What Sydney and NSW should have looked like

[flippikat]

Ok - assuming we had a restructure in the run-up to a mid '90s expansion, from memory the most vulnerable clubs at the time were Souths, Cronulla, Balmain & maybe Wests as well. Goodness knows whether any of those would've responded to a firm "please relocate or merge" request from the NSWRL.

If any of the clubs had relocated, that has massive flow-ons to the expansion - not just in 1995 but the whole mid-late 1990s.

 

[blue bags]

I remember the one at the Gabba.

The old Sydney Cricket Ground Hill
Endless amounts of canned Beers
Nearly always tooheys . And KB
Sydney draught Beer's
Back in those days the crowd was allowed to bring in their own slabs. It was crazy

 

[Kurt Angle]

Reschs Pilsener was also big

 

[blue bags]

The crowd on the scg Hill would build platforms using the empty beer cans. To get a better view of the action

 

[T to the T]

Anyone advocating culling clubs needs to give their heads a wobble. The actions post SL war set the sport back 25 years and opened the door to AFL in Sydney. Fans of culled clubs don't flock to a different team, they turn their back on the code. Only now are we seeing the sport growing with a feel good factor again.

I turned my back on club RU back in 2003 when David Moffett culled my Welsh club from the top division. I wasn't going jump on the bandwagon of other clubs who'd been our equals and rivals. To keep following domestic Welsh RU would be a constant reminder of being betrayed hence I started following RL. It's mind boggling to see that charlatan Moffett back trying to get involved with the NRL again after his actions as an administrator.

As a non-Sydneysider who wasn't following the game at the time, were the mergers of Balmain-Wests and St George-Illawarra rational (as can be when merging) and would have any of these sides naturally failed if mergers hadn't occurred (which is the only real justification for mergers IMO)?

 

[Brian potter]

Anyone advocating culling clubs needs to give their heads a wobble. The actions post SL war set the sport back 25 years and opened the door to AFL in Sydney. Fans of culled clubs don't flock to a different team, they turn their back on the code. Only now are we seeing the sport growing with a feel good factor again.

would you include relocation of clubs with this?

I turned my back on club RU back in 2003 when David Moffett culled my Welsh club from the top division. I wasn't going jump on the bandwagon of other clubs who'd been our equals and rivals. To keep following domestic Welsh RU would be a constant reminder of being betrayed hence I started following RL. It's mind boggling to see that charlatan Moffett back trying to get involved with the NRL again after his actions as an administrator.

would you have liked to have seen the Welsh go it alone?

As a non-Sydneysider who wasn't following the game at the time, were the mergers of Balmain-Wests and St George-Illawarra rational (as can be when merging) and would have any of these sides naturally failed if mergers hadn't occurred (which is the only real justification for mergers IMO)?

I would have re-located the tigers to Brisbane and kept the magpies in Western Sydney.

I would have either re-located the dragons to Wollongong full-time or just kept them as separate entities.

 

[Perth Red]

Anyone advocating culling clubs needs to give their heads a wobble. The actions post SL war set the sport back 25 years and opened the door to AFL in Sydney. Fans of culled clubs don't flock to a different team, they turn their back on the code. Only now are we seeing the sport growing with a feel good factor again.

I turned my back on club RU back in 2003 when David Moffett culled my Welsh club from the top division. I wasn't going jump on the bandwagon of other clubs who'd been our equals and rivals. To keep following domestic Welsh RU would be a constant reminder of being betrayed hence I started following RL. It's mind boggling to see that charlatan Moffett back trying to get involved with the NRL again after his actions as an administrator.

As a non-Sydneysider who wasn't following the game at the time, were the mergers of Balmain-Wests and St George-Illawarra rational (as can be when merging) and would have any of these sides naturally failed if mergers hadn't occurred (which is the only real justification for mergers IMO)?

I didn’t turn my back on the game when Perth were cut. You must be snowflakes in Sydney!

 

[Vlad59]

I didn’t turn my back on the game when Perth were cut. You must be snowflakes in Sydney!

Pity

 

[bad boy bubby]

I didn’t turn my back on the game when Perth were cut. You must be snowflakes in Sydney!

Would them not being cut have made you less a negative person?
Rhetorical question...

 

[MugaB]

I didn’t turn my back on the game when Perth were cut. You must be snowflakes in Sydney!

You obviously didn't read his post, he followed RU a welsh team was cut, and said he was NOT a Sydneysider
You are a massive turd... and perth were cut and you jumped on the storm bandwagon, our game is the best there is out of all the rugby comps out there, im not suprised you stayed on... others who have lost clubs probably would not have returned to that comp like he mentioned

 

[docbrown]

As a non-Sydneysider who wasn't following the game at the time, were the mergers of Balmain-Wests and St George-Illawarra rational (as can be when merging) and would have any of these sides naturally failed if mergers hadn't occurred (which is the only real justification for mergers IMO)?

