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So let’s paint the picture: you have a team with three wins in their last four games. They possess the second-best fullback in the world and the most skillful big man in the game.
They play an attractive brand of football, with strike weapons across the park.
This team lines up to play an opposition that has won six consecutive games. This opposition is back in the top four for the first time in a decade, featuring possibly the best forward of the modern era.
The two teams have a night game all to themselves, the solitary match of the day. A genuine top-of-the-table meeting: Souths versus Cronulla on Monday night football.
And they get 13,000. Pathetic.
When fans of South Sydney filled the streets in protest back in the early 2000s, attempting to get their team reinstated to the NRL, my first thought was, “Where were you when they were actually in the comp?”
Ten years on, with glamorous ownership and a quality team, the same old problems remain.
The majority of Souths fans don’t love their team. Not really. Given their membership numbers and the legions that turned out to protest their club’s removal from the premiership, Souths should average well over 20,000 per game, especially when they’re going well.
But, as usual, fans don’t love them quite that much.
Roosters fans are no better. They are a top eight team this year and every second weekend, league fans have to suffer the embarrassment of an almost-empty Allianz sprayed all over our TV screens.
Just this weekend, they played a fellow top eight contender in the Knights. Another lame turnout ensued.
The league Commission has a responsibility to weigh up all options when it comes to expansion and what should be its necessary cousin, rationalisation of Sydney. John Ribot and Ken Cowley, attempting to get the ARL to adopt a ‘Super League’, proposed it back in 1995. It should have happened then.
Fans can whine about the ‘lack of atmosphere’ at big grounds. Trust me, Souths wouldn’t get any more at Redfern, even if it were upgraded. There’s a reason they abandoned it.
We need to take a long look at where we want to take the game. Expansion across the country requires rationalisation in its biggest city. Average crowds in the 25-30,000 range for Sydney clubs can only occur through the aforementioned reduction in the number of Sydney teams.
Yes, fans will be lost in the short term but a fully vital, national competition could be realised.
Ultimately, despite all the heartfelt rhetoric, Souths and Roosters fans are not ‘loving’ their teams enough for league to take the next step in its evolution.
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