PNG's back.

[Perth Red]

I'd prefer it id they named their team the Crocodiles or one of the birds of paradise they have on that beautiful tropical island.

Papua Crocodiles would be a great name for country that prides itself on tribal conflict and views rugby league as the perfect game to live out their customs. Lions are beautiful and majestic creatures, but it wouldn't do PNG justice to adopt an African/Asian feline species as their brand when they have so many unique options that represent their beautiful land far more accurately.

I'd go with Papua as the name to encompass West Papua, Papua and PNG. There's more marketing opportunities by appealing to everyone who lives in Papua.

Why wouldn’t they stick with the established hunters brand?

 

[jim_57]

So not much different to the West Tigers then. Premiership success wouldn't even be the success criteria for a team like that and that's a weird criteria anyway unless you've got a Socialist comp where everyone is guaranteed a Premiership every 18 years.

I mean if Fiji could win a gold medal in Rugby and the entire country has a Public Holiday, I can see how big beating the Tigers, Bulldogs or Dragons will be for the team. If they managed to ambush a bigger team, that's even better.

Big difference between not winning a premiership and not being competitive at all for years on end. I’m sure they would jag the odd win but with the revolving door nature the club would had it’d have to be a “golden year” for them to make the 8.

Of course like you said premierships shouldn’t be a major criteria, rest assured they’ll struggle in plenty of other criteria as well.

Spend the money on fielding junior teams in the Queensland junior leagues and other development programs to get the best PNG youth in the NRL systems. Then cash in on that with big internationals in PNG. Imagine if a PNG NRL side beat the Dragons? I say imagine PNG winning a World Cup.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

Dont forget cairns = Pride

Northern Pride is the worst brand in RL. They should just go back to being the Cairns Cyclones.

Why wouldn’t they stick with the established hunters brand?

They could go with Hunters.

 

[The Great Dane]

Big difference between not winning a premiership and not being competitive at all for years on end.

It's not just being uncompetitive for years either; the draw would be so stacked against them that it'd be basically impossible for them to be competitive for years.

That sort of uncompetitiveness becomes soul crushing sooner or later. It's one of the factors that's really screwed RU in Australia over the past 20 years.

 

[Wb1234]

People talk about how a png nrl team will struggle financially

the arlc needs to copy the fumblers. The lions suns and gws receive between 25 to 30 million from the afl whilst clubs like wce and Collingwood receive around 10 to 12 million

and afl is doing this on side which are showing very little return for afl

if the arlc did something similar the payoff for rugby league would be massive. Maybe an extra 5 million grant on top of the grant other clubs get would go a long way to making them viable

man’s right away the nrl footprint grows by 9 million people. Afl would never catch up

 

[Colk]

People talk about how a png nrl team will struggle financially

the arlc needs to copy the fumblers. The lions suns and gws receive between 25 to 30 million from the afl whilst clubs like wce and Collingwood receive around 10 to 12 million

and afl is doing this on side which are showing very little return for afl

if the arlc did something similar the payoff for rugby league would be massive. Maybe an extra 5 million grant on top of the grant other clubs get would go a long way to making them viable

man’s right away the nrl footprint grows by 9 million people. Afl would never catch up

Whilst AFL are doing flexible grant applications GWS and GC Suns (even though they’re bad decisions) they would have some money coming in.

A PNG team would have to be totally backed as an expense with no money coming in (or very very little) There is no TV money coming in (or very little). People earn on average $50 AUD a week - so tickets and memberships would have to be free (or practically so). It would be a complete money pit.

 

[Colk]

There are gated communities in first world countries like USA. There are military style compounds in countries like Brazil and South Africa both of which had Football World cups. Having some presence in the Western World might actually attract some investment towards PNG.

I can see the opposite as well like the Bolivia effect. Imagine being a First World RL team who sees military on the streets and loses the match. It may happens once a season but that's good enough for the people in PNG.

There is a bit of a difference between poor and dangerous areas in a developed country (with a massive population as well) and a country where the vast majority are poor.

Most people live on a wage that is unimaginable in this country - the average weekly wage is $50 AUD for example. How are people going to games, buying merchandise etc unless the team is completely subsidised by somebody or something.

 

[Colk]

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Awesome jerseys mate.

 

[MugaB]

Northern Pride is the worst brand in RL. They should just go back to being the Cairns Cyclones.


They could go with Hunters.

Its a joint bid, cairns will be its base, the players and staff will live there, train there, play 1/2 the season there, the remaining 6 games in PNG, i would assume as a day trip

 

[MugaB]

We could afford it lol

Cant even afford proper training, basically waiting on ARLC handouts... if these WA backers are fair dinkum they'd be funding the local comps, enough to get good enough to beat any reserve grade side they face from the eastern states, perth may bring new eyeballs and throw cash around, but wont create a club worthy of a contest, that's why you need to bid, if it was ALL about money, we'd have every city with a club in the Pacific by now. Perths a hand out thats it!! atleast if they are paying for a PNG/Cairns bid theyll be automatically getting talent added to the player pool, perth haven't even reached a reserve grade level... this years knights would put 70 on them, actually most of the SGball sides have put cricket scores on them.... seriously dots on a map stuff people... perth will only work via a relocation

 

[The Great Dane]

People talk about how a png nrl team will struggle financially

the arlc needs to copy the fumblers. The lions suns and gws receive between 25 to 30 million from the afl whilst clubs like wce and Collingwood receive around 10 to 12 million

and afl is doing this on side which are showing very little return for afl

if the arlc did something similar the payoff for rugby league would be massive. Maybe an extra 5 million grant on top of the grant other clubs get would go a long way to making them viable

Firstly, a PNG side would certainly cost significantly more than those AFL sides.

