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Rugby league is under siege in its traditional heartland – the broad, expansive swathe of Sydney suburbia stretching west of Strathfield, south west to past Camden and north west beyond Dural that marketers and lazy AFL franchises like to call ‘Greater Western Sydney’.
On one front, the NRL has the deep pockets of the AFLs GWS Giants to contend-with.
The soulless, implanted franchise has hardly created a stir in terms of crowd attendance or local impact, though the professional way the AFL is infiltrating schools in the West, the undoubted potential of the teams’ elite draft picks, and the patience and financial clout of the AFL mean the Giants are in it for the long haul.
On the other front, there are the passionate upstart Western Sydney Wanderers.
Though not in direct competition with rugby league, the hype generated by the Wanderers in their debut A-League season, including sellout, multi-generational, multi-racial crowds and growing sponsorship support indicate that things just became that ‘little’ more complicated for the NRL.
With all of this as context, it brings me to the topic of this post – the sleeping giants of the West, the Parramatta Eels.
Amid the cold or warm sporting war that is evolving over time in the Western Suburbs of Sydney, the Parramatta Eels are experiencing arguably their worst few seasons in 40 years.
Unfortunately for the huge number of active and latent Parramatta Eels fans, and for the NRL in general, there is seemingly no positive news regarding how and when this club will reverse its (still declining) fortunes.
Since 2009, the club has been impacted by boardroom drama and instability, with several factions emerging and battling behind the scenes.
In this period, the club has changed Boards three times, has appointed four CEOs, hired and fired three coaches and most recently picked up two wooden spoons for the first time since the early 1970s.
The most recent salt being liberally sprinkled on the wounds of the Parramatta club is in the form of the currently divided board being unable to appoint an NRL coach for the 2014 season.
A vote earlier in the week for Manly assistant coach Brad Arthurs to be appointed was voted down, with current Eels Chairman Peter Sharp being overruled by opposing factions on the board.
The Parramatta Eels are in the papers deep into the post season, with every headline being more comical and cringe-worthy than the last.
The boardroom situation cannot be having a positive impact on the mood of senior Eels players or the culture of the club, especially seeing members and supporters of the various factions cannot stop leaking stories to the media and airing their dirty laundry.
With a sleeping giant like the Eels seemingly in overdose territory, pressure may begin to mount for the NRL to act strategically to ensure Parramatta does not anchor itself to the bottom of the table for the better part of a decade – as happened from 1987-1995.
The code is under increasing pressure to maintain its market share – let-alone grow in the Sydney market, and to have such a large, well-supported club shooting itself in the foot so endemically cannot be good for the game.
Perhaps it is time the NRL made a few demands of the struggling NRL clubs, including the Eels.
Suggesting strongly that Parramatta Football Club/Leagues Club redrafts its constitution to resemble those of well-run NRL clubs as well as reflecting industry best practice may help.
The breadth of experience and business acumen of board members at many NRL clubs (in particular at Parramatta) leaves a lot to be desired.
With the exception of only a handful of NRL clubs (Bulldogs, Brisbane maybe 1-2 others), the AFL is miles ahead on this front.
Given the size of the Parramatta Eels franchise, its importance to the game in the West and the diabolical way the club appears to be run at the moment (and for the last four years) it is high time the NRL became more proactive and started outing the elephant in the room in order to affect real and meaningful change.
I fear rugby league’s sleeping giant is at serious risk of falling down the figurative beanstalk, the impact could be a turning point in the ‘long game’ battle for sporting control in the greater west of Sydney.
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