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The result wasn’t the Holy Grail for the Rabbitohs nor the end of the world for the Roosters, but one definite thing is that the crowd figure was a worry.
To get only 27,282 at ANZ Stadium on a beautiful Sydney night for the blockbuster opening to the NRL season was very disappointing.
The same game last season attracted 35,952 to Allianz Stadium on opening night, and since then the Roosters have won the premiership and the Rabbitohs made the preliminary finals.
The NRL put the drop in crowds last season down to several popular clubs – Parramatta, St George Illawarra and Wests Tigers – being among the also-rans.
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Obviously, that wasn’t the reason for last night’s poor attendance.
Was it because a lot of fans of either club didn’t want to make the trip out to Homebush? I don’t know, you would have to ask those who didn’t go, but whatever the reason it’s not a good look.
Catch up on highlights from the opening round clash:
It’s now going to be very interesting to see what sort of crowds we get for the remaining seven games, particularly when you consider six of those will be played in Sydney.
One of the reasons crowds have been down is because of the severe restrictions put on media access to players and coaches.
The clubs will argue they are following NRL guidelines on access, but the fact is some clubs – not all, but some – make it as difficult as they can within those guidelines for the media to get meaningful access.
The league allowed access to become too restricted in the first place and appears to have done little or nothing to try to make the clubs more obliging.
The problem with severe restrictions is the game’s personalities can’t be presented to the public as well as they might be through the media, inevitably limiting the connection between the fans and the players.
But let’s get to what happened on the field last night, which was a dominant 28-8 win by the Rabbitohs.
The Rabbitohs won the same game comfortably last season, but in very different circumstances. The Roosters were a new team and Trent Robinson their new coach back then, and they were always going to need time to find their feet. Last night, the Roosters were the defending premiers.
The Roosters were their own worst enemies, dropping far too much ball and not defending nearly strongly enough on their own line. They also conceded too many penalties, which was a problem for them last year, except they cancelled it out by being strong in the other two areas.
But I don’t mean any of that to downgrade the performance of the Rabbitohs.
Their win last night means more than their win in the same game last year, because it was a good early sign that whatever demons they had from losing a preliminary final for the second year straight may be under control.
Of course, we won’t know for sure unless the Rabbitohs reach the same stage this season, but, hey, all you can do is win and they did that in good style, putting their power game into gear and launching Greg Inglis off the back of it.
The result will be a wake-up call for the Roosters, and there’s no harm in that as long as you don’t sleep through the alarm. It’s going to be interesting to see if they can bounce back immediately.
Apart from that, The Footy Show returned on Channel Nine after the live coverage of last night’s game, and if you didn’t see it I can report very little has changed.
If it was your cup of tea last year it will be again. If it wasn’t, it still won’t be.
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