A record six Sydney teams are set to qualify for this season’s NRL finals, suggesting the Harbour City remains rugby league’s heartland.
Sydney teams currently make up three-quarters of the top eight, with their playoff fate in their own hands with two rounds of the regular season remaining.
Six Sydney teams have qualified for the finals only once in NRL history in 1998.
But that was under a 10 teams finals system.
NRL boss Dave Smith created a furore earlier this year when he claimed Queensland was the heartland of rugby league.
But Sydney teams, led by ladder leaders Manly, can prove him otherwise.
If a Sydney team claims this year’s NRL title, it will be the ninth time in 11 seasons a Sydney team has won the premiership, with Melbourne’s grand final wins in 2007 and 2009 expunged from the records due to salary cap breaches.
South Sydney, the Sydney Roosters, and Penrith sit a win behind Manly.
Melbourne and Canterbury sit two points further back, with North Queensland and Parramatta rounding out the top eight.
The Storm are vying to break Sydney’s stranglehold on rugby league supremacy in probably the tightest competition since the NRL was founded in 1998.
Storm fullback Billy Slater says the week-to-week toughness of the NRL is what makes it so tight.
“With the length of the season, it’s hard to stay up for such a long period of time,” Slater said.
“You see every team this year, even looking at the Tigers and the Titans, every team this year has had its run and has had its time where they’re playing some really good football in patches of three to four weeks.
“I remember the Titans at the start of the year were on fire and they were leading the comp after six rounds, the Tigers were in some form there in a period there too and the Bulldogs went through a run.
“So it’s all about playing right at the right time of the year. It’s such a long year – we started playing in March. It was a long time ago. I think that’s probably why it is so tight, and with that Origin period, you’re going to have lulls.
Slater said this could finally be the year a team outside the top four wins the competition.
“It’s definitely possible,” he said.
“You only have to look at this week’s round and if this was the finals, well, I think three of the top four sides got beaten, so anything’s possible in this game.
“It’s just as important to be playing good footy at the right time of the year as it is to have a good position on the ladder.”
Joel
Guest
AEAG, just for your education, sorry, I shouldn't expect you to know such things but: Cowboys are based in Townsville, Townsville population is around 180,000. Though people in North Queensland are known to travel 400+ km's to a Cows home game in Townsville. 2 million tourists are International Japanese, Chinese, European, American who don't travel from Cairns 400 km's to Townsville to watch an NRL match, & Domestic tourists from elsewhere in Australia who already support a team from their preferred sport. My point on the tourist remark was purely to indicate that Cairns is not a 2 headed hill billy red-neck town as insular ignorant Sydney racists so happily profess but a tropical open minded multicultural international city.
Monstrous
Guest
6 teams in the finals and the Sydney crowds are still poor despite the big drawers being out of it OK the saints are marginal..
SeaEaglesAreGo
Roar Rookie
Sorry you had to decipher what I said. Thank fully you managed to do that. Winning the 9's earlier in the year hopefully would have had a lot to do with your membership this year, I would think. However not being to au faux with the Cowboy that would be an assumption. I am not going to enter into a "you missed the point - I missed the point- no you did- didnt-did" scenario. To answer your "...2014 the Cows have a larger member base and larger average crowd than the Eagles?" In your own words you are comparing "Cairns is an international city with 2 million tourists passing through its doors a year." with a Shire in Sydney? *chuckles*
Joel
Guest
SEAG first, I think you missed the point of Squids comment, and second after trying to decipher what your on about, for 2014 the Cows have a larger member base and larger average crowd than the Eagles? in Cairns the crowd numbers for their allotted homes games blessed to them by the Rabbits: 2014 : Rabbits v Knights : 11,500 2013 : Rabbits v Titans : 16.200 What's your point?
SeaEaglesAreGo
Roar Rookie
Sadly Joel I don't think you are respecting where Squidward is coming from. If it all about bums on seats the Cowboys home games aren't reflecting that. We had nearly 10k here for the Parra vs Raiders game recently but Darwin doesn't have a team.
Joel
Guest
We'll just mark you down as ignorant Squid, your still living in the 90's, the game has moved on, it is now called National Rugby League, I suggest you do the same and move on. Can the NRL please correct the statistics base to help people like Squidward catch up. You know, they used to say that we were 10 years behind up here, but somewhere along the line it seems that Sydney has slipped 10 years behind. Cairns is an international city with 2 million tourists passing through its doors a year. Sydney seems to have become insula like America.