Secondly, if the NRL had that kind of money to invest into an expansion side/sides then you'd invest into cities/regions with the potential of actually making a return in the medium to long term. In other words, you wouldn't throw that money into a pit in PNG, you'd invest it in WA, SA, NZ, or if you were really ambitious somewhere more exotic like Hawaii or ZA.

man’s right away the nrl footprint grows by 9 million people. Afl would never catch up

A big population is utterly meaningless when the majority of them aren't going to be capable of financially supporting the club.

Almost 40% of PNG's population lives in poverty. The TV broadcast market is tiny, frankly borderline valueless by Australian standards. There isn't a great corporate base in PNG. Corruption is rife, and they have all sorts of other serious societal problems that could effect an NRL side. They'd probably have the highest travel costs, and definitely the highest security costs, of any NRL club on top of that. So considering all that, and more, it's an absolute pipedream, especially when considering that major markets within Australia and NZ are without club's.

 

[Perth Red]

People talk about how a png nrl team will struggle financially

the arlc needs to copy the fumblers. The lions suns and gws receive between 25 to 30 million from the afl whilst clubs like wce and Collingwood receive around 10 to 12 million

and afl is doing this on side which are showing very little return for afl

if the arlc did something similar the payoff for rugby league would be massive. Maybe an extra 5 million grant on top of the grant other clubs get would go a long way to making them viable

man’s right away the nrl footprint grows by 9 million people. Afl would never catch up

Haha like the self interested nrl clubs would accept a lower grant! You seem to be under the impression the arlc run the game

 

[Perth Red]

Cant even afford proper training, basically waiting on ARLC handouts... if these WA backers are fair dinkum they'd be funding the local comps, enough to get good enough to beat any reserve grade side they face from the eastern states, perth may bring new eyeballs and throw cash around, but wont create a club worthy of a contest, that's why you need to bid, if it was ALL about money, we'd have every city with a club in the Pacific by now. Perths a hand out thats it!! atleast if they are paying for a PNG/Cairns bid theyll be automatically getting talent added to the player pool, perth haven't even reached a reserve grade level... this years knights would put 70 on them, actually most of the SGball sides have put cricket scores on them.... seriously dots on a map stuff people... perth will only work via a relocation

Millionaires don’t make their money by throwing it away. Why should they be paying for what the arlc job is? Bless Cumins, he puts in about $400k a year to nrlwa and has for years, without him the game here would be screwed. Our Sg ball side might get smashed, mainly as we are playing sides that have millions of $’s from pokies or nrl clubs backing them, but we’ve still produced 20-30 second grade players and a handful of first graders.
I’d like to see the standard of your reserve grade without pokie dens funding them.

if I was a millionaire and had seen how the nrl had been procrastinating about admitting perth for over a decade I certainly wouldn’t be spending any of my money unless there was guarantee of a license in the future.

 

[jim_57]

Cairns mayor looking to tack Cairns on to the bid.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/101045154

Honestly it would make sense to base the team there but splitting games defeats the purpose of a PNG side for me. Cairns should get at least a couple of Cowboys games (home or away) each year for that matter.

 

[Perth Red]

Cairns has a team, they’re called the nq cowboys! If png had to be based in australia it would make sense to base them in darwin then nrl gets two new regions for price of one.

 

[jim_57]

Cairns has a team, they’re called the nq cowboys! If png had to be based in australia it would make sense to base them in darwin then nrl gets two new regions for price of one.

If it’s going to be a split venues team then yeh Darwin makes some sense but I think they should just go for a FIFO situation with all of most games in PNG. In which case being based in Cairns or even Brisbane makes more sense to save on travelling.

Cairns is 1h20m direct flight or Brisbane is more central for away games but bumps the home game travel up to 3h10m each way.

It’ll be interesting to see if they go for something like that in the bid or insist on being based in PNG.

 

[Colk]

If it’s going to be a split venues team then yeh Darwin makes some sense but I think they should just go for a FIFO situation with all of most games in PNG. In which case being based in Cairns or even Brisbane makes more sense to save on travelling.

Cairns is 1h20m direct flight or Brisbane is more central for away games but bumps the home game travel up to 3h10m each way.

It’ll be interesting to see if they go for something like that in the bid or insist on being based in PNG.

What’s the timeframe from Darwin?

 

[Perth Red]

Its a joint bid, cairns will be its base, the players and staff will live there, train there, play 1/2 the season there, the remaining 6 games in PNG, i would assume as a day trip

No it’s not, cairns mayor said they’ve had no conversations about this bid.

 

[Perth Red]

What’s the timeframe from Darwin?

Scrap that, surprisingly you can’t fly direct from Darwin which is weird as you can fly to east Timor direct!

 

[Colk]

Scrap that, surprisingly you can’t fly direct from Darwin which is weird as you can fly to east Timor direct!

Really? That is weird,