Frustrated Wests Tigers boss Stephen Humphreys says moving an iconic game from the Sydney Cricket Ground shows why the NRL needs to reclaim the right to schedule matches.
The Tigers have been forced to move their round 22 clash with St George Illawarra to the Sydney Football Stadium after it was scheduled for a Friday night.
The occasion was to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Dragons 22-0 win over Western Suburbs in the 1961 grand final, a match that featured greats Norm Provan, Johnny Raper, Reg Gasnier, Noel Kelly and Arthur Summons.
But the Nine Network’s decision to broadcast the match on August 5 meant the club had to revise its plans.
The Tigers believe holding the match at the SCG has been made impractical and the club has had to cancel more than 1,000 young dancers who were to stage a spectacular at the game’s former headquarters.
“We and the NRL were keen to host it on the Sunday but at the end of the day we weren’t able to convince (Nine),” Humphreys told AAP.
“We are where we are (with scheduling). We’ve obviously learned some lessons going into the next broadcast negotiations.
“Next time round there would have to be a significant premium paid for us to continue the current practice.
“The scheduling of your matches, for me that’s intrinsic to running the game so I’d prefer the NRL to be the body doing it.”
Under the current broadcast deal, Nine gets first choice on matches for the high-rating Friday night slot while that network and Fox Sports determine the schedule for the other games.
The current arrangement ends at the end of next season, when a new broadcast deal negotiated by rugby league’s impending independent commission will take effect.
The Tigers are determined commemorations of the 1963 grand final, which spawned the famous photo of Provan and Summons that was sculpted into the premiership trophy, will not suffer the same fate.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to make that decision ourselves,” said Humphreys, the son of former league boss the late Kevin Humphreys.
“It’s incredibly important … the photo is one of those iconic images of the game.
“The history is so important and it’s incumbent upon all of us to make sure that doesn’t get lost.
“I know the NRL were doing what they can to assist us, it’s just that at the moment the right to schedule belongs to the broadcasters.
“I don’t think we can bemoan the fact that they have their own motives but hopefully next time round we can get control of that back.”
Jaceman
Guest
NQ Cows vrs Canberra as the sole friday night game this year would hardly maximise ratings in Sydney/Bris - thtas why they went for Qld/NSW Friday night mix....
oikee
Guest
Yes Jaceman, but before the Salary cap did it's work they had good reason to have the rights to the better games, now they have no excuse, because game 8 could be as good or better than game 1. It all comes down now to the NRL showing whoever wins the rights that any game is as good as the next, fullstop. Like i said, last year i was enjoying Cronulla games, this year also some Cronulla games have been pretty good, the last game a good example, they beat the Bulldogs. I will say it again, no code allows this to happen, except rugby league, time the game grew some.
Jaceman
Guest
Chris C has got it right. The paramters are what they are and they took the chance and failed. Channel Nine pays "good!" money for the right to schedule and gets its way. Half owned by one media organization and beholden to another for Tv scheduling - what do you expect???
Stu
Guest
Living on the Gold Coast but supporting the Broncos, I'd love to see the NRL and AFL work together on scheduling. A pipe dream I know, but it would be nice to have some live footy every weekend during the season with no intercede clash. The Reds manage only by default as they use Suncorp. There's nothing like a little forward planning. -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download The Roar's iPhone App in the App Store here.
ChrisC
Guest
This was a dumb decision by Stephen Humphreys in the first place. They have spent the past number of years trying to build up the annual SCG clash between Wests Tigers and Souths, and what do you do, you change it! Of course channel 9 was going to pick the premiers as their number one ranked game of the week. If Wests stuck with the Souths game, I'm sure they would have got the Sunday timeslot. This is very dumb management on Humphreys behalf and even worse still that he is trying to blame it on channel 9 .
oikee
Guest
With the salary cap working pretty well, i cant see why we dont have a yearly schedule from now on. All the games are pretty evenly matched, so no matter who is playing, the quality of the games are now not really a issue. If they have another team in Brisbane and Perth, we will see a good mix of Queensland teams and other unknowns playing anytime, anywhere. I normally only talk about the negatives of the game, but alot of the changes made this last year have been really good. Membership drives, Playing semi finals at the big stadiums, playing home games at the smaller grounds like Leichart and Manly plus down in Win and Woolloogong all have been a joy to watch. The women in league round has gone from strength to strength, and they hopefully will have origin on the Monday when a few teams have the byes, so will open up the Monday nite timeslot perfectly. We have the All-stars game, the test match and city country now on separate nites. Still a few things to sort out, but at least they are changing a few things to improve the scheduling and players wellfare. Yes, the possitives will benifit the game. So hopefully next tv deal we can stand on our own 2 feet and have a proper schedule at the start of the year, we must be the only code that has not got one, yet i see this as one of our strengths.