Expansion in the NRL: The cons

The SP PNG Hunters recorded their fourth consecutive win at home with a solid 40-22 win over the Ipswich Jets this afternoon. In their last season proper home game for the season, the Hunters did not let their supporters numbering in thousands down running in a barrage of tries in the second half. As is their fashion, the Hunters came out the better side in the second half scoring as early as the 44th minute through Willie Minoga. Taking over the kicking duties from Israel Eliab, Noel Zemming slotted the kick over to narrow the Jets lead to 20-16. Working up good possession, the Hunters levelled the scores after Jason Tali scored on the wing. Zemming made no mistake successfully putting his side in front 22-20. Minutes later, it was this time Hunters hooker Wartovo Puara who made a break and dashed away to score in the far corner. This gave the Hunters a 28-20 lead with 14 minutes to go. After being awarded a penalty in front of the posts, Jets Marmin Barba opted to kick to bring the scores back to a 6 point ball game. With 6 minutes left on the clock, Tali barged his way over again to put the Jets out of doubt to win back the game. But Garry Lo didn’t allow the game to end without a try next to his name. The competition’s leading try scorer stormed under the posts in the last minute to score his 22nd try for this season. The Hunters now look down South to play their last two season home games. They will have a bye in the last game before the finals.

The SP PNG Hunters recorded their fourth consecutive win at home with a solid 40-22 win over the Ipswich Jets this afternoon. In their last season proper home game for the season, the Hunters did not let their supporters numbering in thousands down running in a barrage of tries in the second half. As is their fashion, the Hunters came out the better side in the second half scoring as early as the 44th minute through Willie Minoga. Taking over the kicking duties from Israel Eliab, Noel Zemming slotted the kick over to narrow the Jets lead to 20-16. Working up good possession, the Hunters levelled the scores after Jason Tali scored on the wing. Zemming made no mistake successfully putting his side in front 22-20. Minutes later, it was this time Hunters hooker Wartovo Puara who made a break and dashed away to score in the far corner. This gave the Hunters a 28-20 lead with 14 minutes to go. After being awarded a penalty in front of the posts, Jets Marmin Barba opted to kick to bring the scores back to a 6 point ball game. With 6 minutes left on the clock, Tali barged his way over again to put the Jets out of doubt to win back the game. But Garry Lo didn’t allow the game to end without a try next to his name. The competition’s leading try scorer stormed under the posts in the last minute to score his 22nd try for this season. The Hunters now look down South to play their last two season home games. They will have a bye in the last game before the finals.

Fiji chose to enter NSW Cup Source: The National, Tuesday July 1st, 2014 FIJI will ignore the Intrust Super Cup and compete in the NSW Cup, robbing punters of the chance to see them clash with the PNG Hunters. NSWRL are deep in negotiations with Fiji RL for a residents-only team to compete in the second tier NSW Cup next season or in 2016. Maroons legend Petero Civoniceva is behind the bold expansion. The QRL have been interested in fielding a Fiji-team for the past year but were not prepared to include them until at least 2017. Rugby league is booming in Fiji, following the success of Jarryd Hayne, Akuila Uate and Semi Radradra in the NRL. League is surging towards equal footing with union in the Pacific and a domestic side competing against NRL-quality players would be an enormous boost to the code in Fiji. The Hunters’ success in the Intrust Super Cup this year has attracted record-crowds and television audiences. The QRL’s long-term plan was to have Fiji included in the ISC but they are committed to creating teams in Townsville and Toowoomba first. “Fiji would be a really good fit in the Intrust Super Cup and we hoped they would join us but our time-frame is obviously different to theirs,” QRL competitions manager Jamie O’Connor said. “We want to expand into the Pacific more but that is a few years away for us. We held talks with Fiji coach Rick Stone earlier this year and discussed their involvement. “They obviously want to join a competition now and they will bring a lot to the NSW Cup and it will benefit the country’s league development immensely.” Fiji National Rugby League marketing officer Tomasi Turagava said the national team’s performance in the past two league World Cups, where they made the semi-finals, has made the 13-man code popular. “Discussions are being held in Sydney for a Fiji Residents squad to feature in the New South Wales Cup,” Turagava told the Fiji press early this month. “Fiji’s performance in the last two World Cups, reaching the semi-finals twice and ranking as fourth in the world, is the main reason that has persuaded the NRL. “We are very confident that we’ll be able to make this happen and what is being included in the package is that the Fiji Residents would play 26 games, hosting 13 of these games at the ANZ Stadium which the Fiji Sports Council says is severely under-utilised.”

There used to be Jo the Barter card comp. The Auckland Warriors have a team in the NSW cup, plus the Under-20's Holden cup. But the point is, there is no NZ rule, not all players have to be from NZ. But in reality plenty are anyway.

If there was a semi-professional NZRL comp that acted as feeders to the Warriors and possibly Wellington; the same course of action taken by the PNG Hunters and also mooted by the FIJI RL could be used by Samoa and Tonga with a residents team representing these each of these nations in the NZRL.. Could work.

