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On the eve of the National Rugby League grand final, it’s clear that Sydney cannot get enough of English rugby league players.
But Sydney still does not give a toss about English rugby league.
James Graham, the former St Helens forward who is likely to replace Kevin Sinfield as national captain for the coming Four Nations series in Australasia, would be tied with England rugby union recruit Sam Burgess as the most famous man in the Harbour City this week.
When the grand final luncheon from Darling Harbour was televised on Thursday, Graham was the first player mentioned in the intro voice-over – and Burgess the second.
Not even South Sydney’s Hollywood actor owner, Russell Crowe, or their celebrated fullback, Greg Inglis, have commanded as many column inches or as much air time as this Liverpudlian and the Yorkshireman with whom he usually shares a room in England camp.
Each day, the hyperbole about the pair outdoes itself. The lead story of grand final edition of Rugby League Week magazine quotes retired coach John Lang comparing Burgess to an Australian Immortal of the game, Wally Lewis.
Yet when the first Great Britain tourists in 23 years were told to stay home next season because green and gold stars did not want to play them, the news didn’t even make the print editions of Sydney papers.
The fact Graham’s former club, St Helens, is one of four remaining clubs seeking a grand final berth at Old Trafford next weekend is as obscure a fact in the former penal colony as the latest Uruguayan football results. The common response on social media when a supposedly ‘top’ Australian Super League import is mentioned tends to be “is he still playing?”
While some 40,000 seats have been sold for a double-header to open the Four Nations (New Zealand and Samoa are the other competing teams) in Brisbane on October 25, promoters are not daring to hold a single match in Sydney during the tournament.
Why?
Tyrone McCarthy, the former Warrington and Ireland forward, is playing for Northern Pride in one of Sunday’s curtain-raisers, a ‘second tier Super Bowl’ between the winners of the NSW and Queensland competitions.
“It just shows how the NRL cares only about the NRL,” he says. “No one over here could tell you who the next Graham or Burgess might be in Super League.
“I’m amazed how many Australian rugby league fans can’t name more than five Super League teams.”
Why?
There are cultural generalisations, of course. One could convincingly argue that since the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Australia’s most famous city has become besotted with its own glamorous reputation and a little disdainful of its most popular winter sport’s provincial nature.
Sydney has the confidence and clout to host Major League Baseball, NFL, World Cup football and rugby union showpieces. These are the events at which to be seen, not ‘rugby league Tests’ against teams representing south Auckland and the M62 corridor.
Of course, this is an attitude that betrays a lingering lack of self-worth and true global citizenry. Sydney is still in a phase of trying to prove itself to its international peers; it’s not at the point yet where it feels worthy of selling its own peculiar passions and pastimes back to the rest of the world.
But the ambivalence and even outright aggression towards rugby league’s only other full-time professional competition probably says more about the NRL than it does about Sydney’s occasional shallowness.
If there were two Australians involved in baseball’s World Series, would Americans take a deeper interest in Australian baseball? Beyond talent scouts (and the NRL are spotting English players at a younger age all the time) and the specialist press, probably not.
The sad fact for the Rugby Football League and Super League is that it is seen as a feeder competition to the NRL.
Several of Sunday night’s combatants have played in Queensland’s Intrust Super Cup – that doesn’t mean the Sydney papers and television stations are suddenly going to start going big on Wynnum and the Northern Pride.
South Sydney have not won a premiership since 1971. Great Britain and England have not beaten Australia in a series since 1970.
“They think badly of us,” Wigan coach Shaun Wane said this week at the premiere of a documentary celebrating his side’s – losing – 2014 World Club Challenge campaign. “And that hurts.”
Burgess can help South Sydney break their drought. But if Super League is to be taken seriously here, England will simply have to break theirs without him.
Steve Mascord is one of the most experienced and respected rugby league journalists in Australia, having covered the game extensively for News Limited, Fairfax, Rugby League Week and NRL.com. You can read more of Steve Mascord’s writing at his website and you can follow him on Twitter @therealsteavis