- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
I, like many rugby league fans, had a glance at the newly released draw for the 2015 season of the NRL and spotted a few things that I think the game should’ve evolved by now.
There’s always four discussions when it comes to draw.
There’s the obligatory ‘team x has to travel too far during the season’, which is always spouted by Sydney media and teams more than sides that have more of a right to grumble about such things, like the Warriors and Cowboys.
There’s the focus on the Broncos’ squirrel-grip on Channel Nine with Friday night football. That would be quite funny if it wasn’t so sad.
Then there are the fans of all the teams whinging about how ‘my team got screwed with the draw’, yet there’s nothing about player safety.
And finally, the debate always turns to representative games.
Now, I’m not going to go near these four problems that pop up each year with such regularity that you could set your watch to them. Just like the obligatory alcohol-related incident, the first Manly fan screaming ‘we hate you too’, Gus Gould saying something incredibly stupid during a broadcast and Darius Boyd being picked for Queensland – no matter what form he’s in.
No, my thought today is to change the way our weekend of footy is set up. My proposal is to scrap Saturday NRL.
Now before you scroll past the rest of my reasons and start venting your fury about how leaving a whole day free would just give the market to the AFL, just listen to my reasoning.
Think about how this might help all of rugby league in Australia, not just the NRL.
My weekend plan would be two Friday night games at 7pm, exclusively state and local competitions played on Saturday, five games on Sunday and one Monday night match kicking off at 6.30pm.
The Sunday games would feature two at 1pm, two at 3pm and one at 5pm.
My idea is to give Saturday a chance for all players across Australia to play their rugby league games. This means that there is no pressure on missing NRL games to play local footy or missing personal games to go to an NRL match.
Like many things on the Internet, I stole the idea off somebody else.
I’ve followed american football since the days of Don Lane on the ABC late on Tuesday nights. There is a law in the USA that states the NFL will not play games at the same time as both high school football and college football. It takes away interest from them.
High school gets Friday nights and college gets Saturdays. This allows the NFL to show games on Sunday and Monday (and now Thursday). This builds the game better from the ground up with the thirst for american football coming through from juniors upwards.
I believe that if you make this one small change you will help increase attendance at NRL games as the interest will carry over from playing the games (and also attending local competition games) to going to watch them.
It also allows for more games on Sunday, which many people have stated and restated that they want, compared to Monday night games for example.
For all the people who say that this allows the AFL to have a free shot at the Sydney and Brisbane markets on Saturday? What, one game a week in these markets is a huge threat to rugby league? How insecure are you?
You don’t think there are plenty of fans out there that enjoy both sports? The AFL will do anything to keep its grip on Saturday after being rebuffed from fans the other year about removing Saturday games. I say let them have it and make Sunday the great day for rugby league.
I’m sure there will be Roarers who will pick this idea apart but, think about it, my plan allows for the same amount of NRL games a week, allows the juniors and local competitions around the country to play on Saturday and have their own stand alone day.
Reckon you can pick the winning team? Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match. For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.