League's country base needs help from ARL

Hopefully the independent commission combined with a vastly improved TV deal will see a lot more money flow into footy in the bush. Locally you CAN see a difference between the AFL and the League in terms of dollars available to support Junior Clubs as the League Clubs charge $ 80 rego where as the AFL Clubs let the kids play for FREE!

The popularity of Australian football in country Victoria has nothing to do with marketing, and everything to do with history, custom and tradition. As someone mentioned, you'll find the country footy clubs double as netball clubs (which will often be included in the name). Why is this relevant? Because the footy club is often the focus of the country town, and whole families are involved on a Saturday, with both the footy and netball teams often playing from shared premises, with whole families involved to help out with both sports. You reckon a tiny bit of marketing can replace that sort of long history and tradition?

You mean rather than the joke that is City v Country? Permanent country games during the round would be great. I think the issue is finding the venues to host them. BTW... Newcastle and Gosford are NOT country NSW

I didn't know that. Imagine... League players getting paid and Union players not. That's the kind of thing that could cause a split between the two sports.... :) Anyone else know about this.... are First Grade League players in country towns usually paid?

Elevens or sevens is a great idea for smaller towns. Fielding a team of 13 plus reserves (especially in towns Under 10,000) is bloody hard. In the town I live - which is considerably larger than 10,000, we still have trouble filling all the age groups at club level. Kids backing up and playing an age group higher is fairly common across a wide range of sports. This is why I would endorse and encourage the growth of sevens, elevens and Oz-tag as league and union alternatives.

Some interesting comments... thanks for your kind responses. It is especially interesting to hear about the situation in Victorian towns - whether the dominance of AFL simply means that it is more popular (don't *codewar* please) and there's simply little interest in other sports, or successful marketing I don't know. It seems that the situation in NSW is decidedly different though - there's no town I can think of where either LEAGUE or UNION dominates the sporting landscape to the extent that AFL does in Vic. What about South Australia by the way? I used to live way further out west - in Walgett (Northern NSW) where sport was a lot simpler. I'm going to be blunt here so please don't be offended by what I say. This is how is worked in Walgett. If you were an Aboriginal kid you played League - but only at school as attempts to create a junior league outside of school always fell apart If you were a non-Aboriginal kid you played League at school and Soccer and Union outside of school. By and large the Aboriginal kids didn't play soccer or union and weren't asked to either... If you were an Aboriginal man you played League for the Walgett Dragons (Ricky Walford is a famous Walgett league player). If you were a non-Aboriginal man you played Union for the Walgett Rams Rugby Union side. Now it wasn't ALWAYS that simple. Maybe not as completely black and white as that - but you get the gist. Does anyone else have any experiences of racial divides in small town sport?

I grew up in a regional city in Victoria, and have played many sports in and around the city and representing smaller surrounding towns in Aussie Rules. Here is my perspective In the smaller regional towns it's cricket in summer and footy and netball (which is usually directly tied to the football club) in winter. With social Golf and Tennis available. The more remote towns don't offer Junior Footy with the 3rds (U17) usually being the youngest so require players of junior age to go into the larger towns to play. Some towns have a soccer club at junior level and by many is seen as a stepping-stone into footy. Quite a few at junior level play footy Saturday and soccer Sunday. I would say basketball in country Victoria would be bigger than soccer and at one stage in the 90's pushing footy. But soccer is still well represented especially at the <12yo level. Rugby League is non-existent, and to play Rugby Union would mean you have to travel all across the state and even into SNSW to play.

There are loads in western Country NSW, I'm sure you've seen the Barassi line anyways.

I've found country NSW towns in the southern parts of NSW have quite large Aussie Rules clubs, so its not all of NSW sitation where they are quite small. I've also found that some NSW country towns have preference in rugby league or union, Tamworth more of a union town for example, but has both Aussie Rules and rugby league clubs. To me even though they are different rugby league and union are the equivalent of Aussie Rules in Vic, Sa & WA. If you went to went to the United States its American football and soccer, that is much like Vic, Sa, WA. Plenty of junior soccer clubs around. Towns like Goondiwindi on the NSW/QLD border have a strong Aussie Rules club right next to the union and league clubs/grounds, plus soccer clubs. Historicially, it will take a long time for Aussie Rules clubs to grow in newer regions for the code just as it will take a long time for the rugby codes to establish themselves in regional Vic, SA, WA. Sporting infrastructure, the sport your Dad played and your mates play does not change overnight.