Super League affected the ARL's original plans. The ARL wanted to become a national game - and rightly so - because that would ensure the game's long term survival. So they expanded and then in time the plan was to offer incentives to struggling Sydney clubs to relocate outside of Sydney. So you'd have a 20 team comp still but 3 or 4 clubs would have located. Again all hypothetical but you would have had say Central Coast (North) Bears, Brisbane (Wests) Magpies, Adelaide (Balmain) Tigers and Melbourne (St George) Dragons -- or something to that effect, leaving 7 or so remaining Sydney clubs. All the clubs would have survived, albeit in different locations.

But then Super League happened and that plan all went to hell. And in the post-Super League era, News Limited were basically a**holes. The thing is - they could have kept almost every single club. News Limited are a massive organisation with deep pockets. I mean, ditch the Hunter Mariners and merge or cull one other struggling club. They could have had 2 conferences of 10 teams, similar to the NFL merger. And I think the game would have bounced back quicker under that scenario.

But News had gotten what they wanted - the rights and ownerships - so they could then just do the rest cheap and didn't want to waste any more money on something they already controlled, hence the desire to cull unprofitable clubs and streamline the competition. And so teams that were struggling scrambled to find anyway they could to survive. So we got some very hastily arranged marriages. But with better management, that could have all been directed from the NRL down, instead of leaving it up to individual clubs.

Anyhow it's all moot now. Kids growing up today have no idea that it even happened.

 

[T-Boon]

I like the OP except that I would have moved Panthers to Perth and Sharks to Melbourne or the other way around and Bulldogs to maybe Christchurch.

 

[flippikat]

Super League affected the ARL's original plans. The ARL wanted to become a national game - and rightly so - because that would ensure the game's long term survival. So they expanded and then in time the plan was to offer incentives to struggling Sydney clubs to relocate outside of Sydney. So you'd have a 20 team comp still but 3 or 4 clubs would have located. Again all hypothetical but you would have had say Central Coast (North) Bears, Brisbane (Wests) Magpies, Adelaide (Balmain) Tigers and Melbourne (St George) Dragons -- or something to that effect, leaving 7 or so remaining Sydney clubs. All the clubs would have survived, albeit in different locations.

A couple of questions on that...

1 - Would the ARL have the resources (mainly money - but also players, coaching etc ) to offer incentives to clubs to relocate in that mid-late 1990s time-frame IF the Superleague war hadn't happened?

2 - Was there *really* the desire from the ARL to pursue relocations, to "walk the talk" either via incentives or "We won't bail you out - either go broke or take the money to relocate" ultimatums?

 

[docbrown]

A couple of questions on that...

1 - Would the ARL have the resources (mainly money - but also players, coaching etc ) to offer incentives to clubs to relocate in that mid-late 1990s time-frame IF the Superleague war hadn't happened?

2 - Was there *really* the desire from the ARL to pursue relocations, to "walk the talk" either via incentives or "We won't bail you out - either go broke or take the money to relocate" ultimatums?

1) Players and coaches wouldn't have mattered as it would have been the same amount of teams. As for money, the game in the 90s would still have been the centre of an intense bidding war for TV rights, so potentially, yes. However, it's all hypothetical.

2) Yes. Many moons ago I read a couple of good books about the ARL's pre-Super League plans and that was pretty much it. I suspect that there would have been some kind of criteria imposed for franchise access to the league e.g. crowd attendance and/or financials. Fail it and you're either kicked out Jets style or have to relocate.

Honestly, if Super League hadn't happen, right now we'd have had a 20 team comp for almost 30 years and we'd be talking about expansion team 22 or 23, not 18...

 

[flippikat]

1) Players and coaches wouldn't have mattered as it would have been the same amount of teams. As for money, the game in the 90s would still have been the centre of an intense bidding war for TV rights, so potentially, yes. However, it's all hypothetical.

2) Yes. Many moons ago I read a couple of good books about the ARL's pre-Super League plans and that was pretty much it. I suspect that there would have been some kind of criteria imposed for franchise access to the league e.g. crowd attendance and/or financials. Fail it and you're either kicked out Jets style or have to relocate.

Honestly, if Super League hadn't happen, right now we'd have had a 20 team comp for almost 30 years and we'd be talking about expansion team 22 or 23, not 18...

I think the resourcing becomes an issue when it comes to hooking-in new markets (especially endearing a new market to a transplanted team) - a place like Adelaide or Perth may accept an under-performing local brand longer than an underperforming transplanted brand - surely it would've been in the ARL's interest to ensure a relocated team *at least* be competitive, to hook-in fans in the new market.

