Rationalisation of Sydney

[TheFrog]

True enough, but 20 years on and Wollongong is a growing city while in the context of a national comp. the St George region has fallen behind in significance.



That burden should never have been foisted upon them. Completely ridiculous thing for a national competition to do. Clubs that can't afford to travel to Perth once a season should have folded. There's a good criteria.



Nonsense.



Again true enough, the merger was a disaster, but that isn't a reflection on the Central Coast at all.

Three out of four, pretty good. I wouldn't like to be the club that draws Adelaide as a relocation. An AFL town if ever there was one.

The Gosford experiment started OK, but the area did not support the Northern Eagles once the novelty wore off. It's so close to Sydney as to be no chance really, unless Easts or someone wants to go there. The best bet seems to be to play 4 or 5 games a year there, but they seem to have been getting favourable timeslots which gives a misleading picture of the area's viability.

 

[Stallion]

No mate, nice try. I'll wait til you actually go and read the post again.

No mate, nice try. I'll wait til you actually go and read the post again.

Lol. I'll do that when you apologise for your false alias claim to myself and the other contributors you insulted!

 

[mongoose]

Three out of four, pretty good. I wouldn't like to be the club that draws Adelaide as a relocation. An AFL town if ever there was one.

This is just negative and unsubstantiated. The rams average was actually a very healthy 15k in their first year. It dropped off a cliff in 98 though probably due to them being uncompetitive and the game just being in a very unstable period. I think Perth, Brisbane and NZ 2 are stronger expansion targets at the moment but Adelaide should definitely be considered. There is no rule that states South Australia must only like AFL, just like there is no rule that says QLD must only like Rugby League. Just old fashioned attitudes limiting growth.

 

[adamkungl]

This is just negative and unsubstantiated. The rams average was actually a very healthy 15k in their first year. It dropped off a cliff in 98 though probably due to them being uncompetitive and the game just being in a very unstable period. I think Perth, Brisbane and NZ 2 are stronger expansion targets at the moment but Adelaide should definitely be considered. There is no rule that states South Australia must only like AFL, just like there is no rule that says QLD must only like Rugby League. Just old fashioned attitudes limiting growth.

The right person can sell anything in a city of 1M+ people.

 

[MugaB]

Three out of four, pretty good. I wouldn't like to be the club that draws Adelaide as a relocation. An AFL town if ever there was one.

The Gosford experiment started OK, but the area did not support the Northern Eagles once the novelty wore off. It's so close to Sydney as to be no chance really, unless Easts or someone wants to go there. The best bet seems to be to play 4 or 5 games a year there, but they seem to have been getting favourable timeslots which gives a misleading picture of the area's viability.

Sorry again, whats the 3 out of 4 thing you keep repeating, that's why i replied stating that all 4 locations had 1st grade sides, I'll reiterate, Central Coast/Gosford had northern eagles, Perth and western Reds, Adelaide Rams, and Illawarra Steelers in Wollongong,
So its 4 out of 4, it most certainly can work now that there is 2 billion dollars from the broadcasters, when back then the ARL was running 20 teams including perth and brisbane2 already at $52 million, not sure why everyone is so negative, the 1990s was a better quality of Rugby League, in my honest opinion it was the golden era, now we are so rule happy, and guys like trevor Gillmister, won't be able to play, coz each of his tackles would be deemed "Forceful"
This thread is becoming absurdist, professional athletes vs the working class of the 20th century, id rather we get 20 teams spread out all over the pacific and aus, and we just add, and add, the clubs that cant keep up might fade off, but if you follow the NFL, you'd see not just the 2 major conferences, and the college football rating sky high,
And even tho thats U.S.A. with theyre million dollar players, our pocket of the world can do the same thing just at a smaller scale, due to population differences, id say memberships and crowds at 15-20k each club should be sufficient, and those clubs on their own like Melbourne, Brisbane, Auckland Newcastle, Canberra can pick up the slack of the rest of the clubs till the newer franchises take off, Perth has shown it work back when league was poor, Adelaide had issues but was good with crowds till the comp mergers,
Illawarra was 17 years of existence with great juniors/catchment, and gosford was a smart move, until they merged 2 rivals and dumped them there.
Matty johns podcast last night, suggested something i brought up months ago here, South Queensland Crushers! Had they still existed this past 25 years, Cameron Smith might be their current captain, Billy Slater, Cooper Cronk, Scotty Sattler, Clinton Shifcoffske all would be stands or Statues at Suncorp Stadium.
Melbourne probably are a basketcase, or maybe not, but we'd be talking expansion into South Island NZ, Geelong, Tassie, and Darwin by now

 

[flippikat]

The Wikipedia article on the Wests Tigers says Balmain were courted by Parramatta and Gold Coast for mergers, while Wests were being offered mergers with Penrith or Canterbury-Bankstown.

