I think you missed an historical truth both RL & AFL have massive supporter’s bases and a local media who know of little else. The Olympics is a perfect example with 7 having the voice of rugby call football ……. why they have no football person.

To break down the media and local support base is not an easy task. Also union more than even league has a lot to worry about the higher salaries. One union has so few players replacing those lost to NH clubs if union lost players on mass will be impossible, and second the public support for union has to some extent been because of the national team. Union with a culture of having the best at home will have to adjust to having the third choice players at home…….. Have you seen club rugby ……. no way could these guys create a national comp as the skill level is just not there. Football looses all its best players overseas, but the football community have accepted this and are happy to go to the A-League knowing the best are overseas. Also football player numbers and the ability to bring in players from overseas provide a reasonable quality at local A-League matches.

People carry their teams like a badge of honour and I cannot see AFL nor RL people flocking on mass to either union or league.

An article in the News press a couple of weeks ago indicated the code with the best management will do best, and the code with the less effective management will fair worst. I tend to agree with this.

If we look at the codes only AFL and Football are all over well managed. My rating scale for management is four pronged, at junior level, at semi professional level, at national / international, future expansion.

IMO the codes rank like this, Football is the best managed at junior level Australia wide, but the AFL & NRL also have excellent junior leagues, union at park level junior management is a bad joke and it will cost them big time. At semi professional level my rating again give it just to football more on that it is Australia wide, the various state leagues teams, but both RL & AFL have sound semi professional leagues just below their main league, union has little unless you count the local rugby comps in Sydney & Brisbane and I don’t. At a national / international its football again however football only wins because the AFL has but a few international aspects. The AFL at a national level has been the best run national code for the last 14 years or so but has never been poorly managed, Union at a national level is reasonably run but because of local infighting and the need to work with NZRU & SARU its hands tied to a large extent. The NRL at a national level is a joke with its board split between News and the old ARl , and the ARL board being made up of the 16 teams national teams & NSW & QLD state leagues each and every party the clubs, state leagues & News have their own priorities is worth pointing out that the AFL, NRL & A-League have a youth league and union does not

Summary to date , AFL excellent juniors, excellent semi professional league, the best local competition, lacking only in Australia wide and international status.

NRL, excellent juniors, excellent semi professional league, poorly managed at a national level, rather weak at an international level.

Football, excellent juniors, excellent semi professional league, excellent local national league and international matches.

Union, poor junior management, poor semi professional league, few players and needing agreement with NZRU & SARU coupled with poor player numbers mean at a national level union struggles, only at an international level does union win over the AFL & NRL.

Finally I will get to the future, AFL has no other country chasing its best players and therefore will keep them, but is limited in expanding to NSW & QLD, with some distant hope there may be some Irish connection to provide the missing link in its package.

Union has its players being chased by NH clubs, money will win out, players will vote for the money. Union player base is so poor and the expectation of union followers is such having sub standard players could hurt union.

NRL to PNG, NZ, Northern Territory and WA, and involved in an all out war with the AFL and NH wages the future looks less than what it is today.

Football, women’s league, youth league, grow the A-League to 12 teams, grown the B-League to 10 teams, develop the state leagues for a future FA cup style format, youth league, at club level the Asian Champions league, at national level Asian cups and world cups. Also as funds increase so to will the player quality so the overall standard of play will improve and less players will go overseas.

My final call is the AFL to be the top code and stronger within 10 years, union to be struggling and falling behind, NRL interesting I think will expand to PNG and this may save it in the local sense but will be about the same or less. Football catching and passing AFL and somewhere between 15 and 35 years out.

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Carn the Bombers.

Redb

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don’t believe for a minute that the careers of Sav Rocca and Ben Graham in the NFL will deminish the AFL at all. Rocca was struggling to eek out his last 2 years at AFL level and for him to be able to head stateside as a punter is a bonus - - but, the reality of the exercise is that people have seen how cut throat a career it is, and how little certainty even a ‘contract’ provides.

Graham, showed the sense perhaps to curtail his career one year earlier than it might have stretched - - and, yet, his club has only gone from strength to strength.

- - -
the reality is, if money were the ultimate goal - then all the basketballers who opt for AFL careers should instead by sticking with basketball - - not on any basis of the domestic competition, or potential to play for olympic gold and represent the country - but, the odd chance of ‘making it’ in America.

And yet, they keep opting to play AFL (most recent example, Todd Goldstein for North Melb debuted 3 wks ago - was in the same elite development camp as Patrick Mills about 3-4 years ago).

As far as sustaining a decent domestic competition, the AFL has the massive advantage of NOT losing players so readily to other codes (RL vs RU) and overseas.

I think you’ll find that it’s the parents who mostly push kids for the motive of potential financial returns, and many kids are just playing for fun and to be with their mates - - - the desire for financial return is a pretty pore motivator.

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if money is the factor, the NFL will kill AFL, league and union combined.

Thankfully American sports administrators have historically not been too interested in expanding their games.