You raise a good point on the TV rights money - if the ARL had managed to navigate broadcast deals without things blowing up, the money would certainly be flowing.

Interesting you mention a few books that looked at the ARL's pre-war thinking, and I guess the ARL never quite got to the situation where they had to make those calls, pre-war.. and then when ARL-loyal clubs DID end up hitting the wall - over the course of the war, the ARL was in a moral bind as those teams were loyal to the establishment - and the ARL could only force the issue as part of a peace deal ("sorry, but this is the price of a unified competition").

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

The game wasn't ready for expansion in 1995. The broadcast rights between 1993-2000 provided just $10m per annum. The annual grant was just $500k. The salary cap was $1.8m. Some clubs struggled to find enough money to pay their players.

Some of the weaker Sydney clubs were struggling to field a team and couldn't afford to fly to places like Townsville and Perth, so they made the Cowboys and Reds cover their flight and accommodation expenses.

It was a very unequal situation and was going to cause financial problems. Kerry Packer was a miserly bully who got the rights cheap when Ch10 fell over. When Super League eventuated he put a foot in both camps. He never cared for the game and played a large role in the war that broke out in 1995.

 

[T to the T]

would you include relocation of clubs with this?

would you have liked to have seen the Welsh go it alone?

I would have re-located the tigers to Brisbane and kept the magpies in Western Sydney.

I would have either re-located the dragons to Wollongong full-time or just kept them as separate entities.

Yes, relocation of clubs is the same as culling a club IMO.
No, Wales, like NZ, isn't big enough to go alone. They should've taken the offer of 6 clubs in the English RU system when they could've at the turn of the millennium, this would've taken the sides out of Union control so was selfishly turned down by the Welsh Rugby Union for the shambles which is the URC today.

Super League affected the ARL's original plans. The ARL wanted to become a national game - and rightly so - because that would ensure the game's long term survival. So they expanded and then in time the plan was to offer incentives to struggling Sydney clubs to relocate outside of Sydney. So you'd have a 20 team comp still but 3 or 4 clubs would have located. Again all hypothetical but you would have had say Central Coast (North) Bears, Brisbane (Wests) Magpies, Adelaide (Balmain) Tigers and Melbourne (St George) Dragons -- or something to that effect, leaving 7 or so remaining Sydney clubs. All the clubs would have survived, albeit in different locations.

But then Super League happened and that plan all went to hell. And in the post-Super League era, News Limited were basically a**holes. The thing is - they could have kept almost every single club. News Limited are a massive organisation with deep pockets. I mean, ditch the Hunter Mariners and merge or cull one other struggling club. They could have had 2 conferences of 10 teams, similar to the NFL merger. And I think the game would have bounced back quicker under that scenario.

But News had gotten what they wanted - the rights and ownerships - so they could then just do the rest cheap and didn't want to waste any more money on something they already controlled, hence the desire to cull unprofitable clubs and streamline the competition. And so teams that were struggling scrambled to find anyway they could to survive. So we got some very hastily arranged marriages. But with better management, that could have all been directed from the NRL down, instead of leaving it up to individual clubs.

Anyhow it's all moot now. Kids growing up today have no idea that it even happened.

I can't give a thumbs up so treat this as one. What books do you recommend on this period? It's such a waste of 25 years in hindsight. The high water mark of 20 teams in 1998 omits Perth and South Queensland Crushers. Could easily be looking at a 24 team NRL right now

 

[Nutz]

I would have re-located the tigers to Brisbane and kept the magpies in Western Sydney.

So you would have relocated the Tigers to Brisbane and cull a foundation club's inner city/dockers location and lose the very history that helped start the game in NSW.
Good one.
The Brisbane Broncos seem to have done alright not being involved with a NSW team's influence.
The Broncos have kept the game alive in Qld because the hate cockroaches.
Don't "Cut off your nose to spite your face"

 

[Nutz]

for me souths as a club both traditionally and geographically deserve to be a stand-alone club.

And the Tigers don't?
Your all over the shop.
Stop recommending dissolving the foundation clubs locations, we started the show.
We are an eastern board game and the nucleus must be protected, expansion can be "external" Perth etc.
We've done enough damage so leave it alone.

 

[Vlad59]

So you would have relocated the Tigers to Brisbane and cull a foundation club's inner city/dockers location and lose the very history that helped start the game in NSW.
Good one.
The Brisbane Broncos seem to have done alright not being involved with a NSW team's influence.
The Broncos have kept the game alive in Qld because the hate cockroaches.
Don't "Cut off your nose to spite your face"

He’s a peanut from England. Best ignored.