Now, the Parramatta Tigers & Wests/Campbelltown Bulldogs "mergers that never were" have been covered & lamented in this thread before, but what if West Sydney Panthers AND Gold Coast Tigers had happened in 1999? What would the knock-on effects of that have been?

 

[MugaB]

That would have been good for the glitter strip, but i heard it was Gold Coast and Hunter Marniers who were meant to have a merger or go alone and risk expulsion,
Hunter effectively became Melbourne along with adding Perth

 

[The Great Dane]

Matty johns podcast last night, suggested something i brought up months ago here, South Queensland Crushers! Had they still existed this past 25 years, Cameron Smith might be their current captain, Billy Slater, Cooper Cronk, Scotty Sattler, Clinton Shifcoffske all would be stands or Statues at Suncorp Stadium.

That scenario is actually a perfect example of why you need to be careful not to put to much pressure on the playing pool by adding too many teams.

The Crushers, Chargers, and Adelaide were all using the same recruitment tactic that the Storm later used to sign guys like Smith, Slater, Cronk, Inglis, Folau, etc, etc, of fishing through the parts of Brisbane where the Broncos aren't as attentive as they could be and looking for the diamonds.

Had the Crushers, Chargers, and Adelaide all survived then they along with Melbourne all would have been scouting the same region at the same time, and had that have been the case there's almost no chance that only one of those clubs comes away with all of the players that came out of that player pool like Melbourne did.

So because of the increased competition what probably would have happened is that instead of one 'super team' like the Storm became, the players would have been spread around and you would have had four average clubs with one or two great players instead of what is probably the greatest team of the century so far (ignoring that they had to cheat to sustain it anyway).

 

[flippikat]

That would have been good for the glitter strip, but i heard it was Gold Coast and Hunter Marniers who were meant to have a merger or go alone and risk expulsion,
Hunter effectively became Melbourne along with adding Perth

Yeah, the Wikipedia article says that the Chargers were offered a deal where they had to take-on some ex-Mariners players and staff.. it sounds more like a receivership or liquidation sale instead of a merger as such. The article goes on to say that the Chargers management rejected that, which frustrated the Chargers coach at the time.

Now I know it's just a Wikipedia article, and that can't be treated as gospel, but I wonder if taking on Mariners personnel IN ITSELF would have secured the Chargers a license beyond the 1990s.

If not, would the NRL have granted them a license if they absorbed some of the Mariners personnel AND merged with a Sydney club (probably Tigers)?

It beats me why the Gold Coast management would turn down opportunities like that to potentially secure an on going license.

Maybe they were given a clear signal from ARL/News/NRL that to make the peace settlement work, the Broncos had to get a SEQ monopoly, and anything the Titans did to try securing their future was a waste of time?

 

[The Great Dane]

Yeah, the Wikipedia article says that the Chargers were offered a deal where they had to take-on some ex-Mariners players and staff.. it sounds more like a receivership or liquidation sale instead of a merger as such. The article goes on to say that the Chargers management rejected that, which frustrated the Chargers coach at the time.

Now I know it's just a Wikipedia article, and that can't be treated as gospel, but I wonder if taking on Mariners personnel IN ITSELF would have secured the Chargers a license beyond the 1990s.

If not, would the NRL have granted them a license if they absorbed some of the Mariners personnel AND merged with a Sydney club (probably Tigers)?

It beats me why the Gold Coast management would turn down opportunities like that to potentially secure an on going license.

Maybe they were given a clear signal from ARL/News/NRL that to make the peace settlement work, the Broncos had to get a SEQ monopoly, and anything the Titans did to try securing their future was a waste of time?

From memory (so don't take this as gospel) the Mariners wanted their CEO and a bunch of administrators to be taken on in the merger, so a lot of the Chargers admin were basically being asked to vote themselves out of a job, which sounds bad but it probably would have been the best thing for the new merged club at the end of the day.

Again from memory (so again take it with a grain of salt) the Chargers and Mariners also couldn't get a promise from the NRL that they'd be safe if they merged, which made things difficult as well.

But at the end of the day what really did the merger in is that there was no unity at the Chargers.

Once they found out they were on the chopping block the Chargers administration panicked and all pulled in different directions trying to save the club, and they ended up spending the next year or so all arguing about how to save the club instead of getting about the work of actually saving the club.

In the end the Chargers saw the writing on the wall, and despite the fact that they had money in the bank and were probably better placed to continue then at least a quarter of the clubs that ended up surviving, they handed their license back to the NRL before the NRL could take it from them.

 

[TheFrog]

Sorry again, whats the 3 out of 4 thing you keep repeating,

@adamkungl agreed with me on three out of four things. I only said it once, no repeats.