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Didn’t the British Isles rugby tourists in the early years (they weren’t called Lions until the 1920s) play some of their matches in Australia under “Victorian Rules” ie Aussie Football?

Sounds too conciliatory to be any part of a “war” to me.

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oh dear, you’re soooo original and witty.

A point for missing is based on the concept of a Rouge. Any student of the history of ‘football’ would be aware of this. To you it may seem a crazy concept, what, having multiple scoring zones…….almost as crazy as the Rugby codes and Grid Iron having a field wide scoring zone that is a greater ‘goal’ of the game than kicking a goal…..or the apparent ‘true football’ that allows ’scored’ goals rather than JUSt kicked goals.

Crazy….really.

Now - a point for missing perhaps is an 1800s rule conceptual.

Like allowing a fair catch (mark) …. not that was in the 1863 London FA rules, as was the absence of a x-bar…..gee….is AFL actually buried in the past?

but - then, the entire concept of ‘off-side’ is based on the military concept of ‘off the strength of your side’ as pertaining to the battle fields of the 1800s……so…..choose which ‘ye olde’ rules of football rules you think are ancient, trivial, ridiculous…….

Rationale for point for missing - helps avoid drawn games. Have a look at what lengths other codes go to to avoid drawn games. A point for missing suddenly appears pretty ‘clean’. But - by all means, continue to deride the rule and the code……if that’s you major point of concern - then your’s is truely a blessed life.

…or are you going to launch a tirade at the lack of x-bars, lack of off-side, lack of squared corners, etc etc - or is it just too hard to comprehend something a bit different?

treizistes

that’ll be 18, not 16 - 16 on the field was the old VFA for a time. Not any more. If you want to ‘appear clever’ - - at least get it right!
Now - we could launch into soccer resembling a bunch of Irish dancers jigging around unable/unwilling to acknowledge the presence of their arms, the similarity of a soccer ‘wall’ to a game of 10 pin bowling…..
….the many ones about union boys and their particularly ‘personal’ relationship within the scrum and the aptness of a fellow being named the ‘hooker’ amidst that…..etc etc

But - that’s all pretty lame, juvenile and banal…….oh….sorry, that’s the path you just went down guys……..real clever……real disappointing really. Be kinda nice to avoid that crap on ‘theRoar’.

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GPS boy = Rugby Union = Rah rah.

AFL = Chip chaser, AwFuL, GayFL, Flogball, Fumbleball, Vic ball, No balls, or 16 drunks chasing a $5 note around in a dark alley.

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Rugby League.

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i hate AFL with a passion says the proud GPS boy.

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Here’s a starting point “The Games Are Not The Same: The Political Economy of Football in Australia”
http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/ras/article/viewFile/768/894

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You can’t say MC doesn’t put in the hard yards in producing an argument/debate. At least its not mindless myopic and emotive drivel that you get from some here, although The Roar is far better than most public sporting forums. Most posters fail to address the amount of detail points in his posts, by all means challenge them point by point, but just saying its spin sells your views short.

Sermon over, the footy is about to begin.

cheers
Redb

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On the other thread I’ve rattled of some info from the RLWC website.
England 250K registered players, Australia up there too. Then, NZ, has dropped from 40k to 22K, France is about 25K, next best is PNG with about 10K - roughly equivalent to AFL in PNG at present.
Other Top 10 nations have 1000 or less. Scotland, top 10 has never had a professional club. Reality, outside of Eng and Aust, there’s probably less than 70K-80K registered players. We have heard how the game is in financial trouble in NZ.

I would never suggest RL as an ‘Australian Game’, after all, the Australians followed first the Poms themselves and then the ground breaking Kiwis to go down the RL path. Nothing ‘Australian’ about it really - just a ‘franchise’.

My main assertion is that outside of the top 4 nations - 2 of which have less registered players than the AFL has in Tasmania - but, outside those Top 4, the remainder of contenders at the RL WC are really and truely scraping the barrel - they are nations each with AFL ‘international’ equivalency. And outside of the top 10 and into the affiliate nations - well, enough said.

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If Aust rules expanded to match the current international range of rugby league, wouldn’t both codes be the same i.e. Australian games with an international presence?

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No mention of the French and the money they get from the poms, the BBC, the ratings compared to other sports in England, I guess I must be lying huh?

If you guys didn’t go on with the same stereotypical anti League BS, I wouldn’t give it back to you.

Fair’s fair isn’t it?

Cheers.

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I thinks it time to go the ignore route. Said poster does not address anything in a adult constructive way and has no intention to do so. Just trolling along our Rodney. Bye.

cheers
Redb

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You post such drivel that either one ignores you completely or responds - I can quote you irrespective of whom I am.

However - I certainly am not, and have never been ‘Clarkey’ - I have no idea what you’re going on about, it makes you look a right twit and the sooner you cease with it the sooner we can appear a little less like a bunch of absolute dills rather than just time wasting work avoiding dills.

re your point. CERTAINLY - the AFL would love a ‘niche’ like RL has in England (although given it’s taken RL 113 years to consolidate that particular niche - who knows).