I know Vodafone is pumping a lot of cash into the Fiji RL. Though they would need to model it off the same model that PNG is using, in that the players only get basic wages, live in Sydney/NSW together, any stuff ups see them sent home, and if a NRL club comes knocking, they release him immediately. Generally that's the idea all up is to give players from those countries to chance to demonstrate their wares and make the country stronger on the international field.

There will not be player overload as the competition is probably going to be reduced in terms of the number of rounds in the next TV Deal.. Just because there are more teams doesn't mean there will be more rounds. If anything, Perth allows the game to have an extra game on any day due to the time difference of WA. I think the 2nd tier comps in Qld and NSW can be used to develop the game beyond its traditional borders. Of course we want the NZRL, WARL and VRL to be strong competitions in their respective counties and states. However just as the Warriors have a NSW cup team, PNG has a ISC club, West Coast Pirates have a S.G Ball Cup team; having teams from these areas in the ISC and NSW Cup is what is needed to fast track homegrown player development. I think the NZRL, VRL, WARL and ACTRL should be not classed as affiliate leagues but should be developed and hopefully elevated to be on par with the 2nd tier comps so players from these areas don't have to move to be able to reach their full potential in RL. Also possibly solving problems for the Raiders by improving their already strong local competitions with a proper semi-professional competition helping them retain players; also spreading the game in Victoria and WA. In addition I think maybe a Wellington based team could participate in the NSW Cup in order to create a strong grassroots base in the NZ Capital and testing the waters for an NRL franchise in the future. Perth, SE Qld, Central Qld, Wellington are the areas that will bare most fruit for our competition. There is enough talent in Oceania/Pacific to supply these NRL franchises. There just needs to be a clear pathway for those players outside of NSW/Qld. The fact that that the ISC and NSW Cup are broadcasted on TV is already a huge attraction for players from NZ and the Islands. I think also that NSW is overcrowded and if in 5 years time a club or some clubs in Sydney are not meeting minimum key performance indicators then they do not deserve a license. Adelaide is a very difficult market for the NRL to penetrate and because of this I would be more inclined that once Qld, WA, NZ are secured, the NRL would then, if it saw fit, would look to markets like PNG, Darwin or Adelaide.

THe ideal national foot print should be the following but it will never happen Sydney West Syd Newcastle Wollongong Canberra Brisbane Cental Qld Nth Qld WA Adelaide 10 teams playing each other twice

Once Suncorp somehow expands to accommodate 82k people, then we can talk about even proposing to take the GF up there.

I don't know. According to Petero though its pretty much all set to go though

Yes well the Competition did grow from the NSWRL s Winfield cup commercial success which is something the majority of people tend to forget or ignore! From the NSW completion added to it were the Raiders, Broncos, the GC (in many incarnations) then Auckland the Crushers the Cowboys and the Reds. Its that success and the greed it created that lead to SL and their manufactured additions the Mariners and the Rams. Yes the GF is only ever held in Sydney so what the AFL final is always at the MCG and AFL HQ is in Melbourne as you would expect!

Unequal Draw? Regardless of expansion it will remain unequal - just a fact of life that people need to stop whinging about. Player Overload? The number of games each player plays will be effectively the same. If anything with expansion it likely means representative players are spread over more teams. Talent Dilution? If you take seven first graders out of any squad, they’re going to languish, even if the competition had only 14 or 12 teams in it. Really though, the Pacific Islands have barely been tapped, likewise with the southern states. Basically anywhere that plays either code of rugby is a potential player. And with expansion, grassroots in each market grow with each year.

Friday night football only shows Sydney teams? That's news to Bronco's fans.

Where will Fiji get the money to have full time home and away game in the NSW Cup????

WA - Western Australia has had a few Rugby League Games there especially at NIB Stadium and Patersons Stadium back in 2012. They have a good reputation for Western Australian Rugby league as they are a growing state team.

Adelaide its the NswRL. The GF is only ever held in Syd. Most of the teams are from NSW. NRL HQ is in Syd. Friday night football only ever shows Sydney teams. Youre on the money.

James, mate, what has player overload got to do with expansion. It has everything to do with scheduling and nothing to do with expansion. 2ndly, you state the draw is unequal. That isnt what the fans care about. 2 teams meet in the GF no matter what the draw is. The key part is finding the right balance between supply and demand. NRL crowds are poor, we have a slight oversupply in my opinion, esp around Origin time. Talent dilution - agree with you.

The unequal draw. Really this is where conferences come up, we have defacto conferences every year that a drawn on the results the previous year, but really it doesn't take into account if the team underperformed the year before etc. Just move to conferences and the NRL gets fixtures that the public wants to see twice a year. The only key to conferences is to keep them small, no more than 5 teams (but preferably 4 teams).

The tigers are languishing at the bottom of the table?