Wagga Wagga easily.

http://www.dailyadvertiser.com.au/news/local/sport/rugby-league/gundagai-and-junee-forced-to-pull-out-of-group-nine-sullivan-cup/2134017.aspx Faced with a serious decline in numbers, Gundagai and Junee football clubs have each pulled their teams from the under-16 competition In another setback for Group Nine, Temora has been forced to forfeit its reserve grade game against Tumbarumba on Sunday. I might add that this is not unique to rugby league, but a hell of a lot of country sports, particuarly football codes, there is a very good case for 7's comps and the like. I know Australian football has been looking at the idea of 11 aside in country towns that have declining numbers, or implementing it at reserve level across leagues that struggle for player numbers.

G'day League Coach, Great article, I hope I can add something of useful to the discussion. I grew up in a country town (3000 pop) in North Central/North West Vic. I am writing this having lived away from the place for 20 years, but have been rural/regional for much of that time (Border/Riverina NSW) Winter sports at home were Aussie Rules, Soccer, Basket Ball and a myriad of other indoor sports. For girls Netball and Hockey were the two main winter sports. Summer was predominantly cricket. The Rugby Codes didn't exist and it wasn't until I was in my mid/late teens that I became aware of them. None exist in the small towns in the local area even today. Where I am now we have a semi professional 10 team Aussie Rules comp, 10 team Soccer comp, 1 RL Club, & 1RU Club. We are right on the Victorian border and are very Vic centric but all clubs are very well supported through the grades. Obviously the smaller the town the less sporting options there are available, so Aussie Rules tends to predominate on the Vic side, but throughout the Riverina there seems to be a pretty even spread of sports.

I think whoever did the heading didn't really get the gist of the article, and secondly why isnt this descending into an all-out code war. I'm disappointed roarers...

I live in Bathurst and I find both league and union receive as much support as their going to get as I'm having success in getting involved in the Bathurst Bulldogs (union). One thing that came to my attention was league players here receive $200 per game to play and union receive $0. Player involvement is very even on both sides and I feel the population in the surrounding areas are not high enough to attract more attention. -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download The Roar's iPhone App in the App Store here.

HOW BIG IS THAT LIST!!! What a town, put an NRL, AFL and A-League team there to be propped up by their respective leagues, hell let's move a test match there.

Not quite Katoomba, but getting there .... http://www.sportingpulse.com/club_info.cgi?c=1-4018-49660-0-0&a=TEAMS&

Just to name a few; Michael Brial (Rugby Union) Chris Latham (Rugby Union) Jason Stoltenberg (Tennis) Steve Elkington (Golf) Darrell Trindall (Rugby League) Dean Lance (Rugby League) For the full list see the link below; http://www.narrabri.nsw.gov.au/index.cfm?page_id=1072

Actually he says it does, i dont think Bega has a senior Australian football team, but generally you would think that most towns do, even it's number 3 or 4 on the footy chain. On Lithgow, i notice Parkes Panthers has rejoined the CWAFL competition after a two year absence, joining Bathurst, Cowra, Dubbo, Mudgee, Orange and Young. Dont worry, there is hope for lithgow after all !! At different times i believe that Lithgow has played in the CWAFL.

I made a mistake you stated that AFL "does" exist in county NSW not does "not" exist as I first stated above carry on

Update, they only existed in 2003 as an invitation-only for their league, and there were the Lithgow Bombers, but they are now defunct, so there is no team in Katoomba either Under 10,000 but all the towns around it are really close bring it well over, and the mighty Katoomba Devils JRLFC represent that. Shame about the Aussie Rules club though, they looked like they did alright on the field.