It's official: The NRL is getting smashed by the AFL

Those of us down in the Canberra had started to suspect a while ago that NRL HQ didn’t give a rat’s arse about us.

However, it was the following line in Andrew Webster’s excellent piece on the Raiders’ 2016 renaissance that turned conspiracy into reality.

“It would be much easier if Canberra wasn’t in the competition. I’d [expletive] them off tomorrow if I could.”

Webster attributed this statement to a “highly-placed official” at the NRL.

It beggars belief that people high up in the organisation could possibly have that view.

That a senior person in the NRL administration does not value having an NRL team in the middle of a region that features the rugby league towns of Canberra, Queanbeyan, Goulburn, Yass, Young, Crookwell, Moruya, Cooma, Batemans Bay and Bega is bizarre.

What exactly would be easier about [expletive]ing the Raiders off, Mr Unnamed-highly-placed-official?

Not having to deal with the tens of thousands of junior and senior rugby league players in the region that form a large chunk of the grass roots of the game? Not having the prospect of more players like Brett White, Bradley Clyde, Josh Dugan, Todd Payten, Joel Monaghan, Paul Vaughn, Michael Weyman, Ricky Stuart, Jack Wighton, Laurie Daley, Shannon Boyd, David Furner, Jarrod Croker, Brent Kite, Glen Lazarus or Brett Finch being produced?

Having a bye every round because you only had 15 teams? Not having to deal with those oiks from that cold, godforsaken place complaining that they were getting no concessions for developing juniors and that third party deals had created a drastically uneven playing field?

Is that what you mean by easier? Because that just sounds like you are confusing easier for stupid and lazy.

Are you aware that is one of the main purposes of the NRL is in fact to grow the game, Mr Unnamed-highly-placed-official? Or did you miss that memo?

Would it just be ‘easier’ if the competition was only your preferred Sydney clubs – and of course the Broncos because, well, Rupert owns that particular licence to print money and he is big, mean and scary.

Basically, any side that can’t easily attract the third party sponsorships, that themselves have made the NRL such a lopsided competition, are hard because those sides expect you to help them out and stuff, and think about solutions and things.

That’s hard.

Why can’t they all just get their own Nick Politises? That would be easy.

Then the boys at NRL HQ could concentrate on confounding us on a weekly basis with their bunker rulings, supporting a game-day operations manager who doesn’t enforce the rules he was hired to uphold and amazing us by suspending players for brushing a referee but not for tripping or stomping.

A key reason that Mr Unnamed-highly-placed-official is so stupid is that in 1982 the NSWRL stole the greater Canberra region from Aussie Rules. In the 1950s Prime Minister Menzies forced the Government departments – until that point based in Melbourne – to relocate to Canberra. The staff brought with them their love for Aussie Rules and it became the dominant code in Canberra.

However, in the early 1980s the NSWRL brought the Raiders in and not long after they were in a grand final. Not long after that they won the premiership. All of a sudden Canberra was considered a rugby league town. Something that just a decade earlier would have been a ridiculous proposition. What a coup for the NSWRL.

They were expanding and the game was bigger than ever.

The Raiders glory days ended with the help of the Super League war and some short-sighted and poor management and getting the powers that be at the NRL to provide any support to the Raiders has been a forlorn hope.

And now we have some unnamed highly placed official up at NRL HQ who thinks it would be desirable to abandon the rugby league occupation of South Eastern NSW and the ACT.

Because its ‘easier.’

Let me assure you that the AFL will most gladly take Canberra and district back. They are waiting to pounce. Last weekend a record AFL crowd of 14,974 turned up at Manuka Oval to watch Greater Western Sydney pound the Richmond Tigers into the turf.

The AFL is very interested in expansion. In fact, they are dedicated to it. GWS played their first game in 2012 and the AFL have poured money and resources into making them competitive. Even though it was hard. They’ve identified a market – albeit a traditional rugby league area – and they are doing what it takes to get their piece of it.

Just five seasons later GWS are sitting in second spot on the ladder at the business end of the season and the crowds are growing.

GWS and the Swans would just love the ACT and surrounding region to revert to being the fertile Aussie Rules nursery it was pre the late 1980s. If the navel gazing luddites at NRL HQ have their way that’s exactly what will happen.

The AFL management isn’t concerned whether expansion and consolidation is hard. It is their job and they get on and do it. And they are leaving the NRL in the dust.

Let’s look at some cold, hard numbers that demonstrate just how much more successful an organisation the AFL is when compared to the NRL.

Firstly, let’s look at the relative populations of their traditional heartlands.

As you can see, the traditional rugby league states have close to two million more people. However, as the following figures show, the NRL has totally failed to take advantage of that:

So what do these figures tell us?

1. The AFL is a bigger competition that offers broadcasters one extra game over the NRL each week.
2. The AFL has four teams based in the NRL’s heartlands while the NRL just has the Melbourne Storm.
3. The AFL provides an extra free-to-air match each week for the punters to be able to see their teams play (they also manage to distribute the free-to-air games equally among all 18 teams).
4. In 2015 over four million more people went to watch live AFL games than went to NRL games.
5. The average AFL crowd per game was nearly 20,000 more than the NRL.
6. The AFL’s biggest attended match eclipsed the NRL’s by 7,000 punters in 2015 – and the NRL’s most attended match was at the MCG.
7. The AFL’s broadcast deal is $58 million dollars a year larger than the NRLs. It is a good bet that amount would be significantly bigger if the top rating State of Origin matches were removed from the equation.

To sum up, the AFL is totally schooling the boys down at NRL HQ in how to run a professional, expansive sporting code.

At this rate the A-League will overtake the NRL as the second most supported code within a decade.

Here’s the most damning stat for the NRL: The AFL has as many teams in Brisbane as the National Rugby League does…

This gulf in management ability is brought home all the more by the fact that there are people at NRL HQ who would happily spurn the Canberra Raiders and their territory.

Because it’s too hard…

And if the Raiders are too hard you can bet that philosophy also applies to the other regional and remote teams in the Knights, the Cowboys and the Storm.

“Hang on!” I hear you say. “The Cowboys and the Storm are in the top four, what’s hard about that?”

Well, the Raiders were in the top four when they had Laurie Daley and Ricky Stuart. And the Knights were also in the top four when they had Andrew Johns. Once those players went those teams stopped being easy and became hard.

NRL HQ doesn’t like hard. They like easy.

What happens to the Storm and the Cowboys when Cam Smith and Johnathan Thurston retire and their teams stop being easy?

And you’ve also got to question just what the NRL has found so hard about the Raiders. They’ve done nothing whatsoever to assist them. They’ve given no assistance for them to retain their juniors (so the Raiders changed focus to purchasing players). They’ve done nothing to get more Raiders games on Free to air so that the local people will get exposed to the side and that in turn will help build crowds. They’ve done nothing whatsoever. What exactly have they found so hard? Having to deal with those pesky Canberrans drawing attention to the NRL’s dereliction of duty?

Personally I want to see the game consolidated, developed and expanded and I’ve got no time or tolerance for anyone involved with the running of our game that thinks that all sounds a little too much like hard work.

In fact I’d happily [expletive] them off tomorrow if I could.