who see having a leagues club as a negative

this is a special kind of stupid

It's not a matter of seeing them as positive or negative. It's more nuanced than that.

Leagues clubs (and other forms of financial backing) are all well and good until such a point as they're being used as a crutch to underwrite mismanaged of the football business. In other words there's nothing wrong with leagues clubs, but their existence and support shouldn't be used as an excuse to ignore NRL sides that are failing commercially.

It's especially bad in the case of clubs whose NRL sides could be successful, or at least significantly more successful, independent of their leagues club (and other businesses) with only some relatively minor changes to how they operate their NRL business, but choose not to make those changes because there's no financial incentive to do so because of the grants that they receive yearly. BTW, that description probably describes most NRL sides, including the Raiders.

 

[The Great Dane]

It’s weird how there’s quite a few people on here that love to stick the boot in any chance they can get

I don’t mind objective critism but it’s literally they take any chance to talk the game down

the same people who will with the same breath tell you how wonderful afl is and how rugby league can never catch up or overtake it

I really don’t understand that mentality at all

You don't understand it because it doesn't really exist. It's just a strawman that you've manufactured, therefore you can define it however you like.

No matter how objective it is, if you don't like it you class it as sticking the boot in, and anyone whom repeats it you class as an other in the typically lame tribalistic way that humanity is so prone to do. At the end of the day it's all just an excuse to distance yourself from things that make you uncomfortable, and justify building an echo chamber.

 

[Colk]

Again you've auto-filled a strawman argument instead of addressing any position that I actually hold. . . Just how disingenuous and uncharitable you and your "mates" are is honestly tiresome. It was always hard to find genuine discussion on here, but you lot have made it basically impossible.

All of the problems you've created there are fixed instantly by doing what should have been done from the start; ban NRL sides from running de facto reserve grade teams in lower tier competitions and introduce a dual registration and/or player loaning system and a transfer system.
That stops the NRL clubs from being able to monopolise the talent and forces it to spread more evenly across the lower tiers. In theory it also makes it viable for independent clubs to pop up basically anywhere and compete within the players market without having to compete with the NRL clubs, and it makes it possible for lower tier clubs to make a profit from receiving a transfer fee for developing players and selling them to other clubs (namely the NRL sides).

Before you say it; I fully understand that creating such systems would require whole restructures of the lower tiers and junior development, and that that may hurt some NRL clubs in the short term (it'd undoubtably benefit others as well), but that's precisely what has needed to happen in this sport for decades. RL has been too top heavy, and the NRL clubs have held too much sway over the sport, since at least the 90s (arguably earlier), and changing that status quo would only be a good thing in the long run.

That’s similar to how minor league baseball works. Exactly how you could make a lower tier viable.

Give them a salary cap (say $3m for argument’s sake) and limit the number in a NRL squad to say 25.

 

[Perth Red]

Australia is such a small market, that in 2022, fans aren't interested in lower tier sports. It being a "legit comp" has nothing to do with it.

To weaken every team to the level of the worst one in the competition, is certainly not going to fix the fan interest.

That's a big assumption! If fans are interested in NRLW I see no reason why markets starved of live NRL content wouldn't be interested, all be it on a much smaller scale, in following a legit second division. Like I said I was there when the WA Reds played in the third division and drew 2000 plus to games.

 

[siv]

No it won’t be. They will be playing in a third grade competition. The effect will be felt in the medium to long term as well.

There will be more than those numbers too. If NRL need to have reserve grade teams under this hair brained idea they will move squad numbers up to 40 so that will be what another 50-100 players pulled out of Qld Cup predominantly.

And you have 250 U20 players graduating ready to fill these gaps, every year

 

[Perth Red]

You don't understand it because it doesn't really exist. It's just a strawman that you've manufactured, therefore you can define it however you like.

No matter how objective it is, if you don't like it you class it as sticking the boot in, and anyone whom repeats it you class as an other in the typically lame tribalistic way that humanity is so prone to do. At the end of the day it's all just an excuse to distance yourself from things that make you uncomfortable, and justify building an echo chamber.

now you've gone far too deep for the simpleton to understand lol
Ironically the posters who get accused of being anti RL are mostly the ones in here being positive about the potential for the game to grow in new ways lol

 

[siv]

Of course .

What would be the point of getting WA for example to fly across the country so they can participate in the Ron Massey Cup? What would that prove?

Firstly it wont be called RMC

It would be called NSW or Qld Cup just like today

If you are going to expand beyond the Greater Sydney in NSW Cup, it will always require a extra travel grant

This requirement doesnt change in either model and would never be footed by NRL clubs

Thats how Adelaide, Perth & Darwin are helped