My position is that Perth might well work if done properly, Adelaide probably won't, being 25% of Melbourne's population you'd expect 25% of Melbourne's support, Central Coast lost their chance when they failed to support the Northern Eagles, and are too close to Sydney to support another franchise unless someone decides to go there, and Wollongong is catered for as part of the Dragons catchment. You don't have to agree with me, that's what discussion forums are all about.

 

[Perth Red]

Despite more than tripling their revenue it’s nard to say the game is any better bigger or more reaching than in the 90’s. Maybe they need to stop wasting money and put it into growing and expanding the game? $20mill a new club, let’s have a 5 year plan for 4 new clubs and set aside the money now. Last year they made a $42mill surplus despite all the tens of millions they spent on sht.

I’d also look at how to make clubs cheaper to run. Spending $30mill a year with a salary cap of $10mill seems excessive and makes it hard for new clubs to be confident of sustainability. Wtf are clubs spending money on?

 

[Stormwarrior82]

Despite more than tripling their revenue it’s nard to say the game is any better bigger or more reaching than in the 90’s. Maybe they need to stop wasting money and put it into growing and expanding the game? $20mill a new club, let’s have a 5 year plan for 4 new clubs and set aside the money now. Last year they made a $42mill surplus despite all the tens of millions they spent on sht.

I’d also look at how to make clubs cheaper to run. Spending $30mill a year with a salary cap of $10mill seems excessive and makes it hard for new clubs to be confident of sustainability. Wtf are clubs spending money on?

New expansion teams that can’t survive on $13mil handout from nrl headquarters shouldn’t be admitted to the comp!! End of. They will just become a drag later on down the track.

They have found away to make clubs cheaper. They are bringing in a football dept cap, which will start for real in 2020 is my understanding. It will force richer clubs to spend excess money of infrastructure, memberships, management.

 

[Perth Red]

New expansion teams that can’t survive on $13mil handout from nrl headquarters shouldn’t be admitted to the comp!! End of. They will just become a drag later on down the track.

They have found away to make clubs cheaper. They are bringing in a football dept cap, which will start for real in 2020 is my understanding. It will force richer clubs to spend excess money of infrastructure, memberships, management.

Have you forgotten that the storm required many millions extra each year for over a decade? Reality is new clubs require additional support if you dont want them to struggle for the first part of their existence.

It’s all gone very quiet on the football cap front. I haven’t seen anything for a long time saying it has been agreed and is going to come in.

 

[Vee]

This is just negative and unsubstantiated. The rams average was actually a very healthy 15k in their first year. It dropped off a cliff in 98 though probably due to them being uncompetitive and the game just being in a very unstable period.

And the crowd realised it couldn't see the game in a cricket ground.

 

[MugaB]

@adamkungl agreed with me on three out of four things. I only said it once, no repeats.

My position is that Perth might well work if done properly, Adelaide probably won't, being 25% of Melbourne's population you'd expect 25% of Melbourne's support, Central Coast lost their chance when they failed to support the Northern Eagles, and are too close to Sydney to support another franchise unless someone decides to go there, and Wollongong is catered for as part of the Dragons catchment. You don't have to agree with me, that's what discussion forums are all about.

Im not disagreeing or agreeing or who does or doesnt, just what did you mean about 3 out of 4, all four locations had stand alone 1st grade clubs, all now don't.
Wollongong get a handfull of dragons games a year, gosford less then that
Both are over an hour out of sydney.
Adelaide is in south Australia, so not sure that 25% of Melbourne's support?
I feel theres a conversation diconection here

 

[Dave's mate]

Everyday that Perth Red doesn't have a side warms my black little heart. Deathriding prick is a disgrace, simply a low human

 

[Stallion]

That scenario is actually a perfect example of why you need to be careful not to put to much pressure on the playing pool by adding too many teams.

The Crushers, Chargers, and Adelaide were all using the same recruitment tactic that the Storm later used to sign guys like Smith, Slater, Cronk, Inglis, Folau, etc, etc, of fishing through the parts of Brisbane where the Broncos aren't as attentive as they could be and looking for the diamonds.

Had the Crushers, Chargers, and Adelaide all survived then they along with Melbourne all would have been scouting the same region at the same time, and had that have been the case there's almost no chance that only one of those clubs comes away with all of the players that came out of that player pool like Melbourne did.

So because of the increased competition what probably would have happened is that instead of one 'super team' like the Storm became, the players would have been spread around and you would have had four average clubs with one or two great players instead of what is probably the greatest team of the century so far (ignoring that they had to cheat to sustain it anyway).

States the expert on players and player pool talent! Lol

 

[TheFrog]

Im not disagreeing or agreeing or who does or doesnt, just what did you mean about 3 out of 4

The first line of my post you quoted. Don't lose any sleep over it, its not that important.

 

[MugaB]

The first line of my post you quoted. Don't lose any sleep over it, its not that important.

So you don't wanna explain it to me, or it was meant to be 4/4 or 0/4