The NRL has copped the blame for the venue and pricing flaws which led to Sunday’s embarrassing turnout for the City-Country clash in Coffs Harbour.
Adding injury to a concept seemingly already on its knees due to lack of interest from the game’s big names, fans too turned their noses up at hefty ticket prices with just 4635 gathering at BCU Stadium.
It was the lowest turnout for the match since 1987 and the first time in three years the NRL had not sold out a representative fixture.
The NRL said it would not abandon the annual clash, but had to learn from the mistakes made at Coffs Harbour.
There were denials from Rugby League Central that head honchos would initiate a witch-hunt to find a scapegoat for the debacle.
“The pricing structure wasn’t right. We’d all concede that now,” an NRL spokesperson said.
“City-Country’s important, but it’s important that it’s done well.
“We just didn’t get it right. That goes back to when we first picked the venue.”
The issue with the venue was the lack of seating, with the NRL forced to erect a temporary stand at a high price.
NRL general manager of commercial and marketing Paul Kind denied ticket prices, at $50 for a grandstand seat, were set to make a profit from the game.
“When you’re paying around $35 a head to put it (the grandstand) in and getting some other costs on top of that … clearly any suggestion that was a profit-making isn’t the case,” Kind said.
“It’s a loss-making venture for us. It’s about promotion of the game in regional communities.”
The match was already struggling for credibility as a genuine NSW State of Origin trial after a host of players – many of them considered automatic Blues selections – pulled out of the match citing injury.
The ramifications have already begun, with the NRL set to abandon plans to take the game to Broken Hill in 2014.
Country Rugby League President Jock Colley conceded Coffs Harbour may not have been the ideal region to take the game to.
“The heartland of rugby league is in the bush. Places like Mudgee (which hosted the game last year) get completely behind it,” Colley told AAP.
“Coffs Harbour is a bit more commercial, a lot more spread out. Maybe it doesn’t mean as much to the people up here as it does to the rural bush towns.
“We had looked closely at going to Broken Hill. It could be a bit of a gamble now on the back of a disappointing crowd yesterday.”
The mayor of Coffs Harbour, Denise Knight, came to the city’s defence, claiming the community had done all it could to embrace a match which lost some lustre as a result of player withdrawals.
“The crowd was disappointing,” Knight said.
“But we feel like we did our bit. A breakfast was hosted and we put on a civic reception and a fundraiser to raise money for the local Group 2 competition.
“I’d love to see Coffs get another chance to host the City-Country game as the people of the region love their rugby league.
“(But) if they want serious crowds, they’ve got to bring their best players.”
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