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Does Adelaide really need the rugby codes?

Roar Guru
28th June, 2011
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Roar Guru
28th June, 2011
118
3295 Reads

After watching the Adelaide Oval international some time ago now, I was forced to confront (again) what it is I don’t particularly like about Adelaide, which seems to come to the fore when I see and think about the Adelaide Crows.

And I realised that like with all other major (and ideally all provincial) Australian towns, Adelaide doesn’t just deserve the rugby codes, it probably also needs them. But in both cases, it is a long way away from getting them.

Thus my frustration with Adelaide as a sporting city and as a sporting culture. For those of you who know the city and its people better than me (and I reckon that’d be most of you), is this just one of those let’s buy our ticket and hope we win the lottery kind of theoretical considerations?

I’m not sure. But what I am sure of is I don’t want Adelaide and South Australia for that matter to be treated like Kansas was in the build up to the American Civil War. That is politically aligned to the north and a degree of progressiveness as a whole (quite like Adelaide is reputed to be in a sense), but culturally and economically inextricably linked to the south.

To force this unnaturally, much like the NRL have done with the Storm, is to ‘bleed South Australia’ and denies Adelaide and its state its own identity, or more importantly it’s own rugby identity.

As things stand, like they were leading up to the American Civil War, there is something of a balance at least in theoretical power at this time in the Australian sporting landscape. At least at the level of continental maps and the democratic barons known as senators. But as with Melbourne until recently and Perth fairly soon, Adelaide could have been left behind. Could still be, of course!

And now to the other issue. If we take it for granted that both do compete to get into Adelaide at around the same time, how do you think they’ll go about it? Or more importantly, how will rugby league go about trying to go where they have been before?

Or even more importantly, if this is a case of simply first past the post wins, is there space for the kind of plurality that Adelaide in other ways is actually known for?

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And I know this is controversial to say, particularly in light of code wars fanatics on this site, but is it even possible for one code to fight 150 years of history on its own?

That would take us back to an earlier point of mine: that Australian Football is ingrained (and I’m certainly not saying this is anything other than one piece of furniture as a part of the greater vibrancy of the truly southern capital) and it makes up the lion’s share of the sporting identity of the city.

How does one maintain this, but in a way that is conducive to the growth of the rugbys? Any thoughts?

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