My main point is that the NRL in Australia is a bit unique because it is numero uno in a far greater proportion of a single nation/population than RL is anywhere else in the world. All other ‘international’ evidence would suggest that this is an anomoly.
However, just as the AFL makes forges it’s own path in a country NOT like the rest of the world, so too can the NRL.
Thankfully - for the time being - Australia is a totally different kettle of fish to anywhere else. Sadly, the nearest theoretical model of the US is such a vastly larger population and econominc (well, maybe not a good reference at present) domestic base that the US models don’t really apply that well. So - Australia - stands on it’s own.
And - personally, I don’t reckon that the NRL will be ‘warmly embracing’ soccer as something that’s immensely great for Rugby. Publically - YES, of course. But - behind closed doors, the NRL will be hugely nervous - - if, for no other reason - it’s the unknown - the future.

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There was one game agaisnt St kidla with the anti-cancer promotion. The other games were West Coast and Collingwood, regular home and away games that got 60,000 plus.

The next Swans game at ANZ will be a real game not a practice match, I”m tipping a better crowd. West Coast Apr 12, Essendon May 18, Collingwood July 5th and Geelong Aug 16th.

cheers
Redb

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And clarkey, if you are not him, why do you respond to me?

Hmmm.

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Who’s Clarkey?

You keep crapping on to a figment of your imagination.

It’s a bit sad really.

I do believe the only comment I’ve seen here re Lebanon was from someone mentioning that they were represented in an earlier RL WC when there was NO local comp. You haven’t countered that, only indicated that there is a current 3 year old competition - which, maths being the tool - indicates that there can’t have been a local competition last time ’round.

English RL -
IS IT A BUSINESS MODEL the NRL would aspire to?
IS IT A SPORTING MODEL the NRL would aspire to?

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You are right about the games on the weekend, how about we look at the last game the swans played at Stadium Aus?

1,500, if that lol.

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Your comments are well less than accurate. Next thing you’ll tell us that the NRL Sydney blockbusters sold out all their games last weekend. Did they? What was the venue capacity for those games?

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Anything you say about it should not be listened too.

In England, Soccer kills everything, but RL is second when it comes to people through the gate and bums on seats, always has been.

Sky sports ratings have Soccer way way way up top, then SL, then speedway and a few others followed by union.

The only thing union gets over RL in England is Internationals, but that will change as more people see union for what it really is, as they say, most people will watch their country play any sport but where are they the next weekend?

Not at the union are they?

And as for being a 3rd rate sport, well idiot, there are 5 top sports in England who get Government funding as the big 5, Soccer, Union, League, Cricket and Tennis, you work it out.

Also, RL is one of only a handful of sports over there which is guaranteed FTA TV coverage every year as the Challenge cup is protected.

You have no idea, and if you could get the support that RL has in different countries, you’d take it, but you are jealous so you ridicule it, it doesn’t matter how big or small it is in other countries, your code doesn’t register in any of them and never bloody will.

Your code has problems expanding up the Hume Highway let alone anywhere outside of Australia.

You ridicule RL for development in Lebanon, but where is AFL?

Did you know the local comp (in Lebanon) which is 3 years old over there has the Bank of Beirut as their major sponsor?

Also they just got more sponsorship yesterday from a beer company and it stated the local comp will get shown on Sunday nights on TV, yet you put this type of thing down, where again is the AFL?

Not bad for a heap of Aussie pretending to be Lebanese playing in Sydney huh?

35,000 English fans traveling to France each season just to watch their teams play the Les Catalans dragons is also crap huh?

You tell that to the Perpignon airport, hotels, cafe’s and every other buisness over there who are laughing their way to the bank.

Where again is the AFL?

Clarkey, the Swans and the Lions have never sold out their home grounds, the SCG had a capacity over 40,000 just like the Gabba, should they move out to smaller venues?

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What’s AFL got?….gee let me think…cricket? Whilst we play cricket in summer and AFL in winter is there not the same dual benefit for an oval stadium?

Midfielder,

It makes sense for the rugbies and soccer to get into bed re stadiums, it doesn’t however mean they will naturally benefit in a added it all up against AFL scenario. What your really admiting is that the AFL is numero uno re Tv deal, crowds,etc and the other codes want it, so they jump into bed together. good luck with that, my bet is RL would be the loser.

Re Melb Victory, there has always been good support for soccer in Melbourne, its just domesticially at least the code never got its act together. It should be painfully obvious to anyone who knows the Melbourne sports scene (and that counts you and Rodney out), that 23 odd thousand at the ACL game the other night, when nothng else was on, shows soccer has a long way to go at the sub international level. This is where the AFL does it best work, we also have 300,000 club members, families in the game, we are talking multiple generational support for the code. We also know that AFL is a great game live and that’s not going to change, as we can compare to soccer and realise as a spectacle its as good, probably better. BUT, there is more choice and that is good.

cheers
Redb

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