First of all, thankyou for all the interest in the Joondalup Giants.
As a recent Club President of the Joondalup Giants (and, prior, a long-time Club Secretary of the Giants), and also someone who's really not interested in all the petty arguing going on in this thread (and certainly not interested in taking sides or getting involved), I feel I can add some solid, grounded opinions on things.
* Rugby League is not the most popular sport in WA. Never will be. Frankly, any aspirations to be so are illogical and the stuff of fairytales. It'd be nice, sure, but it'd take a series of miracles and fortuitous circumstances on top of serious long-term planning to achieve it.
Thing is, we don't need to be #1 in WA. We just need to have a serious place in the sporting market and we're set. WA's a passionate sporting area. It can easily support a team in every major sport in Australia.
To get to that point, even on our way to that fairytale #1 spot (hey, let's dream!), several things need to happen, improve, and continue to improve.
* More development officers. The ones we have are doing an awesome job. They work hard, but more development officers equals more exposure into schools. School programmes work, but more of them would be better. ARLC fund the DO's, so grassroots funding directed this way would be put to great use.
* The other end of the spectrum: an NRL team. It's one thing to get all these kids interested, but if there's no obvious pathway, no local heroes representing where you live on the national stage, it's harder to keep them interested. Especially if, such as in League's case, there's a similar sport that, to outsiders, looks just like ours with a similar name that DOES have a team in the national comp and has direct pathways. Many League kiddies here switch to Union, or play both then choose Union solely in their mid-to-late teens as it's easier to be spotted by their scouts weekly than it is to be seen by NRL club scouts at 'affiliated states' tournaments once a year.
An NRL club with players they can see play in the flesh every 2nd weekend, who they can meet at fan days and signing sessions, and see frequently interviewed on local TV stations will provide those kiddies, plus others, with local heroes (regardless of whether they originally came from WA, over east, or overseas).
Given all the current circumstances here of the above two points, WA has provided more NRL and NRLW players than we probably should have.
* Reduce club fees. How to make a sport more enticing for parents in today's costly environment? Make ours an inexpensive sport. This is where clubs can take the drivers seat. I don't know what other clubs here do or have done, but at Joondalup we have in the past held fundraising events / initiatives to make fees more affordable. It works.
Honestly, there's a good market already here for NRL. Don't worry about the crowd size of the odd Origin or token NRL game here (good as they have been). A real, yet immeasurable, gauge of the NRL's popularity here is in the everyday. I am ALWAYS seeing Warriors logo car window stickers, Souths membership bumper stickers, people wearing Parramatta training shirts, Newcastle shorts, Brisbane hats, Qld hoodies, NSW jerseys, ect. And I'm not talking at League club training sessions or game days, nor am I talking about at sports bars, ect. I'm talking about what I see at the shops or on my drive to work, ect. There's still the odd Western Reds numberplates I see too.
Trust me, NRL in Perth is popular. It's big. It's a pile of dry grass just waiting for a spark to ignite and really take off again.
I remember 30yrs ago the local WA Grand Final was telecast on tv, and the weekly WA First Grade scores were on the Ch9 News. Excitement was everywhere here that a Perth team was joining the national comp. The game here up to and including 1995 was massive. Again, not bigger than aussie rules, but in all seriousness, it was the clear #2 winter sport.
Then the SuperGreed era came along and a lot of the Reds supporters (who had the Reds as their 2nd team) who were primarily supporters of the likes of Norths, Manly, St.George, Parra, Newcastle, ect, walked away from the team who chose to go to SuperLeague, and crowds dropped dramatically in 1996. The NRL chose to sacrifice Perth when the ARL and SL came back together, and the game here nearly died due to the disgust the League community felt for the game. And Union took full advantage of the disillusionment.
Now it's time to reclaim back our lost territory. Union's been shown to be a dud, and I have absolutely zero doubt that with an NRL team here, League will be massive again.
It will happen. Just watch. Build it and they will come.
thewest.com.au
