The battle for the hearts and minds of football fans in western Sydney has taken another turn, with the AFL to schedule the round one Greater Western Sydney-Sydney Swans clash as a stand-alone game during the opening round of the NRL.
The idea to gatecrash the NRL opener has come from the Giants, but is expected to be given the green light by the AFL commission.
If granted, Great Western Sydney and the Swans would play at ANZ Stadium on March 24, 2012, while the rest of the AFL’s first round eight games would be played on the next weekend from March 29. The AFL season would then end with the grand final on September 29.
Giants chief executive Dales Holmes mentioned the plan at the club’s grand final luncheon yesterday. It would be a powerful way to start the season with a fierce first derby between Sydney’s two AFL teams.
If the scheduling goes ahead, it would also be another shot at the NRL after the Gold Coast Suns debuted this year in Queensland rugby league territory.
With battles in Sydney, the Gold Coast and Melbourne intensifying, and the Melbourne Storm slowly gaining some live TV coverage of their games, it will be interesting to see the NRL’s response.
Speculation is growing that the NRL will return to Perth in 2015 when they add new teams into the competition. The Western Reds entered the ARL competition in 1995 but were axed in October 1997 as the ARL and Super League merged to form the NRL.
punter
Guest
Replying to football tragic on the fact that people can learn to embrace more than one football code.
stabpass
Guest
How is you coment remotely relevant to anything, are you sure you are posting on the right thread ?.
punter
Guest
Football is already the no 1 sport playing wise in GWS. Football heratland.
Football Tragic
Roar Rookie
The code war rubbish is generated pedominately by the NRL and the media who back it. Code war articles sell papers and spark interest - hell just look at Roar! Things will be hard for the GWS early with many NRL fans now actually disliking the AFL based on the negative hype and fear of the 'Southern Threat'. After all the hype dies down and the average NRL fan realises that the GWS poise no threat to their number one code some may actually begin to watch, attend GWS games and perhaps even adopt the AFL as their second code, First though, the negative hype will need to receed and the GWS will need to rough it for a time. In terms of the recent attendance and ratings for the Storm final, two factors need to be taken into account. One is that Melbourne has quite a few NZ ex-pats who attended this game but otherwise prefer to attend the Rebel's games and secondly, the NRL were clever in placing the game in a timeslot that Melbournians are used to viewing live football (Sat Night) but no AFL games were available so - any port in a storm so to speak :) I would love to see more people learn to embrace more than one football code and realize that they can remain loyal to their traditional code but still support other codes too.
BigAl
Guest
I'm sure I heard all this being discussed months ago ???
stabpass
Guest
Exactly right, so why the continued paranoid articles out of the Sydney media. What exactly are they worried about and why ?.
AC
Guest
Well you cant blame the AFL for this type of promotion. Seeing this is a AFL thread I plan no code war comment. The AFL is a business and it wants to promote its product. Good Work. Lets face it the NRL does it in Melbourne,. They put Anzac tests there and also State of Origin matches. They do very nicely also. Lets face it 28,000 last week for a code which no one cares about in Melbourne and a peak of over 300,000 on tv for the NRL; isnt too bad. Yes not too bad for a code which no one takes seriously in Melbourne. I worked out the 28K that attended represents a third of the people that attended the AFL in the arvo. The TV audience was the highest rating program in its timeslot. So thats not too bad either. So if the NRL can do things in Melbourne and seem to be very successful then why cant the AFL?
stabpass
Guest
Perhaps even better would be to get those 'alleged' league fans off the couch, and into the real world of supporters. Seriously though, for GWS to do OK, they do not need one league fan to give away league and take up Australian football, there are millions of soccer, basketball, basket weaving fans that can and may take a interest. In 5 years time GWS will be way bigger than the GC Suns and creeping up on North, WB and Melbourne. Depending on how deep the AFL'S pockets are, but GWS with it's blue collar background may eventually become one of the biggest football clubs in Australia. http://www.aflnswact.com.au/index.php?id=5&tx_ttnews[pointer]=2&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=745&tx_ttnews[backPid]=4&cHash=7ccf9699c3 The AFL are very, very serious this time about making Australian football a legitimate sport in Western Sydney this time around.
TW
Guest
The Giants had 800 people at the luncheon mentioned. Not bad for RL heartland. As posted elsewhere I said there is potential in the badlands of Western Sydney. Not sure about getting NRL fans along to the games - We need to go after the schools and neutral sports fans. The new AFL NSW boss Tom Harley is aiming for total NSW/ACT participation of over 200,000 by 2016 which is an increase of 75000 over 2010. This target is to be reached mainly courtesy of very heavy schools promotions. Tom also said 58 grounds in Western Sydney had AFL goal posts now installed, and more schools were getting involved.
TomC
Guest
I don't think the AFL wants the GWS to act as a spoiler to the NRL. Surely a better strategy would be to try and get a number of existing NRL fans to also support the AFL?
Damo
Roar Guru
Great idea, and good call on the NRL in Perth. Obvious choice for an expansion in my mind- enough of this Brisbane Bombers crap, bring in Western Reds and Central Coast Bears
JamesP
Guest
You make some good points Billy I would have thought their first home game should be up against a popular team, but not a Collingwood who would smash them to smitherines. Carlton would be too good as well, so I would potentially recommend Essendon who have tremendous pulling power. Failing that Richmond would be good...maybe not quite as much support, but on a positive note...they'd be a chance to win :) I think the Gold Coast Suns did it well...first up against Carlton at home, then the Q Clash at the Gabba, then Geelong at Metricon.
Bill
Guest
This is a really dumb idea. To begin with, having the Swans smash the Giants in round 1 is no good for any rivalry. Better having them play each other later after the Giants get more experience and get up to the AFL pace as a team. Secondly, they should stretch out the publicity for the Giants more. 1st AFL game, 1st home game, 1st game against Sydney are each going to be big events, it is stupid to have them all together as 1 event. The Giants first few weeks should be against low teams including the Suns, then play the Swans in about week 5/6.
me, I like football
Guest
The fact that this is considered code-war worthy, just goes to show the war does not exist outside the Sydney medias mind. I plan on celebrating my sons birthday that weekend, to really sabotage the NRL season
JamesP
Guest
Hardly a blast like the Tele would have us believe. More scare mongering and fear. For a constrast, start up a second NRL team in Melbourne and get them to play the Storm one week. Would the AFL even care? Would anyone notice?
Ted
Guest
oh god, this is going to be a bloodbath (haha, i just realised that's a pun). i don't know how much of a gatecrashing it'll be when sydney wins by 100+ points
Matt F
Roar Guru
As a Swans fan this sounds perfect. We'll also take Gold Coast in round 2 and Port in round 3 please!