Squidward
Roar Rookie
Well if Queensland want more teams maybe their comp should've been better so nsw joined it back in the late 80s
Renegade
Guest
Perth and a second Brisbane side should be given the green light for entry now.... it makes too much sense.
Renegade
Guest
Maybe so.... but culling teams with history isn't the answer specially if the new teams won't provide any benefits in reality. Central QLD simply doesn't have the population to warrant a team - they would appeal to no one. Western Corridor could be looked at when the Broncos or a second brisbane side start selling out suncorp regularly - until then forget it. Everyone bags Sydney crowds yet considering the Broncos have a city of 2 million to themselves.... their crowds are relatively poor. If there were only two teams in Sydney - they would dwarf the broncos crowds.
Paneer
Guest
Good question! Why are NRL crowds so bad this year tho???
Matthew Edwards
Guest
I push for all 4 of them. Get rid of 2 Sydney teams and have an 18 team competition. CQ and Western Corridor would make more money than the sharks. Plus even if they don't the CQ side has a millionaire backer who just wants to own an NRL team in Geoff murphy. Western Corridor and the western suburbs of brisbane is the fastest growing place in queensland. You really don't get the real problem. All of these places need teams. And Sydney doesn't need 9.
Muzz
Guest
As a Sydney based NRL fan i welcome expansion. It beggars belief that there is only 1 Brisbane based team.The NRL need to grow a pair and not be dictated to by News Ltd.
Joel
Guest
Back in the 70's to late 80's the BRL was massive in QLD, and to me as a North Queenslander (Cairns) it was my central of Rugby League, where my hero's played (apart from our own CDRL which I played in as a junior) I used to watch the weekend games on the Big League broadcast on ABC, I didn't even know of the Sydney competition. The testament to the BRL competition was their dominance on early State of Origin, Lewis, Myles, Meninga, Close, Colin Scott and a plethora of other players coming from the BRL. It wasn't until Brisbane joined the NSWRL competition that the BRL was decimated and the slow move to grow the game back into a healthy one in QLD started until now where we have the QRL which is a stronger competition than the NSWRL (That and 8 Origins laid the claim to people calling the home of RL in QLD) The fact that so many Sydney teams joined the NRL around 1997/98 decimated their State NSWRL competition, how the current NRL administration try to manipulate minds by adding statistics from the NSWRL state competition into the NRL national competition is just plain wrong, misleading and corrupt. Your perspective is just that, your perspective and doesn't generally account for the game as a whole, let us not forget where the game started in England. I lived for 11 years in Sydney and went to many games and learnt alot about the Sydney comp in those years. One thing I know is that the 2 states love the game of Rugby League proven through the spectacle that is State of Origin. To say anything different is just greed and ignorance.
Gurudoright
Guest
Again, look at the Broncos and their news ltd overlords. It was them who didn't want the Crushers when super league and the ARL came together. Not long after that the chargers/new name every year Gold Coast were forced out. If it wasn't for the Broncos' overlord, there would already be 4 Qld teams and who knows maybe even more by now with a Brisbane derby that would have had almost 20 years of rivalry. But yes blame Sydney because Qld has three teams
The Barry
Guest
How did the non Sydney teams get in then?
Renegade
Guest
Everyone with their heads in the right mind would push for Perth. It's a given.... Brisbane 2 would be next but the other two teams you mentioned are daydreams.
Reegs82
Guest
Even if the Broncos don't make the 8, channel 9 will still somehow manage to show one of their games on Friday Nights.
AZ_RBB
Guest
Sydney hates winners :P
Brett
Guest
And yet the crowds continue to be pathetic in Sydney.
Matthew Edwards
Roar Pro
The QLDers generally don't have a problem with the best teams being from Sydney. The problem is that Sydney has 3x as many teams as the whole of QLD first and foremost. And the fact that the NSW fans and media members write crap like this not acknowledging the fact that a fair portion of these teams are made up of QLD players. Until the competition is more evenly balanced amongst the 2 states QLD will continue to have this chip on our shoulders. The fact that the sydney-centric media has pushed for a perth side over brisbane 2, western corridor and Central Qld has only increased the problem for those of us from outside of Sydney.